This year marks almost a quarter of a century since the catastrophic and paradigm-shifting string of events that took place in the United States on September 11, 2001.
The day is so deeply etched in North America’s collective memory that it is known simply by its date, yet with time, the landscape of the conversation has changed.
While for some, the images of the World Trade Centre’s Twin Towers collapsing in real time were a defining moment, for many young people today, that fateful day is a matter of history — they weren’t born yet.
At the intersection of these divergent experiences, one might wonder how to impress on the younger generations the relevance of 9/11 and how they respond to an event that still seems close in memory to those who saw it.
Mark Wilson, a longtime teacher at Garden Valley Collegiate and an individual with an extensive military career that includes a deployment to Afghanistan, offers some valuable insights.
The ability to look at the whole picture
Wilson began teaching high school around 2002-2003, so at the start of his career, his students were well aware of the events of 9/11.
“Obviously, then it was very fresh, and there were lots of conflicts going on as a direct result of that, including Canada's involvement in Afghanistan, so students very much had a first-hand knowledge of this event,” he said.
Now, of course, Wilson’s current students were not even born when the events happened.
“Anytime you're teaching anything of this nature, ... humanizing the numbers is always important. These are very real people, and [9/11] has very real effects, and lasting effects.”
-Mark Wilson on the significance of humanizing events like 9/11.
For the teacher, this provides a distinct opportunity.
“[It] gives maybe a little bit more hindsight, a little more ability to take a look at the full picture of what the implications of this were and what the causes of it were, et cetera,” he said.
Humanizing the past with stories like Gander, Newfoundland
One strategy Wilson uses to help students connect with tragic events like 9/11 is emphasizing the human side.
While casualty numbers and other figures may not always relate the weight of the experience to students, the stories of real people can.
“Anytime you're teaching anything of this nature, ... humanizing the numbers is always important,” said Wilson. “These are very real people, and [9/11] has very real effects, and lasting effects.”
Wilson said that one story he sometimes draws on is that of Gander, Newfoundland, to which, after the attacks on September 11th, thirty-eight commercial flights from American airspace were diverted immediately following the terrorist attacks.
Gander, a town of only 10,000 people, found itself with 7,000 displaced travellers.
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Its response was to band together as a community to accommodate the fliers.
For Wilson, discussing concrete matters involved in the stories like these, such as the logistics of keeping everyone fed, helps contextualize the experience without necessarily relying on discussing the extremity of 9/11 victims.
The teacher also finds value in educating students about the consequences of the attacks.
“You can also connect it to later events, so then you start to look at Canada's involvement in places like Afghanistan as part of the Global War on Terror,” he said. “All these events affect people.”
The elephant in the room
Another unique aspect of the shifting cultural portrayal of 9/11 among the younger generations is that, perhaps due to remoteness of the occurrence, there is a trend of joking about it that some might find uncouth.
Wilson is not troubled by this.
“I think you see that with almost anything,” he said. “When I was growing up, World War Two was quite a while ago, and there are lots of jokes about [it] and the various stereotypes around that, so it's not terribly surprising that that happens with 9/11.”
In the teacher’s view, the trend can coexist with an understanding that it was a serious event with many implications.
“I think most people still recognize the solemnity,” he said, reiterating that it is far enough in the past that it can be thought of differently than it has been previously.
Leaving the shoes on
Something else young people do not have experience with is how the 9/11 attacks altered air travel.
Wilson said that he remembers how much more straightforward the process was before 2001’s events.
Recently, the United States’ TSA (Transportation Security Administration), the body responsible for air traveller screening, dropped its requirement for fliers to remove their shoes in airport security, and Canada followed its lead.
“It's a fairly seminal event. Tragedies are often where society changes, either for the good or for the worse, ... but it's where change happens, and I think that's significant."
-Mark Wilson on the relevance of 9/11 today.
While implementing the shoe removal policy is not directly linked to the September 11th attacks, it accompanied a trend of increasing security in airports post 9/11.
In Wilson’s view, while he believes that with everything terrorism-related, determined people can always act, he considers the increased measures effective in providing a “feeling of safety” concerning large-scale air travel.
For him, the lifting of the shoe-removal rule does not necessarily indicate perception has shifted concerning airport security; he believes protocols transform over time just as threats do.
“I think it's a good thing that it has changed,” he said. “It perhaps shows that these decisions aren't being made in isolation. The people who are helping to inform these decisions obviously feel secure that that isn't a huge threat.”
‘There’s real human cost’
Despite the many narratives surrounding 9/11, Wilson’s reasoning for why it’s important to continue the conversation with younger generations comes down to a few things.
One is its undeniable impact.
“It's kind of a fairly seminal event. Tragedies are often where society changes, either for the good or for the worse, ... but it's where change happens, and I think that's significant,” he said.
The second reason the conversation remains valuable is the “very significant human cost” it incurred, which is especially poignant to him, given that he himself was deployed to Afghanistan during his military career.
“I enjoy teaching, and I enjoy being able to bring that realistic side because I think it's important. Obviously, I’m going to make it ... age-appropriate, but I think it’s important to recognize that these are people."
-Mark Wilson on his teaching strategy of humanizing historic events.
“For Canada, [9/11] led directly to the conflict in Afghanistan, which lasted 14 years, and over 100 Canadians gave their lives for this, including people I know,” he said.
“I think it's important for people to recognize that there's a real human cost. I think it's 40,000 Canadians rotated through Afghanistan in the time that we were there, and so that will have changed a lot of lives.”
From individuals killed in action to those who were wounded, there are many Canadians who feel the implications of 9/11.
The reverberations, of course, also stretch beyond the country.
“When we saw the collapse of Afghanistan to the Taliban, not that long ago, we [also] saw a huge human cost with interpreters and people who had helped the Western forces over the years desperately trying to escape the country.”
‘It's not all just good guys and bad guys’
For Wilson, introducing Afghanistan into the conversation also raises the opportunity to think critically about conflicts in general.
“I think it's important to recognize that there are two sides in conflict — it’s not all just good guys and bad guys. The world is not that simple, and so we need to be very thoughtful of how we use force,” he said.
“This continues to be a very real thing. I mean, we have people in our very community from Afghanistan, and of course, they'll have a different perspective of a Western nation coming in. We'd like to think that we were doing our very best to try and help them. Now, what their perspective is, you’d have to ask them.”
Embracing the everyday side of history
Ultimately, for Wilson, his teaching style, particularly when it comes to 9/11 and other events, is rooted in bringing reality into the classroom.
“I enjoy teaching, and I enjoy being able to bring that realistic side because I think it's important. Obviously, I’m going to make it ... age-appropriate, but I think it’s important to recognize that these are people,” he said.
With files from Alexander Peters