English: World Trade Center, New York, aerial view March 2001. Français : Le World Trade Center à New York. Vue aérienne datant de mars 2001. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Every year, I tell my 9/11 story. And every year, less and less students have any real tangible knowledge about it.
When I started teaching almost a decade ago, the World Trade Center bombings were still fresh and raw in our minds. The Iraq war was in full swing. Debate still lingered on which project would win out to replace the Twin Towers. Many of my students had their own harrowing stories to tell.
Today, all of my kids…all of them…were born after 9/11. To them, WTC was history. It was a moment the grown ups remember, perhaps even older siblings. But the kids themselves have no real connection anymore.
So even as I tell my story, it gets harder and harder to talk about with filling in the gaps.
Here is a list of resources you may find helpful. They include lesson plans, curricula and their own links to help teach students about 9/11–especially when it’s not part of their own memory.
The 9/11 Memorial Museum has a very good teaching site. Lots of age-appropriate lessons and resources.
Teaching 9-11 is a project out of Dickinson College that is more of a clearinghouse of 9/11 educational material. Still, it is worth a look, especially for their primary source recordings.
Learning from the Challenges of our Times: global security, terrorism, and 9/11 in the classroom was created for New Jersey public schools in 2011 with the partnership of the Liberty Science Center, the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education, and Families of September 11. This curriculum was designed specifically for young people with no personal recollection of the event.
Scholastic News 9/11 provides another good resource, and it differentiates for younger and older students.
Mr. D's Neighborhood 
This Day in History 10/26: The Opening of the Erie Canal
DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828) Mayor, Governor, founding father of the Erie Canal, and avatar for Mr. D's Neighborhood.
A few folks in the Neighborhood ask occasionally about my avatar. Who is that dignified gentleman sitting next to your URL? It’s far too proper for a blog this profane.
Today we give my avatar its due. The dude in the little square on your browser is DeWitt Clinton, a New York politician described once by Columbia professor Kenneth Jackson as “probably the single most important person to ever live in the city of New York.” His achievements helped shape the modern city: the numbered streets, our school system, the development of public museums and civil services. Yet his greatest opus was a 363-mile ditch–a ditch that changed America forever.
On October 26, 1825, after 8 years of work, the Erie Canal was finally completed. Clinton was the mastermind of the canal, pushing for its construction long before funds were earmarked and work began in 1817. This huge artificial river spanned across New York State, making New York City the funnel through which all the resources–and products–of the middle West could pass through to Europe and beyond. From then on, New York would begin a century and a half of almost unstoppable growth, becoming the biggest city in the United States.
It also changed the state itself. Today 80% of the New York State’s population live along the path of the canal, either along the canal itself or along the Hudson towards New York City. Looking at a map, one can see the accumulation of highways, airports, and metropolitan areas all along this early trade route. It was this ditch, this “insanity” of a project (in Thomas Jefferson’s words) that created the modern state.
Finally, the Erie Canal proved how business and government could work together to create great public works for the good of all. In our partisan politics, our crumbling infrastructure and our increasing resentment of the perceived power of our government, it is important to note this incredible event in history, when Americans could put partisanship aside to do monumental things.
Here’s a Powerpoint unit presentation on The Erie Canal that I designed. It includes essential questions, activities, interesting primary quotes and culminating projects. Feel free to use in your classrooms.
Just make sure you credit the Neighborhood for your fine resources.
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Tagged as American History, Commentary, Curriculum, DeWitt Clinton, Education, Educational leadership, Erie Canal, History, Leadership, New Jersey, New York, New York City, New York History, Newspaper, Opinion, Social studies, St. Bonaventure University, Teachers, Teaching, U.S. History, United States