Keeping the Memories of 9/11 Alive

Last year Dominique was in 6th Grade at Sandy Elementary School. I called up her teacher, Mrs. Dixon, and asked if she had anything special planned for 9/11. She mentioned that she hadn't given it too much thought. I told her that I had been in NYC on that day and that if she liked, I would be happy to give an age-appropriate presentation for my daughter's 6th grade class. She thought that was a great idea.

I worked long and hard on a power point that described a timeline of events on that day. The presentation is about an hour, and the point of the lesson is three fold: 1) to inform the kids of the facts of the timeline of events; 2) to encourage the kids to think about all of the heroes of that day; and 3) to encourage the kids to "remember" 9/11 in some way.

Last year, I was amazed at how very smart and curious the kids were. Some knew a lot about 9/11, others new nothing. (Seriously, I had a girl approach me and tell me that she had never even heard of 9/11 until that day...which really made me sad, but she was definitely in the minority). I presented the school with two American flags. One has the names of all of the first responder victims on it. The second flag has all of the names of the civilians who died in on 9/11. Both flags are hanging in the school.

This year, Dominique is out of elementary and has moved on to middle school. I was a bit surprised when her teacher sent me a FB message asking if I would be willing to give the presentation again. I was honored. Thankfully, it worked out so that I could do it. (I'm not always in charge of my own schedule, believe it or not!) I took my same ppt and modified it just a bit. I updated it with some images that I took of the WTC site this past July while I was there, but fundamentally, the presentation was the same. This time I brought Dominique back with me to visit her teacher and view the presentation (her school starts at 9:30 AM on Fridays), and Dean was driving the ppt for me. I also invited Dr. David Doty who is the Superintendent of the Canyons School District. I'm acquainted with Dr. Doty through PTA, FB and Twitter interactions. He was able to make it for a good part of the discussion. He took this picture of me (unbeknownst to me at the time).

You can see from the picture that it is the entire 6th grade...not just one class. These kids were 2 or 3 on September 11, 2001. All that they know about this day, they have been told by others. I was SO impressed with how smart they are, how much they know, how curious they are and how much they were trying to problem solve. Dean and I have been talking about their comments ever since.

There was a group of about 5 or 6 kids who were really, really trying to think of how to "protect" the towers in the event that they were to be re-built. It all started when one kid said that even if the towers were rebuilt that the terrorists would just destroy them again. That started all of the kids thinking about how we could protect and secure the towers if they were to be rebuilt.

Here are some of their suggestions:

• Put a big dome around it
  
• Build it under ground
• Build it in a different city and put a big army around it
• Build the towers in the middle of the Pentagon
• After the we concluded, one boy approached me with an idea....build three towers so that when the terrorists take out two of them, there will be one left standing.
  

What was intriguing to me was that they somehow think or know that the towers are 1) difficult to physically defend and 2) that there is a high probability that the towers would be a target of future terrorist attacks. It didn't occur to them that the towers might be "safe." Part of that might be because I had just described in detail how easily the towers went down. Part of that might be because these kids have grown up hearing about terrorists and war. Regardless, I was so impressed at their ability to think, accept or reject the idea based on its merit and move on to the next idea/solution.
One girl mentioned that we should put a park there (actually, a few kids mentioned that). The park idea was rejected because "If a plane flew into a nearby building, the kids in the park would die." See, I told you they were thinking! Another child asked me about the Freedom Tower (I was impressed that he knew what that is!) Another child asked me about the ship found at Ground Zero.
They told me of family members who had birthdays on 9/11. One told of a sister born 6 days after 9/11 whose mother named the child "September." (That really touched my heart!)

They all thought that "a million" people had died. I tried to clear up that assumption. In my ppt, I have pictures of every single person who died. For the record:

• 343 Firefighters
  
• 23 NYPD Officers
  
• 37 Port Authority Workers
  
• 2819 Civilians
  Each year on 9/11, we have a family remembrance. We go to the Healing Field in Sandy, Utah to observe the flags placed there in honor of those who have died. I think it is so important on this day to teach our children the facts about what happened....to tell our children how it felt on that day. They want to know. They are so curious. They will be the decisions makers of generations that will deal with this world and the unfortunate reality of war and terrorism. I feel strongly that as a parent it is my responsibility to teach them. Our kids have come to expect that we do a family remembrance. They look forward to it each year. I hope that they will teach their kids about this and other issues of historical importance.

I hope we all remember!