Students still learning about 9/11

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By BENJI FELDHEIM DeKALB — Katelin Sullivan was sitting in a music class at St. Mary School in DeKalb on Sept. 11, 2001, when she learned the world had changed. Sullivan remembers the school’s principal speaking through an intercom system, saying that something had happened in New York City. She remembers her music teacher turning on the TV and her class watching news footage of the World Trade Center in New York City. But it wasn’t until Sullivan saw how one of her teachers reacted that she realized the scope of what happened, she said. “One of our teachers went through the hall and she was crying,” Sullivan said. “We didn’t realize what happened and how important it was until we saw the emotions of the adults around us.” Students at DeKalb High School, including now 17-year-old Sullivan, remembered and reflected Thursday on the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when nearly 3,000 people died when 19 terrorists connected to al-Qaida hijacked four airplanes. Two of the planes were crashed into the tallest towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and a third crashed into the Pentagon in Washington. The fourth plane crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pa., driven down, investigators believe, when passengers rushed the cockpit to prevent another attack on a building. In the seven years since the attacks, students at DHS have learned more about the event described as the “defining moment in all of our lives” by a DHS educator. “There aren’t many things out there that have kind of a broad, profound effect like 9/11,” DHS Social Studies Area Coordinator Judy Stafstrom said Thursday. “Students, they want to know about it.” DHS junior Kaleigh Sheahan, 16, watched in class Thursday an episode of the TV show “The West Wing” that originally aired shortly after the attack. The purpose was to explain some of the broader effects terrorism has had on the U.S., Sheahan said. Though the attack happened seven years ago, Sheahan said she still finds value in learning more about the event itself. “There’s no difference seven years later. Thousands of people died,” Sheahan said. “You hear about things in history, and it doesn’t affect you in the same way as something that happened in your lifetime.” Jesse Burt, 17, remembers he was watching the news in his elementary school classroom when the second airplane crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Burt, now a junior at DHS, said he plans to join the Air Force after high school. Part of the motivation to join is the attack, Burt said. “People don’t deserve to have others hurt them like that,” Burt said. “I didn’t think anything like that would happen out here. It was shocking and really depressing, and it’s still difficult every year.” DHS senior Jovani Camacho, 18, said it’s sad to think of the families who lost loved ones in the attack. “It was really sad that day, and it still is,” Camacho said. DHS junior Anna Espino, 17, said the passing of time doesn’t mean it isn’t important to remember the attacks. “It’s important we remember it now because we were so young before, but now we understand what it’s about,” Espino said. “It’s better now to learn more about it.”