Butler County teachers reflect on how 9/11 education has changed in quarter century
Teachers in Butler County remember the weather on Sept. 11, 2001, being sunny with a blue sky, like many across the country remember before the unexpected occurred.
“It was a Tuesday. It was a beautiful day. There were very few clouds, and it was comfortable outside,” said Dale Vanlaningham, a Butler Senior High School teacher.
“The events started during first period. I had an honors history class. They had a writing assessment, preparing students for PSSA tests they took back then. I stepped out into the hall, and there were two teachers whispering. One looked at me and said, ‘Did you hear about the terrorist who flew a plane into the World Trade Center?’”
Vanlaningham said he thought that teacher had a weird sense of humor and just moved on from his comments. But something didn’t sit right with him. He remembers calling someone else to ask what was happening, and about 30 seconds into their phone call, he heard the reaction on the other side of the line as the second plane crashed into the south tower.
When the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks occurred, students across Butler County, and America, were in their first few classes of the school day as the shock settled in. It was still morning when Flight 93 crashed in Somerset County, and when both towers and part of the Pentagon collapsed.
“I remember the looks on the faces of students when they came into the room and looked at the TV initially. A lot were inquisitive, asking what’s going on,” said Jeff Goldinger, a social studies teacher at Knoch High School. “I had to explain it to them, and I remember the look of shock on their faces once they realized what had happened, that planes were flying into the World Trade Center.”
Vanlaningham, now in his 30th year as a full-time teacher at Butler, recalls that school administrators were in a meeting when word first came of the attacks. After administrators were told to get back to their respective buildings, he said the response districtwide was not to address it while awaiting further instruction, out of fear it would panic students.
But one principal, who was not at meeting, didn’t get the memo, Vanlaningham said. At the junior high school, students watched on televisions with history teachers, discussing what was unfolding.
By afternoon, students started to be pulled out of school, Vanlaningham said.
“Teaching 10th and 11th grade at the time, the number of students in the classroom got smaller as the day went on,” Goldinger said. “I think in the moment, you just wanted to hear from somebody … a family member, or somebody you cared about.”
Goldinger, employed at Knoch since 1993, said while the events are seared into his memory, the days that followed are hazy.
“It was crazy. I think there was so much emotion you felt on that day, and the memories are so strong. I’m not going to lie, I don’t have much memory of the days after,” Goldinger said. “I think we tried to get back into routine, tried to keep the kids up to date, tried to get back into a sense of normalcy and not hang onto that day.”
In the 25 years since, the teachers have come to cover the events of Sept. 11, 2001 in a different way, mainly because their current students were not alive when the attacks occurred.
“History never stops. It’s been in our curriculum year after year since it happened. But as the years have gone on, it’s changed,” Vanlaningham said. “My oldest son was in kindergarten. He pretty much remembers it. My daughter is two years younger, and she just has snippets of remembering it. My youngest child was not born yet.”
For the next several years, Americans were still finding out new information about how the events unfolded that day. Military conflicts tied to the conflict dragged on in its aftermath. It was still years before Osama bin Laden would be killed. The discussion, the teachers said, happened more naturally.
“The time goes by so quickly, it’s hard to comprehend how fast its gone. When the kids come in every year, you assume they have that memory. Then, you remember they weren’t even born,” Goldinger said. “I would always ask kids, where do you remember being. ‘I was in this class,’ a lot of the same answers. Then, it reached a point where kids don’t remember this at all, and I had to change how I approached it.”
Goldinger and Vanlaningham each said they still see teachers taking time on Sept. 11 to teach students about how it impacted the country. They take questions from students who don’t share memories of the time.
Past students, Goldinger said, were more familiar with the facts. Maybe the students knew the names of some of the hijackers, or the significance of the World Trade Center. Maybe they were familiar with the previous attempted bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, he said.
Now, Goldinger finds himself talking about things like the flight numbers, who the hijackers were, and who the heroes were that day.
The teachers also talk about how the world has changed, from increased security protocols at airports to policy implications like the passage of the Patriot Act.
“I also try to emphasize how united we were as a nation in the aftermath, considering how divided we are today,” Goldinger said. “It didn’t matter what your political affiliation was, everyone was about America.”
