Teaching 9/11 in high school history classes
Carl Herman:
I just finished teaching a unit on 9/11 to my sophomore and junior public high school students taking World History and US History. I had administrative and departmental support, no parent complaints, and the students were riveted. My lesson is experimental, but I thought you'd want to know what appears to me at the moment as the best historical approach for high school students. For what it's worth, I'm considered competent: Harvard education, National Board Certification, several teaching awards, etc. I’ll also include a copy of the e-mail I sent my department colleagues. For the lesson, I present the government’s version of “terrorist hijacker” led events, then the “government as hijacker” version. There is a way to present both sides of a story that allows the weight of the physical evidence to demonstrate what likely happened. This is different from our major media’s curious approach that rhetoric without evidence is somehow equally valid as the side with all of the evidence. I’ll give an outline, then comment on each part. If my commentary is too much for you, you might just read the outline, then skip to the letter I sent my fellow teachers. Please feel free to share this information with anyone you wish.
9/11 Lesson Outline
1. Students receive the assignment of writing two short essays from four topics. Three topics ask students to explain the government version of events for the twin towers, Pentagon, and Flight 93. Students then discuss three aspects of the physical evidence that most strongly supports the government’s case, or discuss three aspects of the evidence that most strongly supports an alternative scenario. The 4th topic has the student explain three details of the Bush Administration behavior that either supports the case that Osama bin Laden led terrorists to attack America with a subsequent American “war for freedom,” or explain three details that support government complicity in 9/11 and a war for something else. Students may do more than two essays for extra credit. I ask students to consider these topics during the lessons, and take helpful notes for their essay responses.
2. We view the first chapters from the dvd, "CNN America Remembers," with the explanation of the government's official story of what caused the twin towers to collapse.
3. We look at the portions of NOVA’s documentary, “Why the Towers Fell” that models the collapse.
4. We watch the first part of the dvd, “In Plane Site.” We consider Dave’s opening remarks that when someone obscures the truth, this is evidence of complicity; and continue through the Pentagon footage that includes the two computer models that show the government’s version of Flight 77.
5. We watch President Bush’s press conference after his meeting with the 9/11 Commission from the dvd, “Fahrenheit 911,” and part of the press conference where he responds to a question about government involvement in 9/11 with the garbled response, “That’s an absurd insinuation.”
6. We watch all of “Loose Change 2nd Edition.”
7. We discussed what we saw throughout the lesson, but end with a group discussion covering the main essay points of what the government said happened, the evidence that supports that claim, and the evidence that refutes the claim. As these notes are lengthy, I project their thinking on the front screen as I type. I print and copy the notes for all students.
8. Essays are due anytime within the next 10 days.
9/11 lesson comments and analysis
1. Students receive the assignment of writing two short essays from four topics. Three topics ask students to explain the government version of events for the twin towers, Pentagon, and Flight 93. Students then discuss three aspects of the physical evidence that most strongly supports the government’s case, or discuss three aspects of the evidence that most strongly supports an alternative scenario. The 4th topic has the student explain three details of the Bush Administration behavior that either supports the case that Osama bin Laden led terrorists to attack America with a subsequent American “war for freedom,” or explain three details that support government complicity in 9/11 and a war for something else. Students may do more than two essays for extra credit. I ask students to consider these topics as they watch, and take helpful notes for their essay responses. This format of a lesson satisfies any issue of bias. We’ll examine both sides of the story, and students are free to argue for and write for either conclusion. I’ve spent over 200 hours now reviewing the research, so I’m confident that I can back what I present as objective evidence with the data. We finished this lesson on Friday, April 21, so I’ve received just two essays by the end of the day, and as I write to you on 4/23. In our class discussions, not one student spoke for the government being correct.
2. We view the first chapters from the dvd, "CNN America Remembers," with the explanation of the government's official story of what caused the twin towers to collapse. I begin with some explanation. Students can visualize the 210 foot sides of WTC 1 & 2 as approximately the six adjacent classrooms in the 3 wings of our U-shaped building being connected by a 4th wing, then rising 110 floors. I open our drop ceiling to show what we have for a truss, and explain the “pancake theory” and “progressive collapse” as a raging fire that caused the trusses to droop, despite the fact the trusses were perpendicularly-welded to support braces and bolted to metal pans which held the concrete floor above (help me here and throughout if I didn’t state something accurately), then the partial collapse of the ceiling above us would not only cause our ceiling to fall to our floor, but simultaneously cause the ceilings of each of the 6 science classes to fail, as well as the 6 classes above the administration building, as well as the class at the end of our hallway and all the classes from that to ours. The simultaneous failure of all welds and bolts is important; if it didn’t occur all at once, then one side of the building would tip, shear, then fall over. The collapse would turn all of our desks, file cabinets, chairs, computers, telephones, carpeting, books, and the concrete ceiling and floor to dust. And, this “dusting” would occur in about one tenth of a second. If Richie jumped out the window fast enough to avoid this fate, he could witness the dusting of nearly every floor as he fell, for the building provided no resistance as each tower fell in ~10 seconds. This type of building collapse from fire has never occurred in history, but is the common signature of controlled demolition. Pyroclastic plumes occur in only two known instances above water: volcanoes and controlled demolitions. But we can be confident that the government’s theory is well researched even though its reasoning isn’t apparent: they did allocate up to $600,000 for the study. As an economics teacher also, I often say that money communicates what is important, our values. The seriousness of the government’s inquiry for truth is self-evident when contrasted with the $40,000,000 spent investigating the details of Clinton’s extramarital sex life.
