Teaching About 9/11

By Alan Singer 

Thursday, September 11, 2025 is the twenty-fourth anniversary of the aerial attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Almost 3,000 people died on the day of the attack and an estimated 7,000 people including first responders have died since then from cancers and respiratory illnesses. Over 100,000 other people who were exposed to contaminants have medical risks. The 2010 James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, since reauthorized, is supposed to provide health care coverage for impacted people, but the Trump Administration’s budget cuts to the WTC Health Program  forcing the firing of 25% of the staff and funding cuts for the Centers for Disease Control have interfered with the delivery of health benefits. At the same time that the Trump administration is neglecting the health care of surviving 9-11 victims, the President says he wants a federal takeover of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in Downtown Manhattan.

Teachers have an important role to play because of our skill in addressing sensitive and controversial issues in the classroom and because for students the events of September 11, 2001 are part of the past rather than lived experience. Thursday is an opportunity for students to discuss the attack on the United States, but also to consider a U.S. response that led to discredited wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Source: Daily Kos

Image source: Flickr, Jim Watson

Alan Singer is a historian and teacher educator at Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York. His most recent books are Social Studies for Secondary Schools, 5th edition (Routledge, 2024) and Class-Conscious Coal Miners (SUNY Press, 2024). Blogs, tweets, essays, interviews, and e-blasts present his views and not those of Hofstra University.