It took me too long to understand that no one needs to hear where I was when I learned about the attacks on 9/11. Thousands of families continue to grieve the loss of loved ones who were killed that day. They owe us nothing and yet we ask so much of them on days like today.  Connie Schultz, 9/11/23 on X.

Connie Schultz is right. Framing our personal experiences of any national tragedy—if we were safe and observing from afar—makes us voyeurs and armchair analysts, rather than victims. If you watched the video of Steve Bannon’s right-wing reporter on Maui, being chewed on by a rescue worker for taking up resources needed by Lahaina residents to survive, the point is even clearer: when people are suffering, the last thing they need is having their pain become fodder for aimless but enthralling—televised– chatter.

In an age when we all have immediate access to details and photos of disaster, everybody, it seems, has an opinion and a favorite metaphor, beginning with the Holocaust. Simply “remembering” where we were when JFK was shot, or the Challenger exploded, is shallow, and not enough. As Schultz notes, it can dishonor those whose suffering is more agonizing. That’s not to say, however, that the larger impact and cause of any notable tragedy isn’t worth examining.

There are things to learn, things to contemplate.

On September 11, 2001, as the first jet hit the north tower of the World Trade Center, I was sitting in the bleachers with a group of seventh graders I had known for a total of five days. When the early-September, let’s-get-motivated assembly ended and we trooped back down the hall, the world had shifted. We watched together on our classroom monitor as the second plane hit, and saw the devastation at the Pentagon. Then, the news was too awful to watch.

It became a day of talking, in spite of the superintendent’s phoned-in directive to just stick to our lesson plans. A day of honest fears and occasional tears. The questions my students asked were perceptive and poignant: What’s a terrorist? Do these people hate us? Will there be a war? My dad left on a business trip this morning—where is his plane now?

I was struck by their desire to understand what had happened, to make some sense of the craziness, and genuine curiosity about what the adults in their world had to say about these events. They were anxious to talk, wanting to form their own opinions. Most of all, they were ready to do something, anything.

My school had a tradition of community service, reaching out to aid families in need. Our usual modus operandi–collecting donations and canned goods in homerooms–seemed pretty insignificant after 9/11, especially when millions of dollars were rolling in to the American Red Cross and volunteers were driving cross-country to lend their skills to the relief effort.

We made handmade banners of support and sent modest contributions, but my students expressed dismay over not being able to do more. We’re not old enough to go there, they said. We don’t have a lot of money. We can’t save lives or serve food or help clean up the mess. We’re just kids–there’s not much we can do. I rounded on them, with some genuine anger.

I told them that the most important thing they could do, right now, was get serious about their education. Don’t even think, I told them, about blowing off the seventh grade. Suddenly, in sharp and terrible focus, we have a graphic illustration of why it’s important for the United States to develop the talents of every single one of its young citizens.

Think of all the skills and opportunities that will quickly become critical in this post-apocalyptic world: International diplomats and political negotiators, security and defense technicians, cultural anthropologists, immunologists, translators of Arabic and Farsi, Pashtu and Dari. Not to mention the playwrights, musicians and artists who create ways to help us make sense of this new world. How are YOU going to contribute?

We need citizens who can analyze complex ideas, take advantage of advances in science and technology–and solve problems neither you nor your teachers have ever considered. Education has long been the ticket to personal success. It may now be our best long-term defense strategy and hope for a peaceful future.

It was quite a speech. And they were paying attention.

We’ve now sent more than twenty post-9/11 graduating classes out into an uncertain world, and I think of them every year, on September 11^th. Did they learn anything? Judging by our response to another global emergency—the COVID pandemic—I would say the evidence is discouraging.

Our national security, our progress and prosperity, our position as world leader and beacon for human potential and freedom—all have been seriously damaged in the past half-dozen years. We’re no less dependent on a commitment to a world-class education for every child, especially children who are hard to teach. But in fact, we’ve witnessed a rising movement to transfer educational resources to those who already have the benefit of a fully funded education.

Our students are still wondering what it means to be an American. Does it mean abundance and opportunity? Does it require “winning?” Is it all about entrepreneurial gains and market-based competition? Or is there room for sacrifice, unconditional respect for other values, like social justice?

Kids are natural patriots. Thirty years of teaching middle schoolers demonstrated to me that they instinctively want to belong to something larger, something important. They have a strong desire to contribute, to be a productive part of a group, sharing values and pride. This is why school sports are popular. It’s also why gangs continue to thrive.

Have we squandered the terrible momentum engendered by that day in September?

We really can’t afford to lose anyone.