We then watch the first parts of the dvd. Students note the lack of a raging fire, seeing only parts of some floors with flames, and a woman waving from the plane hole. We pause the dvd to discuss that windows would burst if fire raised the temperature to over 600° F. and that the kerosene jet fuel would burn like lighter fluid on a barbeque, gone within two minutes, leaving behind an office fire burning contents similar to our classroom. We discuss that the steel of the core is rated for full strength at 2000° F. for six hours, and that there is nothing in the core to burn after the lighter fluid-like jet fuel extinguished in 1-2 minutes. We note that the tone of CNN’s coverage is unquestioning of the government’s explanation.
3. We look at the portions of NOVA’s documentary, “Why the Towers Fell,” that models the collapse. Students watch some of the documentation of the construction. We watch and listen to the explanation of weakened trusses that somehow the engineers knew had their fireproofing blown away. We watch their computer model, noting the lack of braces welded perpendicular to the trusses and connected to the pans holding the concrete. We note the camera angle shows individual trusses dropping, but no views of the concrete floors or a view of why truss failure in one part would cause simultaneous truss failure throughout. We watch their “pancake” model without showing what caused exterior steel beams to explode out in 30 foot sections up to 500 feet away. We note that their model leaves the 47 interior steel beams standing. We note the model doesn’t show how one ceiling falling to the floor would turn all the office contents, floor, and ceiling to dust.
4. We watch the first part of the dvd, “In Plane Site.” We consider Dave’s opening remarks that when someone obscures the truth, this is evidence of complicity; and continue through the Pentagon footage that includes the two computer models that show the government’s version of Flight 77. Students understood Dave’s comments and were amazed that the video footage showed no airplane evidence. We looked at the two government computer models. The first showed the plane vanishing into the wall and then disintegrating within the first ring. Students noted that the Pentagon did not look to them as if a plane had somehow vanished into the wall. We also noted that the model did not explain how the relatively weak nose then blasted out of the first ring, into the second ring, blew through the office content and out the wall, then blew through the third ring and through the office, before blasting out of the third ring with such force that the remaining nose parts apparently disintegrated. The second model shows the wings shearing before hitting the Pentagon. Students wonder why the wings were not visible on the footage if the government is telling the truth. We also note that the government’s own model again does not show nor explain why parts of the plane disintegrated inside the first ring while part blasted out and through two more rings, and why a model omitted the engines and showed the tail as intact within the first ring if it had no entry hole on the exterior wall.
5. We watch President Bush’s press conference after his meeting with the 9/11 Commission from the dvd, “Fahrenheit 911,” and part of the press conference where he responds to a question about government involvement in 9/11 with the garbled response, “That’s an absurd insinuation.” Student comments to now have been a combination of disbelief that this flimsy evidence is all that’s carried this story for nearly five years, an understanding that the media must surely be in on the conspiracy to not blast this story open, and some horror and sadness that America is a fascist dictatorship (the comment that the US is like a “Nazi Lite” resonated). But after watching our president speak for himself, the commentary became angry and touched with scatological language. Nobody, not one, stood up for the president. I tried to elicit someone who at least had reasonable doubt for Mr. Bush’s partial innocence, but nobody could reconcile the facts with that conclusion.
6. We watch all of “Loose Change 2nd Edition.” Students were fascinated. The history moved a little quickly for them to absorb, so we stopped at times to discuss. This explanation seemed to make sense to them, as they couldn’t see any inconsistencies with the evidence.
7. We discussed what we saw throughout the lesson, but end with a group discussion covering the main essay points of what the government said happened, the evidence that supports that claim, and the evidence that refutes the claim. As these notes are lengthy, I project their thinking on the front screen as I type. I print and copy the notes for all students. Students hit all the main points of evidence that I can imagine to support government terrorism as the explanation for 9/11. For the government’s side, they only see ~5,000 gallons of jet fuel starting an office fire in WTC 1 and 2 after a plane-caused truss failure didn’t cause the progressive collapse they say subsequent fire initiated. The government’s Pentagon story’s has a picture of one small piece of scrap metal to support it (“Did anyone check that piece for fingerprints?”). Flight 93 has no evidence that they can see to validate it (“Yeah, that happened to my cat once. He jumped off the balcony and completely buried himself in the dirt.”).
8. Essays are due anytime within the next 10 days. We’ll see what they have to say.
