9/11: a Day of Service at Collingswood Schools

Most of the kids in Ryan Barney’s freshmen social studies class weren’t even in kindergarten during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

So as they pored over the periodicals of that day in a conference room near the main office at , Barney tried to place the event in a historical context.

“Find me the article that mentions Pearl Harbor,” he called to his students. “Who can tell me the difference between this and Pearl Harbor?”

Principal Ed Hill, who brought in the materials to supplement the instruction, looked on as Barney continued his lecture. In many ways, the class is an annual exercise in the broadening generational distance between a group of teenagers who are able to remember the America that existed before 9/11 and everyone else who has come since.

“This is a teaching moment,” Hill said. “The important thing is that our students are able to reflect on that time and its importance to air travel, building security, the need to have ID with you.”

Hill lived in Brooklyn when the World Trade Center was being built; he recalls it as a symbol of strength. He knew two people who were in the towers as they fell. One escaped and one did not.

Hill says the collapse of the World Trade Center created a social consciousness that the world had changed. He believes there is “a sense of immediacy that is now present in our culture,” and that it compels Americans to cling to the tragedy in an effort to process it; to accelerate the search for meaning in the devastation.

“It did show the American resolve and attitude that we will not be bullied or threatened by any group,” Hill said.

'This is the world they grew up in'

A corner of the front lawn of the high school is lined with miniature American flags, planted by Collingswood students. Each one bears a name tag that corresponds with a victim of the attacks in New York, Shanksville, PA, and Washington, DC.

The tribute is reminiscent of those seen in the early days of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, when the same tiny American flags marked the deaths of service personnel.

It underscores another key difference between the middle-schoolers who planted the flags for their class project and their counterparts only a few years older in the next building over: they have never lived in an America that was not at war.

“This is the world they grew up in,” Hill said. “They have nothing to compare it to.

“I don’t think they have a complete understanding of the war we’re in now,” he said.

A police escort on an empty highway

In 2009, Sept. 11 was formally designated as a national day of service under President Barack Obama. In observance, had their pick of five community cleanup efforts Tuesday: the and , , the , and the school grounds themselves.

“It’s part of our character education program,” said social studies teacher Beth Ann Rodgers. “9/11 is about the importance of service. What better way to demonstrate that than to serve the community?”

To underscore the importance of that message in the context of the tragedy, Rodgers invited Cpl. Tom Hartshaw of the Collingswood P.D. and Collingswood Fire Chief Keith Davis to speak to the students before they broke off into their service groups.

In 2001, Hartshaw was in the S.W.A.T. unit and Davis was a firefighter; both traveled to New York to aid in the hours after the attacks.

Hartshaw passed around photographs from the day. Students pored over them as he described the outpouring of support that followed them throughout the ravaged city when they arrived to help.

Davis described the surreal feeling of riding up the New Jersey Turnpike in a state police escort without a car on the road nor a plane in the sky. Neither did he mince words describing the fear coursing through the group that another attack would strike.

Through it all, he said, being part of the gathering of emergency personnel that prepared to brave the next wave of danger was also a proud moment.

“A lot of good came out of that tragic event,” Davis said.

Character education

Later, when the school lawn had been weeded, the fire engines and squad cars washed, the Scottish Rite mopped, and Knight Park tidied, Davis passed out Collingswood F.D. T-shirts to thank the students for their efforts.

For some, the work was its own reward.

“It shows that we support the people that went to the site and helped out,” said 13-year-old Dominic Cotugno.

In another 11 years, the next generation of Collingswood students will be even further distant from the tragedy that “we will never forget.”

Maybe they won’t deeply understand the meaning of the day beyond a sunny afternoon spent volunteering around their hometown.  

Maybe they’ll have an even harder time conceiving of a world where you don’t take your shoes off before boarding a plane.

Maybe they’ll be lucky enough to grow up in a country that is no longer at war.

After all, Americans can do great things.