Flathead students get historical perspective of 9/11

Flathead High School social studies teachers focused on a historical perspective to the events surrounding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as they gave short presentations Thursday to inform students and dispel myths.

History students rotated through the mini-sessions, getting a historical timeline of world events leading up to the attacks, who executed the attacks and what extremist groups are.

“We are explaining that extremism is not a new thing, terrorism is not a new thing,” history teacher Kirtlye Lohaf said, listing groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and other terrorism events such as the Oklahoma City bombing. “There’s extremists of a political nature, a religious nature, environmental nature, all kinds of things.”

Lohaf said it was surprising to learn what students thought about the 9/11 attacks.

“A lot of them think Iraq was involved in September 11, so that’s a myth we’re trying to debunk. We want the juniors to have an educated outlook when they see images of 9/11 and understand the historical events,” Lohof said.

Today, juniors will hold question-and-answer sessions for a chance to have a discussion on what they learned from the presentations. The high school will also hold a memorial on Monday.

As a teacher of history, Bruce Guthrie said there are more ways to respond to the event in addition to an emotional response.

“We wanted the memorial to have more content and meaning for the students, rather than a patriotic expression they didn’t quite understand where it was coming from,” Guthrie said.

Lohaf said there is information, although limited, in their current textbooks about 9/11. The 10th anniversary was an opportune time to teach students, who were 6 and 7 years old at the time of the attacks, he added.

Flathead High School juniors Jaycee Rocha, 16, and Hunter Thorson, 16, said they learned a lot of new information. Rocha and Thorson said almost everything from the timeline presentation was new to them, beginning with the Russians attacking Afghanistan to bolster a Communist government in the late 1970s.

“Everything in there I just learned,” Rocha said.

Thorson said before the presentations, he thought that Saddam Hussein was a key figure behind the attacks.

“I definitely, before, had my mind wrapped around Saddam,” Thorson said.

The teachers said they plan to hold a similar event annually.