25 years later: Remembering 9/ll
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Visit to 9/11 Memorial and Museum offers opportunity to remember Chalkboard Heroes
Today, the events of Sept. 11, 2001, are uppermost in our minds, as remembrances and memorial ceremonies take place all over the country. In the winter of 2024, my husband Hal and I traveled to New York City, where we visited the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. We spent several hours there, wandering among the exhibits and reliving our own memories of that tragic day. But an exploration of this place also offers an excellent opportunity to incorporate a history lesson about this important event into the classroom curriculum.
The photographs of 2,977 people who perished in the terrorist attacked of Sept. 11, 2oo1, are shown in an exhibit at the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City. Photo credit: Terry Lee Marzell
The 9/11 Memorial honors the 2,977 people who perished in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center site, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon, as well as the six people who were killed in the World Trade Center bombing on February 26, 1993. The exhibits include a variety of authentic artifacts, media, and personal narratives.While we were there, I examined the exhibits for mention of the three teachers who perished in the crash of Flight 77, the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. The crash killed 125 souls on the ground and 64 souls on board the plane. Three of those individuals were Sarah Clark, Hilda E. Taylor, and James Debeuneure, teachers from Washington, DC. The three were selected by the National Geographic Society to escort a group of elementary students on a field trip to Southern California. This field trip, known as the Sustainable Seas Expedition, gave underprivileged urban students the opportunity to spend time at the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, where they would work as junior marine biologists and study oceanic life. Tragically, the lives of all three exemplary educators and the students they were escorting were lost that day. I found the names of each teacher inside the museum in a display of the 9/11 victims, and also on the memorial outside.
At the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum in New York City, author and retired educator Terry Lee Marzell examines the names of three Chalkboard Heroes who tragically lost their lives in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Photo credit: Hal Marzell
If you are fortunate enough to be able to escort your students on a field trip to New York City, you will find the museum on the former site of the Twin Towers at 180 Greenwich Street. Otherwise, you and your students can explore the resources about the event provided at the museum website at National 9/11 Memorial and Museum. Teachers can also consult the website Facing History & Ourselves for additional resources.
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Teacher Elaine Goodale Eastman established a Native American day school
Teacher Elaine Goodall Eastman, who described herself as a Sister to the Sioux, established a day school on a Sioux Indian reservation in the territory of South Dakota. Photo Credit: Public Domain
Many talented and dedicated educators have devoted themselves to working for disenfranchised groups of students. One of these was Elaine Goodale Eastman, who often described herself as a “Sister to the Sioux.”
When she was just a young woman, Elaine, originally from Massachusetts, established a day school on a Sioux Indian reservation in the territory of South Dakota. Contrary to prevailing opinion of her day, she believed very strongly that it was best to keep Native American children at home rather than transport them far away from their families to Indian boarding schools. She hadn’t taught on the reservation very long when she was promoted to the position of Superintendent of Indian Education for the Two Dakotas. In this capacity, she travelled throughout the five Dakota reservations, visiting the more than 60 government and missionary schools within her jurisdiction, and writing detailed evaluation reports on each school she visited.
It was because of her work that Elaine just happened to be visiting the Pine Ridge Reservation when the tragic Wounded Knee Massacre took place. As a result of this tragedy, more than 200 men, women, and children from the Lakota tribe were killed, and another 51 were wounded. In addition, 25 government soldiers were also killed, most by “friendly fire,” and another 39 were wounded. Following the massacre, Elaine and her fiance, physician Charles Eastman of the Santee Sioux tribe, cared for the survivors and wrote detailed government reports to accurately describe what happened.
In her later years, when America was experiencing a back-to-nature revival, Elaine and her husband operated Indian-themed summer camps in New Hampshire. Read more of the life story of this fascinating educator in Theodore D. Sargent’s biography The Life of Elaine Goodale Eastman, or an encapsulated version in my book, Chalkboard Champions: Twelve Remarkable Teachers Who Educated America’s Disenfranchised Students, both available on amazon.
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Happy Labor Day, teachers!
Labor Day celebrates the workers who have made America the country it is today. And all throughout the country, our public schools are full of some of the hardest-working people I have ever met. Teachers, administrators, support staff, custodians, counselors, teachers’ aids—they all work some of the longest hours of any professionals around. They invest countless hours in our kids, including long days, weekends, even summer and winter vacations. Most educators are driven by one driving mission: Making sure students get access to the education and life skills they need to succeed. Happy Labor Day, Teachers!
