Teaching Beyond September 11th

September 11, 2001—and how the events of that day continue to shape our world—can be a difficult subject for any teacher, particularly in the United States. This project provides educators with materials and pathways to explore the ongoing consequences of 9/11 through critical inquiry and a social justice lens that situates anti-Muslim rhetoric and policy within a larger historical narrative. Created by a team of educators from the University of Pennsylvania in collaboration with inter/national scholars, practitioners, and community activist leaders, we offer multiple entry points for educators working across an array of subjects to discuss Islamophobia, xenophobia, civil liberties, long-lasting wars, media and representation, and other topics. Our goal is to help students move beyond the headlines to deepen their understandings of the post-9/11 global context and continuing implications on a number of communities worldwide.

About

The events of September 11th and their aftermath have shaped global foreign policy, national security, immigration, race, and perceptions around religion and citizenship for twenty-five years. Yet instruction about 9/11 remains uneven, and some students receive little or no formal teaching about the events of that day, let alone what followed. When it is addressed at all, for the vast majority of young people in K–20 classrooms today, 9/11 is simply a day frozen in time.

Teaching Beyond September 11th was designed to extend that learning beyond the day itself. Many young people do not yet have the historical perspective or analysis to understand the tremendous changes that occurred as a result of 9/11 and subsequent related events, and broadening the frame of historical reference to include events beyond that day can provide young people with new ways to think critically about the historical events in their own lives.

This project is generously funded by the University of Pennsylvania’s Global Engagement Office with support from Penn’s Graduate School of Education and the Penn Libraries. Additional support comes from Penn’s Middle East Center and South Asia Center.

Curriculum Goals

The Teaching Beyond September 11th project helps educators supplement their courses with a wide array of materials that:

• Invite learners to critically examine the history of 9/11 to understand its ongoing consequences.
• Expose learners to the lived experiences and histories of affected communities, highlighting the interwoven histories of discrimination and race in the US and globally, and
• Draw connections between the influence of 9/11 on national security, immigration policies, race relations, and related global events.

We want students to: 

• Understand the ongoing effects of the post 9/11 era, including hate violence, profiling, surveillance, and the “War on Terror”, while also recognizing that anti-Muslim racism is not a post-9/11 phenomenon and in fact has a long history.
• Analyze the multiple and continuing socio-political impacts of 9/11 domestically and globally by using one event from every year from 2001 to 2021 to explore a different issue.
• Relate anti-Muslim racism/violence with other forms of racism and violence (e.g. Black Lives Matter; xenophobia, anti-Semitism etc.) in the United States and abroad.
• Empathize with the various groups impacted by 9/11 in the United States and abroad through social justice and community-grounded perspectives highlighting how people are experiencing the effects of the post 9/11 world, while advocating, resisting, and imagining better futures.
• Identify avenues for solidarity with other groups and be motivated to act to make change.
• Take responsibility to share this knowledge with others.