Time, misinformation complicate teaching Sept. 11 to kids born later

Nagla Bedir didn’t discuss Sept. 11 with her New Jersey high school students last year. Mid-pandemic, with remote learning, it wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have via computer screen. But this year, returning to the classroom just after the end of America’s longest war, she figures she can’t not teach about it.

So later this month — after students in her international diplomacy class have introduced themselves and agreed on how they’ll have respectful conversations — she plans to ask two questions: What do you know about Sept. 11, why it happened, and the aftermath? And how is it connected to Afghanistan?

She isn’t sure what they’ll say, but she’s set on having the discussion.

“I think it’s really important that teachers don’t shy away from teaching about these things,” says Bedir, co-founder of the organization Teaching While Muslim. Many educators worry about teaching anything that’s considered political, she says, “and I think it’s really unfortunate because there is so much misinformation and disinformation in the world.”

Many challenges

Along with packed curriculums and calendars, those are just some of the challenges of teaching about Sept. 11 to kids born since that day, who get so much of their information from online and social media spaces, and sometimes don’t have the interest or media literacy to differentiate truth from conspiracy theories that persist 20 years later.

Today’s students don’t have memories from that day but have heard about it all their lives, and that’s bound to lead to questions, says Jennifer Grygiel, a Syracuse University professor who researches social media and the internet. If they aren’t given factual information that helps them understand what happened and why, untruths can fill the void.

“Conspiracy theories take root when there are unknowns, and there were so many unknowns about that day,” Grygiel says. “In the absence of information, people go online. And what do they find? It depends.”

Misinformation

An online search for content related to Sept. 11 conspiracy theories turns up millions of hits: videos, blogs and whole websites devoted to different theories, as well as accurate information that attempts to debunk the myths. Platforms like YouTube and Facebook say they’ve taken steps to curb the spread of Sept. 11 misinformation by promoting authoritative information about the attacks, or by adding links to other sources that debunk myths.

Questions about conspiracy theories and Sept. 11 misinformation often arise in training that the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum has offered for hundreds of teachers, according to Noah Rauch, its senior vice president for education and public programs. The subject comes up so much that it developed specific sessions for teachers who want to use Sept. 11 and related conspiracy theories to teach critical thinking skills.