Teaching 9/11 to Teenagers Too Young to Remember

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Sept. 11 Curriculum Debuts in Select Schools

Six high schools across the country are debuting a new curriculum in history and social studies classes that incorporate facts and stories of September 11. One of the victim's brothers created the curriculum to honor everyone who died in the attacks.

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"Just try to focus until the bell rings," Hutchison said.

Over the next several weeks, if Hutchison continued to follow the curriculum, his students would eventually build their own Sept. 11 memorials, create maps of terrorist activity and debate the cleanup of Ground Zero as members of a fictitious town council. But at the end of their first day studying the attacks, Hutchison assigned a more basic task for homework: to interview somebody older about Sept. 11 and write an article based on their recollections.

"I'm going to select the two best, and those students will receive some major extra credit," Hutchison said. "So take this seriously, because it could be huge for your grade."

In the second row, a senior named JaLeah Hedrick looked up from her notes.

"Wait," she said. "Extra credit?"

"Yes," Hutchison said. "Interview a few people. It can be uncles, parents, grandparents -- anybody you want. Then write down whatever they can remember."

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Anthony Gardner, who has never been to Vincennes, needed to remember everything. Long before he created the curriculum destined for Hutchison's classroom, Gardner, 33, taught himself to retain every detail of the terrorist attacks that changed his life.

On Sept. 11, 2001, he was a recent college graduate listening to Howard Stern's radio show while walking to work in New York. Stern interrupted one of his gags to announce that the World Trade Center had been attacked. Gardner immediately thought of his brother, Harvey, who worked on the 83rd floor of the North Tower. He called Harvey's cellphone but received a busy signal. He dialed again, and again, but never got through.

Gardner walked seven miles through Manhattan and took a ferry home to New Jersey. He searched for pictures of his brother and hung one in every room of the house. He found a video recorded at his wedding four months earlier and watched footage of Harvey laughing so hard that it jiggled the boutonniere pinned to his chest. "I had this unbelievable urge to see him," Gardner said.

Weeks passed, then months, then years, and still Harvey's body was never recovered. Craving a tangible connection to his brother, Gardner collected rocks from the rubble of the World Trade Center and filled a water bottle with wet soil from Ground Zero. He printed transcripts of news conferences, saved newspaper articles and spent six years working as the director of a nonprofit organization representing Sept. 11 victims.

"My family told me that it was unhealthy and obsessive," Gardner said. "Some things about 9/11 are still more clear in my mind than whatever happened this morning."