Local middle and high school students continue to learn lessons
about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and while those lessons have
changed over the last four years, San Benito County teachers and
administrators believe they are still pertinent today.
Hollister – Local middle and high school students continue to learn lessons about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and while those lessons have changed over the last four years, San Benito County teachers and administrators believe they are still pertinent today.
In past years, many districts throughout the county, and the country, have held special school-wide assemblies to commemorate the occasion, but now, four years later, students seem focused on a more recent national tragedy, the devastation of the Gulf Coast region by Hurricane Katrina, officials from several districts said. Although none of the school’s in the county’s three largest school districts have ceremonies planned for Monday, Sept. 12, teachers and officials say the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks will still be remembered.
“We need to move on and be aware of the recent days and times,” San Benito High School District Superintendent Jean Burns Slater said. “We need to focus on the future, taking the lessons we have learned from Sept. 11 with us and honoring the heroes of that day.”
The events and heroes of Sept. 11 will be remembered Monday in history, and other, classrooms throughout the school, but the lessons of that fateful day have changed, Slater said.
“At first we we’re looking at people with suspicion,” she said. “But, now, we are looking beyond ethnic groups and stereotypes, we’re looking at individuals.”
SBHS journalism and technical writing teacher Adam Breen has not planned any specific Sept. 11 related discussions for his classes next week, but said the events and lessons are still meaningful today.
“It’s not something students, at least in my classes, have been buzzing about, but there is definitely relevance,” Breen said. “Especially in terms of the way media respond to catastrophes.”
Like other districts, no formal assemblies have been planned at Anzar High School, science teacher Lynne Ellison said.
“For a lot of kids Sept. 11 is history,” Ellison said. “But at this school we are very serious about tolerance.”
In addition to learning about tolerance from the events of Sept. 11, Anzar students take a field trip to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles before graduating, Ellison said.
Even though the terrorist attacks are less memorable for middle and elementary school students than high school students, Sept. 11 will be a topic of discussion Monday, said Hollister School District Interim Superintendent Ron Crates.
“I’m positive it will be discussed,” he said. “I would hope (Sept. 11) would teach us about just the facts, but also about tolerance.”
In school districts throughout the state, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks will be a topic of conversation on Monday, despite the fact that it is not specifically included in state curriculum standards, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said Friday.
“It’s a piece of United States – and world – history and it should be remembered,” O’Connell said. “It’s more relevant on Sept. 11, there is an added significance, but there are lessons to be learned from Sept. 11 year round.”
Brett Rowland covers education for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or [email protected].
