Schools wonder: How do you teach teens about 9/11?

Eight years later, this is an example of what Sept. 11, 2001, has become for a generation that’s too young to remember much, if anything, about that day: It is an educational DVD, a 167-page textbook, a black binder of class handouts titled “A National Interdisciplinary Curriculum.” In Room C215 at Lincoln High School, images of the collapsing Manhattan skyline are now a classroom “warm-up exercise.” “Militant,” “imploding” and “rubble” are boldfaced vocabulary words for students to memorize. Homework assignments and essay questions ensure that Sept. 11 will indeed be remembered by millions of schoolchildren, if with a new sense of detachment…

He distributed a handout that had come with the curriculum, and the students counted the pages in each packet — “Seven, eight, nine! Seriously?” — and let out a collective groan. The first two pages contained flight-path diagrams for the four planes that crashed on Sept. 11, followed by a 30-year history of U.S. relations with Afghanistan. Hutchison asked the students to form groups of four and create their own Sept. 11 timelines.

“This is going to take us forever,” complained a boy in the back.