“Never forget” is a phrase that has become ubiquitous about the Sept. 11 terror attacks. It’s all over social media and will be uttered hundreds of times across New York during commemoration events on this 25th anniversary.
Of course, for those of us who lived through that horror, forgetting is impossible.
We are now a full generation removed from that historic day that changed our world forever.
How do young people who weren’t alive on 9/11 “never forget” something they don’t have a memory of?
In the days leading up to the 25th anniversary, I spoke to a few young people about their perception and understanding of 9/11. I found mixed results.
That’s not surprising since New York state school districts aren’t required to teach students about the attacks.
I asked my own son how he learned about 9/11 and he said most of what he knows he learned from my wife and me.
Why we must teach our kids to 'Never Forget' Sept. 11
Assembly Bill A07919, known as Firefighter Joseph P. Spor Jr.'s Law, would direct the state education commissioner to establish a formal Sept. 11 awareness curriculum for public schools and post supporting materials online for every district to use. Lawmakers should pass it, and quickly.
Republican Assemblyman Matt Slater from Yorktown proposed the legislation.
In New York, public school districts determine their own curriculum and Slater’s legislation does not require schools to use the state’s materials and resources.
We have a responsibility to those who were killed as well as those who responded that Tuesday.
Slater said we also have an obligation to our kids to pass along the grim lessons that 9/11 offers.
“They deserve to know who attacked us and why and they deserve to know the incredible, the immense displays of courage and of sacrifice that our first responders showed that day,” Slater said in a social media video.
Slater said that only two states in the country, Florida and Arizona have a 9/11 curriculum.
“Twenty-five years later, ‘Never Forget’ must be more than a phrase,” Slater said on his web site. “It must be a promise we keep by honoring the past, educating the future and ensuring the courage and sacrifice of Sept. 11 are remembered for generations to come.”
I spoke to a friend who is a Westchester high school teacher about how he and his colleagues address the attacks. He told me that he would talk about how he experienced it. He has a close family member who developed 9/11-related cancer.
I asked him if his school has a curriculum or guidance from the administration on how to teach about 9/11. He said there wasn’t clear guidance but that social studies teachers do address the attacks in preparation for New York State Regents exams. He showed me some old regents’ and they did have a couple of questions that were tangentially about 9/11 but only as it pertains to the passage and implementation of the Patriot Act.
Without a deliberate curriculum, what a New York teenager learns about that day depends entirely on the initiative of an individual teacher, a family conversation or whatever fragments surface on social media. That's an unacceptable way to hand down the defining tragedy of a generation.
Memory doesn't sustain itself. It must be taught, generation after generation, or it fades into a date on a calendar that nobody can quite explain. New York's students deserve better than a fading memory of the day that changed their state and their country. The Legislature should pass A07919 and give the next generation the education their state owes them.
Matt Richter, a veteran Hudson Valley journalist, is local news and regional opinion manager for lohud.com and The Journal News.
Email: mrichter@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Every child in NY must be taught about the 9/11 attacks | Opinion
