9/11 is history for Northwest Arkansas students

Educators face the challenge of teaching about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to students who can't remember the event, even if it's fresh in many people's memories.

"No high school student was alive during 9/11 at this point, and so it's not a memory for them -- it's history," said Julie Griggs, Bentonville High School English teacher.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, 19 terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes, according to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum website. They intentionally flew two of the planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, and a third into the Pentagon in Arlington, Va.

Passengers and crew members of the fourth hijacked plane initiated a counterattack, causing the hijacker to crash the plane into a field in Pennsylvania, according to the website.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed that day, the single largest loss of life resulting from a foreign attack on American soil.

"It's hard to connect and grasp the terror that struck the country, because I wasn't alive for it and I didn't experience it firsthand," said Kate Karpinski, 17, Bentonville High's all-student body president.

Teaching of 9/11 isn't required in Arkansas but is often addressed as part of state-required education for Constitution Day on Sept. 17 and Celebrate Freedom Week during the last week of September, said Steven Weber, Fayetteville School District's teaching and learning associate superintendent. Instruction on 9/11 can easily be worked into social studies, English and even art class projects, Weber said.

Act 682 of 2003 formalized Celebrate Freedom Week for the state, according to the Arkansas Department of Education.

"That particular act speaks to discussing with students sacrifices that we have made for our country, and certainly 9/11 fits into that umbrella very well," said Sarah DeWitt, Bentonville social studies instructional specialist. "It's pretty hard to not include it."

"There is such a fervent desire to teach students about it, to memorialize what happened and to truly honor the victims," DeWitt said. "I see that in just the solidness of the way teachers discuss it and their desire to get it right."

Getting it right

Several area schools didn't wait until Constitution Day or Celebrate Freedom Week to discuss 9/11, administrators said.

Social studies standards are taught chronologically, DeWitt said, noting many students won't discuss the hard and often disquieting elements of 9/11 until high school.

"We're not trying to create shock value, we're trying to talk about what happened and what can we do differently now," she said.

Bentonville High is serving as the state's first ambassador school for the Freedom Flag Foundation and used the opportunity Tuesday to educate students on 9/11, said Lyndsey Randall, a Bentonville High social studies teacher.

The Virginia-based foundation formed as a nonprofit group in 2002, said John Riley, foundation president. The foundation is trying to make the freedom flag a national symbol of 9/11 and has been working since 2019 to create 9/11 educational experiences for schools, fire departments and civic organizations, he said.

The freedom flag tells the story of 9/11 through symbols that include two broad, red stripes to represent the Twin Towers, five white bars to denote the Pentagon and three white stripes to honor first responders, according to the foundation's website.

The foundation provides schools with some educational materials, including a freedom flag to display at the school permanently and a loaned piece of steel from the World Trade Center, Riley said.

"The flag teaches 9/11, but when we put a piece of steel in someone's hands, they can actually touch 9/11," he said.

A freedom flag and the steel are featured in a display in the school's commons area where students eat lunch, Randall said. The school held a memorial ceremony Tuesday to post the freedom flag below the national colors in front of the high school.

About 150 of the school's social studies students attended the ceremony, said Jack Loyd, principal. The ceremony included patriotic music by the school's wind ensemble, posting of the freedom flag by the school's developing Junior ROTC program, as well as speakers 3rd District Rep. Steve Womack, R-Rogers; U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Rogers; Superintendent Debbie Jones; and Alyson Low, whose sister, Sara Low, was a flight attendant who died in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

Alyson Low taught at Bentonville's Washington Junior High School from 1999-2007, she said.

"I hope my sister's story can open your eyes and heart," Low told students at the ceremony.

The foundation is working with freedom flag ambassador organizations in 10 states, Riley said.

'Extremely powerful' lessons

Nicholas O'Keefe, government and U.S. history teacher at the Springdale School District's Tyson School of Innovation, said he introduced his high school students to 9/11 Thursday and Friday through an interactive timeline, class discussions, presentations and videos.

"Heavy topics like 9/11, the Holocaust and others are always very serious lessons in my classroom," O'Keefe said. "I believe that as history teachers, we have a great responsibility to teach the truth about these events, even if that truth is uncomfortable to learn about."

O'Keefe said he set a timer on his phone to mark the succession of the attacks for students while teaching.

"It's extremely powerful," he said. "The alarms interrupt our discussions and presentations on that day to mirror the complete upheaval of daily life that happened."

All Rogers School District schools participated in a moment of silence and in reading a passage about 9/11 on Friday in conjunction with the Pledge of Allegiance, said Jim Davis, district secondary assistant superintendent.

"We talk about the unity that came after the attacks and remember those that lost their lives," Davis said. "We end the announcement with an open invitation for staff to speak to their individual classes about what they recall of the day, where they were and the unity that followed."

Fort Smith elementary educators incorporate kid-friendly books or other activities that acknowledge the events of 9/11 in a way that's both educational and appropriate for those grade levels, said Christina Williams, district public information coordinator. School leaders and teachers at the secondary level facilitate classroom discussions, answer questions, show video clips, review timelines and provide resources to educate older students on the attacks.

Bentonville High School staff and students closed out the school week Friday with a stair climb at Tiger Stadium to honor the firefighters who served and died on 9/11, said Griggs, an English teacher at the school. As many as 110 people participated in the climbs, she said.

Participants received the name and photo of a firefighter who died during the 9/11 attacks to hold as they walked the equivalent of the World Trade Center's 110 stories individually or in teams, Griggs said. Stair climbers had to complete about 41 climbs of the stadium's bleachers to equal the 2,200 steps of the World Trade Center.

"As an English teacher, I'm always looking for that way to connect them with stories, and experiences like this, to create that connection," Griggs said. "It also creates a sense of community, and the more we foster a sense of community, the more we can enrich our learning as well."

The covid-19 pandemic has limited 9/11-related educational activities for Fayetteville, Weber said, adding it's not uncommon for district schools to offer educational assemblies and to bring in guest speakers to discuss the attacks during traditional school years.

Influencing lives

Students have to understand American history to comprehend where the country has been and where they personally are going in the future, Weber said.

"Whether they're leaders or not, our future citizens are in our classrooms every day, and they have to have an understanding of when America was attacked," he said.

Educating students on 9/11 remains relevant today, as it's helped shape the world in which students live, Griggs said.

"We're still seeing the implications of it today," she said, noting its relevance in current events. "We just left Afghanistan. That's in the news."

Karpinski said she learned just how many lives were touched by the 9/11 attacks through her experiences with the freedom flag ceremony, at which she led the Pledge of Allegiance and read the details of the flag's elements.

"It's just crazy to believe that it really touched every aspect of this country," she said.

She said the experience will shape how she views 9/11 in the future.

"I'll definitely be more aware," Karpinski said. "I'll be more grateful for the freedom that we experience."