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RANDOLPH – Brian Rainville was sitting in the back of a history class at Randolph Union High School 20 years ago when the class learned something was going on in New York City. The other teacher in the class plugged in a TV. A few minutes later, they watched in real time a second plane hit the World Trade Center.
“None of my training prepared me for this time,” said Rainville, who teaches American history and drama in high school. “At these times, my students needed to know they were safe because we didn’t really know what was going on. My big job that day was to listen and let them assimilate what they had seen and the anxiety, fear, uncertainty and anger because we knew the nation had changed during these horrific a few minutes.
The educators who were in the classroom on September 11, 2001 tried to control their emotions and help the students understand the events even though they had very little information themselves.
Jennifer Haines, now an English teacher at Richmond Middle School in Hanover, was in her third year of teaching at a high school in Allentown, Pa. On September 11. She and another educator saw the second plane hit the tower, and about 10 minutes later, she must have walked past her students.
“I didn’t do anything with the content. We were just watching the news, ”Haines said. “Now in hindsight it was an irresponsible decision, but back then you are so caught up in what’s going on. “
Soon the principal came over the loudspeaker to tell all the teachers to turn off their televisions and try to stick to the schedule for the day. Students intermittently left the classroom to try to call parents in New York City.
“We were all totally scared,” Haines said. “The next day, that’s when you saw the flags go out and everyone come together. It was an attack on American soil and we will remain united in the country.
Before Jen Ellis attended the Upper Valley Educators Institute in the early 2000s, she was in her sophomore year at a high school in North Carolina as a member of Teach for America, a nonprofit that places young teachers. in underserved areas across the United States. / 11, Ellis reunited with her students in another teacher’s class, where there was a television with a rabbit-ear antenna. They saw the second plane crash into the World Trade Center.
“I was 23 and I was supposed to be the responsible adult, but actually I was also like a kid standing at the back of the classroom crying because I knew it was really serious and that it was really scary, ”said Ellis, who now teaches second grade at Westford Elementary School in Vermont.
She knew it was her job to help her students understand what they were seeing, but it was a struggle.
“At the time, I really didn’t have the skills to do it. I was very, very young and I was trying to figure it out as I went along, ”she said. “Now yes. Now when great things happen, I understand that part of my role as a teacher is to help children create a story that they can live with that is rooted in truth and facts.
Elijah Hawkes, who until last year was Principal of Randolph Union High School and is now Director of School Leadership Programs and Faculty of Programs at UVEI, taught at a small New York City public school on September 11th. His first idea that something was wrong was when a student arrived late for class, mentioning something about a plane hitting the World Trade Center.
“I was like, ‘Oh, she’s confused about what’s going on. I’m glad she’s here in class; let’s continue, ”recalls Hawkes. “This was before everyone or most people had smartphones. The news did not flow into our pockets the same way it does these days.
Soon all the students gathered in a large classroom. The instructors worked to connect them with their families. No student was allowed to leave that day unless they were with a family member.
“We took care of each other quite carefully, so there was good attention to the social and emotional well-being of the faculty and students,” said Hawkes, who was in his late twenties at the time and in his freshman year teaching in the US “I just remember coming home 100 blocks away and the avenues were empty. My strongest impression is the silence of the city afterwards.
In the years that followed, teachers had to figure out when – and how – to include 9/11 in their lesson plans. They have now been teaching students for years who have no collective memory of terrorist attacks.
Rainville waited for the students to discuss 9/11 themselves before presenting it to the class. Once they do, he stops his other lessons to focus on the students’ questions. He does not show the video of the second plane hitting the tower.
“I let my students know it’s there and I could put a link in the Google class, but I want them to really have control over what they see,” Rainville said. “I really struggle and still struggle to teach 9/11. … It’s a very stimulating job, and September 11th for me is like tackling issues of slavery and injustice. You need to be very sensitive to who is in the room and the range of experiences they have had and their family has had.
In 2014, he attended a weeklong seminar for educators hosted by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History at the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City. There, he learned more about how the buildings fell and heard from survivors, first responders and family members of those who died. He also witnessed the tasks of the volunteers, who placed white roses near engraved names to mark important events in a victim’s life such as birthdays and anniversaries.
“This seminar has given me an immediacy and an incredible range of information that I then have to discuss these events with my students,” Rainville said. He once took some students to see the play Come from afar in New York, which focuses on a group of people stranded in a small town in Newfoundland, Canada, on September 11 after planes were grounded. “It’s a narrative that focuses on compassion, hope, service, and these are important times to consider as a historian and professor of history because you get these incredible moments where humanity stands. get up to do more than the right thing. “
Haines taught in Pennsylvania until 2005 before moving to New Hampshire. In the years following September 11, she marked the day with a minute of silence with her students. In 2011, she heard about a short documentary titled Boat lift, which focuses on the boat captains who helped rescue nearly half a million people stranded in Lower Manhattan on September 11.
“We’re going to watch the video and talk about resilience,” Haines said. “It’s the idea that we haven’t lost our humanity. It seems that a lot of people were willing to put themselves in danger to help others. “
Ellis recalled watching the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion that killed all of the astronauts on board in her classroom as a second grader before her teacher quickly turned off the television. Teaching about 9/11 has helped her prepare to teach students through other difficult events like the Sandy Hook school shooting, the murder of George Floyd and the current COVID-19 pandemic.
“Over the years, I moved on to teaching in elementary school and taught children very quickly who didn’t know what 9/11 was, who didn’t know what the day meant. She said. “If we don’t talk about it in school or if we don’t approach it in an age-appropriate way, then history will repeat itself forever.”
A year after September 11, Hawkes resumed teaching abroad. He decided to return to the United States when the first troops were deployed in Iraq.
“I thought living abroad I had to come home and focus on US citizenship,” Hawkes said. “We really need our American youth to grow up to be conscientious citizens of the world.”
In some ways, teaching 9/11 is no different from teaching other events that happened before the students were born, Rainville said. In this context, students can better understand the Civil War, D-Day and the Vietnam conflict.
“History is a study of loss, and American history is a very difficult journey because there are great times and there are events of great injustice of moral failure and massive death,” Rainville said.
When the United States ended its involvement in Afghanistan last month – the war started by 9/11 20 years ago – it felt some of that 9/11 trauma.
“I’ve had some really tough days here, but most things don’t look like that morning in class,” Rainville said. “I think Americans are still very hurt by the events of September 11 and find it difficult to understand not only these events, but where it has led us and why. “
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at [email protected] or 603-727-3221.
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