Gen Zs recall first learning of ‘deeply harrowing, terrifying’ 9/11
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Gen Zs recall first learning of ‘deeply harrowing, terrifying’ 9/11
Image source: Getty Images
By Grace Eliza Goodwin
Published 2 hours ago
Most Americans remember exactly what they were doing and how they felt the day four airplanes were hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.
But now, 25 years on from the 11 September 2001 attacks, there is a new generation, too young to remember the day that permanently altered much of American life.
Members of Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, were told—well after the fact—about the event that undoubtedly reshaped their futures. They carry distinct memories not from the day itself, but from the moment years later that they learned about the attacks.
‘Hard to explain what a terrorist is to a child’
Avery Black, 20, a journalism student at the University of South Carolina, remembers hearing about 9/11 for the first time in elementary school, then going home and asking her mother about it, she told the BBC.
"She just started telling me where she was the day it happened, and just broke down in tears, explaining to me about all the firefighters that went in and never came out," Black recalled.
As a child, Black didn’t quite grasp the day’s gravity, but for her, certain details still stand out. She remembers, most distinctly, the "falling man"—a famous image of a man plummeting, upside down, from the North Tower. A Dallas, Texas native, she also recalls teachers showing the video of then-President George W. Bush first learning about the attacks at an elementary school event.
For Annie Erickson, 26, who grew up in North Carolina, personal anecdotes, more than school or reports, created her first memories of 9/11.
"My mother grew up in New York City, so I remember my mom telling me about 9/11 and talking about how someone that lived in her building, who she was friends with, passed away in the towers," Erickson said.
She also was struck when learning about 9/11 at school that it was one of the few historical events teachers could personalise with their own memories. Currently, there’s no national requirement for US schools to teach students about the attacks, and the expectations vary widely by state. Twenty-five states require or expect public schools to teach the events of 9/11, while 13 make 9/11 instruction optional, according to a recent analysis by The Associated Press. But not every state that requires it specifies a curriculum.
Allegra Tashjian, who grew up in Wisconsin, said her teacher explained in first or second grade that it was a very important, sombre day and asked if anyone knew why. After a student responded that it was the day planes hit the towers in New York, Tashjian wondered why she had never heard of it before.
Later, at home, she recalls finding her mom folding laundry and asking if she remembered planes crashing in New York. "I remember she kind of paused folding her laundry and was like, ‘um no, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything about that,’" the now-28-year-old PhD student said. "For whatever reason at that point, I guess she really didn’t want to talk about it."
Tashjian, Erickson, Black and several other Gen Zs all told the BBC that they remember hearing a few details about the attacks in school and from their families, but the event itself didn’t have a profound impact on their lives as it did on their parents’.
