Some Northwest Arkansas teachers tackle 9/11 in class

Luke Williams acknowledged it was hard for him to comprehend the magnitude of events on Sept. 11, 2001.

"I mean, I wasn't there to witness it, so I didn't really think much about it," said Luke, 13, an eighth-grader at Lingle Middle School in Rogers.

The images and videos he saw Thursday in Aerial Guffey's pre-Advanced Placement American history class, however, moved him.

"Just seeing what happened is -- it's hard to imagine that," he said.

A whole generation either hadn't been born at the time or are too young to recall the horror of those events. Conveying to today's students the significance of 9/11 can be a challenge, Guffey said.

"I had a kid last period who said, 'What does it matter? It was 15 years ago,'" she said. "You've got to try to bring it to them from a different perspective to show them how it affects them today."

She had students in her class last week compare 9/11 to the attack on Pearl Harbor. They examined pictures, posters, political cartoons, music, memorials and the speeches made by U.S. Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and George W. Bush in the wake of each event.

Guffey told her students her perspective on Pearl Harbor is similar to how they view 9/11.

"I get it," she told her students. Pearl Harbor "happened, I wasn't there. I can respect it, it's sad, but 9/11 for me meant more because I was there. I saw it with my own eyes, sitting in class, just like you guys are sitting in class now."

Guffey, who was a ninth-grader in North Little Rock 15 years ago, is not obligated to teach 9/11 as part of her curriculum, but said she feels the historical significance is on par with Pearl Harbor.

Dustin Dean, a sixth-grade social studies teacher at Gravette Middle School, said 9/11 is a sensitive subject to discuss in class, but he takes a direct approach.

"It has come to the point where none of my students were even born when the event occurred, but I find it no less important to discuss the topic, the lives lost, and the people that would step up to help others," Dean said.

Dean explains to students what he was doing that day and how his feelings developed throughout the day. He also shows footage of the event.

"I listen to their reactions and answer questions to the very best of my ability. I certainly want the students to be inquisitive, but I find that sometimes answers for 9/11 are hard to put into words. My class is 45 minutes, and we generally use all that time with questions and discussions," he said.

Dawn Patafie also chooses to discuss 9/11 with her students, a much younger audience than Guffey's or Dean's. She's a third-grade teacher at Bentonville's Sugar Creek Elementary School.

The anniversary has special meaning to her because she was raised on Long Island, N.Y. She was in college in upstate New York at the time. She also taught for a while in New York City.

Patafie led her students last week in making a list of the people they thought were most impacted by 9/11. Their list included firefighters, builders and those who were in the affected buildings during the attacks.

On Friday, she read them "Fourteen Cows for America," the story of some Kenyan villagers whose gift to America was meant to help the country heal.

"Do you think people not even in our country could be impacted by 9/11?" Patafie asked students. After a brief discussion among themselves, her students came to a consensus: yes.

"It affected so many people," Patafie told her students. "It's hard to pinpoint who is impacted the most."

Do her students comprehend the impact of 9/11? Not fully, she said. At least one of her students had absolutely no familiarity with it.

She isn't aware of any other elementary teachers who cover the topic, at least in her school.

"I was starting to shy away from doing it, because I didn't feel like anyone else was doing it," Patafie said.

Cindy Dewey, principal of Bentonville's Willowbrook Elementary School, said no one at her school teaches 9/11.

"They do honor our vets and police officers in various ways throughout the year, but do not teach about the specifics of 9/11," Dewey wrote in an email. "I believe that may be part of the curriculum for older grade levels."

Whitney Shaddock is taking this year off from teaching, but she has taught first grade for 10 years, including nine years in Springdale. She most recently taught at Bentonville's Elm Tree Elementary School.

Shaddock has developed a lesson plan around 9/11 that starts with what it means to be a good citizen. Her students also make little American flags.

She reads to her students The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, the true story about Philippe Petit, who walked a tightrope between the World Trade Center towers in 1974. Shaddock talks about a trip she took to New York City. She shows a slideshow of some photographs of the twin towers, both before and after the planes hit them.

She also shows a photograph of New York City firefighters raising a U.S. flag at Ground Zero. She emphasizes things like that, the positives that came from 9/11.

The kids usually ask a lot of questions.

"I try to just tell the truth. There's a way to do that without being gruesome," she said.

A student occasionally will see a picture of the smoking towers and say it looks "cool." Shaddock is quick to explain to that student the gravity of what happened.

"The boys kind of think it's cool because they think war and fighting is cool. But other than that, kids are pretty accepting," she said. "They don't hold onto things like adults do. I've had different tragedies happen in school and I thought, this is going to be horrible. But the kids are so resilient. They bounce back from things like that."

Shaddock said she notifies parents in advance that she'll be talking about 9/11 with their children. She's never heard a complaint from parents.

"I get emails back from parents saying, 'Thank you for teaching history to our kids,'" she said.

The 9/11 attacks had a big impact on Shaddock, she said. She was a senior at Springdale High School at the time. She remembers someone running down the hall to alert others what was happening.

"We pretty much watched it the rest of the day," she said.

NW News on 09/11/2016