Teachers reflect on 9/11 and its legacy
by Dylan Shumba and staff
This year was the 20th anniversary of 9/11. On September 11, 2001, there were a series of four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by members of al-Qaeda. Two planes hit the two towers of the World Trade Center, another plane crashed into the Pentagon, and another plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. The four attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and injured at least 25,000 more.
Judge teachers who were in high school or young adults at the time will never forget that day. Three of our teachers were actually living in the Washington DC and New York City metropolitan areas at the time.
Ms. Strickland and Mr. Barron were students in neighboring New Jersey. Ms. Strickland remembers her psychology teacher having them journal about their thoughts and feelings. “I still have that journal,” Ms. Strickland said. “I thought that was a really neat thing to do to help us process what was happening.”
Dr. Chappell was going to school in Maryland and had friends and family who worked at the Pentagon. Mr. Pacenza was working in Manhattan. Mr. Pantlik was in his first year of college and remembers finding out about the attacks when he went to class. “My professor was sitting there looking at the TV, and she was crying. I sat down and watched the TV. I didn't leave that classroom for about six hours.”
Ms. Scholl had just started working at Judge. “The adults in the building were in shock. We didn't know how to handle that. The kids were traumatized. They were also seeing things on TV and hearing things and watching the adults being traumatized and in shock by the whole thing.”
Although he was on the other side of the country, Mx. Vanderlaan’s parents were soldiers. The science teacher asked if Mx. V needed to call his mom.
The Judge teacher closest to the World Trade Center in New York City was Mr. Pacenza.
“I was working at a magazine in lower Manhattan, and I lived in Brooklyn,” Mr. Pacenza said. “Every morning I would take the subway into Manhattan and then walk a few blocks to the office. That morning I heard a report on the radio that a plane had struck the World Trade Center. But that early report made it sound like it was an accident.
“So I exited at the Bowling Green station just seconds after the second plane hit the other tower. That was one of the more frightening moments because there were people screaming and yelling and running. I was probably about three blocks from the World Trade Center. When the second tower fell, I had a clear vision of it. I saw it come down, and that was awful. That was absolutely awful. You just knew there were all kinds of lives lost.”
All the teachers vividly remember that day, but in the 20 years since that happened, they’ve had a chance to reflect on the significance of that day.
“I had this kind of crystallization of American identity in that moment,” Mx. V said. “I remember that there had been so much discussion just before the election of President George W. Bush about whether or not he was a good president. And in the days after 9/11 his approval rating was one of the highest of any American president in history. People were praising him and his actions. We saw a bipartisan Congress suddenly working together towards this goal of defending people and making sure something like this could never happen again.
But then I also saw the other side of it were very quickly,” Mx. V continued. “There was a vilification of Muslim people there was a vilification of anyone who seemed like they might not be from the United States, and especially from the Middle East. It was interesting to see how quickly two ideas crystallized – national unity, but then also like an ‘us versus them’ mentality.”
As Dr. Chappell looks back on these 20 years, he realizes that his current students weren’t even alive in 2001. But he sees the need to draw the connections between events like 9/11 and the Afghan War. “I think the main takeaway is that the experience of living through 9/11 and witnessing the wars that happened as a result helped to shape my commitment to raising a generation of peaceful people,” Dr. Chappell said.
Ms. Sawaya, who was a young teacher in 2001, believes there are lessons to be learned in every event. Mr. Barron agrees.
“America is more than a place, Mr. Barron said. “America invites every single one of its members to understand exactly what liberty is and how to live it. All of us belong together. And we're learning from each other, we're learning together, and it's something that continues to unfold. I consider myself as a member of that project, who has a responsibility to listen to those around him to gain from their experience and learn how to make that mess together.”
“Here's the good news,” Mr Pacenza said. “Not much has happened since then. And I think that that's really important. There were some things that happened in London and Madrid and Boston in that decade that followed, but we've largely been free of that kind of violence, at least here in the United States. So I'm an optimist. I think the vast majority of people in the world want to treat each other well.
“We need to appreciate that we have hundreds of years of histories that build to these moments,” Mr. Pacenza continued. “I know we want to see the world as kind of good guys and bad guys. But to me, the world is shades of gray. There's nuance. There's complexity. I want to help young people try to understand that context better and appreciate all that ambiguity. And I think that's the best lesson that I could take from that.”
It’s been two decades since these attacks on our nation, but that day continues to impact these teachers’ lives and the way they view the world.
Image credit: New Fears #5 by Chandra Cerrito. Image source: Cerrito, Chandra, Artist. New Fears #5. Dec. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2002710536/>.
