Teaching 9/11: How teachers’ experiences inform lessons on a historic tragedy 25 years later

Walt Gola and Samantha Kochanski were both in the classroom that fateful Tuesday morning when terrorists flew planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City 25 years ago.

Gola was teaching social studies on Sept. 11, 2001, and Kochanski was in third grade, both in Elgin Area School District U-46. Their experiences that day helped shape their future careers as history teachers at South Elgin High School.

“I remember when the first plane hit,” said Gola, 49, who teaches civics and Advanced Placement U.S. government and politics.

Many classrooms had live feeds on small, grainy television sets so students and staff members witnessed the horrors of the attacks and aftermath in real time, he said.

“There’s not many days in our lives where you wake up and you’re like, ‘This is going to be in history books,’ and you see it all kind of unfold before your eyes,” Gola said. “You can talk about foreign policy and the impact of everything, but the one thing that you really can’t teach kids is the emotions that we all had that day, just the fear, the anxiety, the profound sadness of all of it.”

A fellow teacher was frantically trying to get hold of his brother, an officer at the Pentagon in Virginia, which terrorists hit with a third hijacked plane.

“At the same time, you’re trying to keep your composure in front of the kids and explain things as best as you can and still keep them calm,” Gola said. “It was emotionally jarring … for a lot of teachers that day.”

Gola remembers going home to his wife and breaking down in tears.

“The first 10 years after 9/11, teaching it … there are times where you talk about it in front of the kids and you start choking up,” Gola said. “Twenty-five years later, … it’s natural that some of that has dissipated. But, the fact that these kids weren’t alive when that happened, you try and convey … the story. The story is one of profound evil, but also … it’s a great example of what humanity is capable of.”

The emotional toll

Kochanski says she was too young to comprehend the gravity of the situation and how the attacks would influence her generation, but remembers the events that followed.

“I remember that teachers were crying. We were sent home early,” said Kochanski, 33, who now teaches AP U.S. history.

Parents and neighbors were glued to television sets, she said, watching the 24-hour cable news cycle and video footage of the towers crumbling to dust on a loop.

“As a third grader, I didn’t truly understand what was happening, but what I was able to understand was that feeling,” she said. “The air was kind of heavy, and I carry that feeling with me now as a U.S. history teacher. In U.S. history, the goal is I try to have students develop a sense of empathy. For most of them, this is just another event in their history books.”

Recalling the passion with which her teachers at South Elgin High School told stories of that day, Kochanski said, “I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher.”

“There's just something so special about being able to retell these stories and pass on that same passion that we have to our students,” she said.

Today, her students have access to a plethora of media sources that provide a “holistic view of what happened” from diverse perspectives, she said.

Students can analyze a trove of photographs and media broadcasts from the era, and listen to the 911 dispatches or voicemails left by many of the nearly 3,000 victims who perished on the planes, the towers and the Pentagon.

“I try to bring in a variety of different sources … to help transport them back to that day, so that they are able to develop that sense of empathy and understand what happened and why it is something that we still continue to talk about today,” Kochanski said.

Shaping foreign policy

Gola says the Sept. 11 attacks cast a dark cloud on U.S. foreign policy for the last 25 years that still overshadows today’s geopolitical climate, including the current conflicts in the Middle East.

“That day is one of the days in history that history hinges on,” Gola said. “Like the Pearl Harbor attack … the world shifted after that. And I think it’s fair to say the world shifted after 9/11 and we're still reeling from that event.”

Students’ understanding of the political and societal ramifications of the attacks has matured in the decades since with greater exposure to information, and teachers have also adapted how they frame that moment in history in light of current events and conflicts, the duo said.

“We are constantly evolving the way that we teach, and we're just trying to meet students where they are,” Kochanski said.

mkrishnamurthy@dailyherald.com