History teacher Jim Lucot passes out a printed list of every victim of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to each of his students to hold in their hands. On his teacher website, he maintains a page with images of the Falling Man, who jumped out of the World Trade Center during the attacks, and every September he shares stories with his class.

“He was working in a civilian life in a civilian job,” he says. “Somewhere from the time he went to work to the time he left the World Trade Center, he made that decision to jump. How does that happen in America?”

For Lucot, talking about the Falling Man and the many other tragic events of that day is a way to express the magnitude of the attacks to students who were all born after Sept. 11, 2001.

Today, all students in Butler County school districts are likely too young to have been alive on 9/11.

This leaves history and social studies teachers to teach students about a day that students' parents and educators experienced, but which is beyond students' own lived memories.

Building context

Lucot teaches AP Government and Honors U.S. History to 11th and 12th grade students at Seneca Valley School District. He said that he tries to put the events of 9/11 in context and emphasizes that there is no equivalent.

“I think it's important for them to understand that it's not comparable to anything else in American history, especially not Pearl Harbor,” he said. “That was men in uniform attacking men in uniform in a time of war on a military base, and even though we weren't in the war yet, we knew we would be. 9/11 was calculated murder of civilians.”

He says that he tends to teach concepts over dates and memorization, and compare those concepts over historical eras.

“I try to let them come up with the parallels on their own,” he said.

Providing a historical context for the events that followed 9/11 is also a priority for Eric Harsh at Mars Area School District.

Harsh covers World War II to present day U.S. history with 10th grade students. He says that in his class, they talk a lot about the lingering effects of 9/11, and that this year they will especially focus on discussion of Afghanistan and how it became the longest war in U.S. history.

“We discuss Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, all of that kind of stuff gets factored in,” Harsh said. “It used to be just a mention and a little bit of something. It's a key part of the America in the 21st century chapter now.”

Born in a different era

For students born after 9/11, the security measures and different changes that occurred after the attacks are a regular part of life. Lucot said that he tries to put those changes on a continuum of history as well.

“All of my students have flown, they've been to an airport. I explain to them that taking your shoes off, et cetera, is a violation of your Fourth Amendment (rights), but we voted on that to make us more secure,” he said. “I try to make it a conceptual idea that's comparable across all generations, and that this is their generation's result of what they're doing now.”

Butler Area School District social studies teacher Jon McKay teaches Honors American History, World War II-present, to grade 11 and sociology to grade 12. He said that the curriculum of his history classes provides some background for students to understand what the world was like before 9/11.

“We start with World War II, and I take them through the '50s, '60s, '70s, counterculture, (President Ronald) Reagan backlash … to teach 9/11. They see what the world was before 9/11 and in the months leading up to 9/11,” McKay said.

He said that the span of his teaching about the aftermath of 9/11 has changed with time too: “I used to stop in 2004, and now I talk about (President Donald) Trump.”

“That fall, race and sex and income and rural/suburban mattered less than ever, and everybody felt American, but as we've moved past that, we can look back and say we were a little naïve,” McKay said. “And that maybe patriotism blended into nationalism, and we got a little overzealous in war in the Middle East.”

McKay also discusses the increase in hate crimes against people from the Middle East and provides general context for how 9/11 affected the United States and the world.

“Once we talk about the horror and tragedy and shock of that morning, the next day we talk about how everything changed,” he said.

Learning the facts

As distance grows between children and the events of Sept. 11, 2001, teachers have found they need to explain the details of 9/11 more to their students.

“In the past, especially when we talked about 9/11 when it was fresh in the first five years or so, a lot of the discussion we had in class was reflective of the students' memories of that day, and where they were, and their connections to the events that occurred,” said Chris Bellis, a 10th grade history teacher at Karns City Area School District.

“In the past five years, it's been more informational. We want to make sure that students are aware of the events that occurred on 9/11,” Bellis said. “I provide a timeline of the events that happened, show some footage, talk about the footage and then try to explain to them what actually happened. Then, we talk a little about some of the things that happened after as well.”

At Mars Area School District, Harsh said he's seen a lot of change in how students relate to lessons over time.

“I've been teaching for over 20 years at Mars, and for so often you were able to say, 'last year, five years ago,' and as time moves along you get to a point where they weren't alive when it happened,” he said. “Students who had lived through it had a different take on it. They remembered the craziness of the events, and of the school day, and the events that followed.”

Personal connections

While the students in elementary and secondary schools may not have been alive that day, McKay said his students still often bring up their personal family connections to 9/11.

“Kids, I think, are pretty eager to talk to me about (connections), I'll hear about, 'My great grandfather fought in Europe,'” McKay said. “But they're down to their parents when we come down to 9/11. I've had exactly one student who was born the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, and he shared what his parents told him. It was the happiest day of their life, but then they were processing what had happened to their country the day he was born.”

McKay said that it is definitely a different experience for him to teach 9/11 as something that he and his peers lived through, but that he still tries to present it as a historical event.

“I grew up hearing about Pearl Harbor and the (President John F.) Kennedy assassination, and understanding those things as historical events, and then I was in college when 9/11 happened,” he said. “I don't try to transfer those emotions to the kids — I teach it as a sad, solemn day that changed America forever.”

McKay said that he tries his best to remain objective.

“I remember having some history teachers and professors who focused on things that happened in their lifetime because they felt more important, and I'm really trying to avoid that,” he said. “But that is not to downplay it. This was really a nation-changing event.”