Teaching a new generation in Naples the horrifying 9/11 attacks

Do you remember where you were on Sept. 11, 2001? High school seniors this year were born the year the attacks happened. For schools, including Royal Palm Academy, it means teaching a new generation about the grim time in the history of our country.

Siena is in the 8th grade. She was not alive when the Sept. 11 attacks happened. But her teachers at Royal Palm Academy were and explained the horrifying historical event.

“Here are the planes. Here are the Twin Towers. This is what happened,” Siena said. “Like, no filters.”

Siena told us she is glad there were no filters and no textbooks either.

“They would just tell us from their perspective,” Siena said. “Like how they saw things we didn’t have to learn through a textbook because they were already alive and they could just tell us.”

Audrina, a 6th grader, said because of this day, she now knows how many people are willing to give up their lives to protect our country. This is how she would explain 9/11 to others.

“Someone that you don’t know is out there and protected you and your family,” she said, “so that you could live today during 9/11.”

Scott Baier, the principal of Royal Palm Academy, said the students chose to focus on hope, not the pain. Tough questions, like why it happened, Baier told us those people wanted to do us harm.

“But we’re safe and we have people to protect us,” Baier said. “And we’re here to move forward and remembering what it’s all about to be an American.”

Remembering what it is all about to be an American is what the class did on the 9/11 memorial.

“We look back on it,” Baier said. “We learn from it and we grow from it.”