Teaching 9/11 to a generation that didn’t live through the tragedy

BRISTOL TWP., Pa. (WPVI) — As we prepare to mark 25 years since September 11, we turn our attention to the classroom.

The terror attacks are now in history books for students across the country.

The question: How do you teach 9/11 to a generation that wasn’t alive for it?

Jamie Huber is a history teacher at Harry S. Truman High School in Bristol Township, and he has been there since shortly before 9/11.

In 2001, he watched the attacks unfold live on TV with his students in the classroom.

For years, he taught living history.

Now, his mission is to keep the memories alive and fresh for kids who only read about it in books.

His memory of that tragic day changed the trajectory of his life and the way he views his role as a teacher.

“It was my second year teaching,” recalls Huber. “It was second period. I still remember the class I had, and I remember somebody yelling out, ‘They bombed us.'”

It was September 11, 2001. 8:46 am.

Huber was teaching a 9th grade history class.

“Immediately, we turned on those televisions, those old televisions,” he pointed to the wall. “Moments later, my students and I watched the second tower get hit by the plane.”

The history teacher. His history students. History, unfolding in front of their eyes.

“I am 25 years old at the time, and I have this group of 15-year-old kids who are watching this carnage on television,” he says. “And they don’t know what’s going on. Nothing about my college experience prepared me for that.”

Now, exactly 25 years later, 9/11 is in the history books, and Huber is teaching it to kids who weren’t alive during the deadliest attack on U.S. soil.

“How do you teach 9/11?” he asks. “It’s really tough. It really is. To them, it’s no different from you and I learning about Pearl Harbor or the Vietnam War. To them, it’s just history.”

Beyond the books, Huber gets personal, sharing his own military history.

In 2001, he was nearing the end of his contract as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves.

He didn’t know if he would be called to serve in the conflict that followed the attacks.

“At that time, I definitely thought I was going to get called,” he says. “I was living like I was.”

Huber was never called to active duty. But in the classroom, he says it is his duty to make sure his students never forget.

“History repeats itself,” Huber says, “and those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. And I genuinely believe that with all my heart.”