Why Should We Continue to Talk About 9/11/01?

Today I talked to my Language Arts students a little bit about why I discuss September 11, 2001 every year with all of my classes. I am not a history teacher by any means (although I get to play one this year! lol), but the significance of this day is not lost on me or anyone else in America. As the years go by and the younger generations become older....it is more and more apparent to me that we need to continue to discuss this in our classrooms and with our children. Today I told my students that I like to discuss it with them because the world on September 10, 2001 and the world on September 11, 2001 at 8:46 am..... is a completely different world. One of my students then proceeded to ask me, "It is?" That caused me to stop for a few moments....with those two simple words I feel that the importance of continuing to talk about what happened on that day 12 years ago is apparent.
We always talk about learning history because if you don't know history we are doomed to repeat it. I think there is something more to it than that. I think that the importance of learning history is to understand and appreciate the world that you are a part of today. The things that happened just yesterday are shaping the world we will wake up in tomorrow. This event effects so much and has shaped the country with live in more than I can wrap my own head around. I truly believe that it is so important to the younger generations to understand and to learn.
There is not  a better way to learn about history then from the people that lived it, and we ALL lived that day. Each and everyone of us has our own story and how it effected us. They can learn from US. There are not many historical events that can be taught by so many primary sources. Not only can we all share our stories, but there are so many videos, so many new stories, so many things that our children has access too to learn about and to help them to understand. I cannot think of any other historical event that has been more documented then the attacks on September 11, 2001. It is so easy to go and watch the breaking news reports from that day.
This is not to say that I think that this is more important than say WWII, Pearl Harbor, Vietnam, Korea, but this was the first and only time that we were attacked on our own soil while we were not engaged in a war. Military was not the target here...it was US it was the civilians. We were the targets and we were the tools. All of the other major historical events that we discuss in history are wrapped around war and our military. This does not fall into that category. This was different. This opened our eyes to the idea that we are all vulnerable and we are not necessarily all safe. That was an ignorant thing to believe.
We need to continue to remember, now because it is time to teach the younger generations.... to show them what hatred can do, to show them what a truly united nation looked like, to show them what kindness is, to show them what strength is, to show them what self sacrifice looks like, to show them fear, to show them that no matter what.....there is always recovery and there is always a way to overcome.
There is so much to be learned from the events that occurred on that Tuesday 12 years ago. I it is something that I will always teach in my classroom and as the generations get younger and younger.... I will make sure that my lessons evolve to support them. I will always light my candle...and one day when I have children of my own...we will talk about it and light the candle together....because We Won't Forget.

September 11, 2001-Ten Years

I am having a hard time starting this particular entry. It has been ten years since the single greatest tragedy our nation has ever seen and I felt compelled to reflect, but I am at a loss on how to start. There is not a single day that goes by that I do not think about the events of September 11, 2001. The numbers 9-11 are no longer just numbers, but a constant reminder. I cannot look at the time when the clock reads 9:11am/pm, or even talk about my final class period of the day without a slight hesitation. Ten years passing has not made that any easier.

It is a difficult day for me. It is a day that I still strive to understand. I struggle to wrap my mind around the shear magnitude of those whose lives were forever altered in a single second. Not only those who lost their lives, and their family members who miss them everyday, but even those people who where able to evacuate the buildings or those who missed their flights that morning. Each one of those lives will never be the same. They all carry that day with them as they live out their daily lives. I wish that I could reach out to each one of them.... I wish that I could let them know that I share in their pain.... I wish that I could take some of that burden and that sorrow from them....nobody should have to feel such pain.....I wish that I could help them.....

I think that is what bothers me the most. All of the 3,000 or so people that past away that day had family and friends that cared about them. They had people that relayed on them. They had people that loved them. They had children who looked forward to playing catch with their dads and shopping with their moms. Those children had their lives flipped upside down because of hate. That is a pain that can never be erased with time. 

They say that time heals all wounds. I don't know if I believe that to be entirely true. Time has allowed people to come to terms with what happened. It has allowed people to understand the why and to begin to move on with their lives and adjust to a new way of life. There will always be that memory. It will always replay in the mind. The wound may have closed, but there will forever be that scar. 

I have taken from 9/11/01 the importance of living each day to the fullest extent, telling the people around you that you care and love them everyday, not taking anything for granted, and to not waste time being sad. Anything can happen. Those people have given me that gift, and I will honor them each day by doing just that. They brought together our nation in a way that I never thought possible, and I am so thankful that I was able to be a part of that unity.

The first 16 years of my life were lived in a different world than the last ten years of my life. It pains me to think that my little niece and nephews will never know the world as I did. Terrorism was not in my vocabulary and War was just something you learned about in a text book. Nobody thought twice about getting on a plane, and I had no idea that we even had a color coded terror alert system. It is amazing what a split second can do. 

I do not dwell in the sadness and I do not think that we should take the day as one of mourning. I believe that it should forever be a day of true remembrance. We should take those moments of silence, we should listen to their names, we should remember the events, and we should reflect on how they have changed our nation and ourselves. Talking about it and remembering does not mean that we are stuck in the past, and not talking about it and remembering it will not change the fact that it happened and that it will forever be painful. We should never stop remembering and honoring. I think that it is important to educate the younger generations and allow them to be a part of the day and to teach them those precious life lessons that those who lost their lives left us with. 

I will take each September 11, for as long as I live, and I will reflect. I will shed a tear.  I will stand proud as an American. I will pray for those families. I will light my candle in my window, and I will never forget.