It has been 25 years since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. No students currently attending Newton Public Schools were alive for that date. 

A display curated by Newton High School Librarian, Cathlina Bergman, is helping students understand not only what happened, but what it felt like to experience the tragedy that pre-dates their lives. The collection features newspapers and magazines published in the days and weeks following the attacks.

“While teens have studied 9/11 as a historical event, it was something that many of the adults in their lives experienced firsthand, and it changed us forever,” Bergman said.

Much like when earlier generations can remember where and when they were when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, today’s adults typically can recall the moment when they learned the United States had been attacked.

Bergman hopes that connection will help students recognize that history is not simply a collection of facts in a textbook. It is something experienced in real time by ordinary people.

“I hope this display lets the students put themselves in the shoes of those of us who were alive on September 11th, 2001,” she said. “I hope they ask the adults in their lives about their own ‘Where were you when…?’ story and ask questions about what it felt like to know our country and ordinary citizens—not soldiers on a battlefield—had been attacked and killed.”

The display also illustrates how the events of September 11 continue to shape the lives of students who had not yet been born. The attacks led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration and were followed by years of war.

“Students probably remember the early days of COVID and how the safety guidance changed as we learned more about the virus,” Bergman said. “It’s a great example of how primary sources may contain less complete information than a textbook but can capture something a textbook often cannot: the emotional experience and uncertainty of people living through an event as it unfolds.”

Bergman also hopes the display prompts conversations about the sense of unity and national pride that followed the tragedy. Talking with parents, grandparents, teachers and other adults can add personal perspectives to what students learn in class.

Several students have already stopped to examine the exhibit, and some have checked out books about 9/11 from the NHS Library.

“Together, the books and the artifacts from September 11, 2001, and the days immediately following let students ‘time travel’ to a world before they were born,” Bergman said.

The exhibit also demonstrates that a school library is about much more than books. The NHS Library holds newspapers, magazines, atlases, globes, DVDs, encyclopedias, yearbooks and artifacts spanning more than 150 years. Students also have access to learning tools ranging from digital cameras and video equipment to board games and a karaoke machine.

More important than the materials it contains, Bergman said, is the library’s role as a place where students can explore information, ask questions and connect classroom lessons to the larger world. Librarians help students find resources, evaluate their reliability and place what they discover into context.

“Often that means finding the right book,” Bergman said, “but sometimes it means a student standing in front of a newspaper that is older than they are as they realize that history once happened in real time to people just like them.”

Additional resources: Talking to Children about Terrorism, from the 9/11 Memorial and Museum