'I'm a primary source': Teaching 9/11 in Long Island schools

Teaching 9/11 in schools: 'I'm a primary source'

One social studies teacher on Long Island teaches her students about the events of 9/11 to her students by setting up an exhibit. FOX 5 NY's Jodi Goldberg has more.

LONG ISLAND - Teachers who remember the events of 9/11 are doing all they can to make sure their students never forget.

‘I’m a literal primary source'

What we know:

Nicole Honovich, a social studies teacher at Walt Whitman High School, was a fourth grader when the towers fell. Honovich told FOX 5 NY's Jodi Goldberg that her father, a Port Authority officer, happened to be off that day.

However, her father spent the subsequent weeks working long shifts at Ground Zero as part of the clean-up effort.

Now, she makes it her mission to inform her students about the day with facts, including a table of primary sources that Honovich calls "her exhibit."

‘Firefighters, police officers… they help people’

Teachers at Bayville Primary School mark the day in their own way, to help the younger students understand the gravity of what happened.

"We talk about what it means to be a first responder," Jennifer Pagan, a teacher at the school, explained to Goldberg.

Second-graders read the book "Fireboat," which tells the story of a retired fireboat that was brought back into service to help fight the fires after the 9/11 attacks. The young students also color American flags, and paint rocks that are then placed in a garden around the school.

‘We had to pull down the blinds’

Dr. Michele Gaglione, a teacher at Locust Valley High School, had been an instructor for less than a week when the towers fell.

"We had to pull down the blinds to protect the children from seeing the smoke plume."

Two decades later, her students still have questions about what happened that day, and how people rebuilt.

"As a history teacher, it's not just my job, it is my absolute duty to commemorate those that we lost."

Calls for all 50 states to include 9/11 curriculum

Congressman Andrew Garbarino reintroduced his House Resolution that all 50 states should include the events of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the curriculum of their schools earlier today, September 10.

"We have a responsibility to preserve the memories of the fallen, the heroism we witnessed and the national security failures that left our country vulnerable to attack," Garbarino stated.

The full Resolution can be read below: