WASHINGTON — Most high school students do not remember the September 11 terror attacks, and they happened before almost every elementary and middle school student was born.
To help these students understand the impact the attacks have had on American culture and society, Frederick County (Maryland) Public Schools are introducing a new class focusing on the history of Sept. 11.
“We’ll be offering it in a couple of our high schools,” schools spokesman Michael Dorrer told WTOP.
It will be an elective that high school students can choose to take beginning next school year.
“The course is not only going to focus on the events of the Sept. 11 attacks themselves, but the historical and social-political context.”
It will look at the events that happened before and after the attacks through the lens of the day itself to help show how the events altered American life.
The attacks had a major impact on Americans, whether it was through personal loss or through changes made to prevent another attack of its kind.
“It’s hard for us who lived through 9/11 and witnessed the events firsthand to have that perspective, but a lot of our young people coming into high school today don’t remember the events.”
Since many students don’t remember the attacks, many more don’t remember what life was like before the attacks happened.
“So this course is meant to provide that additional context, that background, that education on what 9/11 meant to us as a country,” Dorrer says.
Curriculum specialists are still putting the course together, with the goal of offering students enhanced content to help them have explore more than just basic class topics.
“We’re excited to be able to offer it,” Dorrer says.
“We’re excited, always, to be able to offer the extras to our students and this is just one example of it.”
