Like the rest of America, freshman Sarah Kalthoff watched as the World Trade Center towers came crashing down on Sept. 11, 2001. But unlike most others, she said she did not wrestle overwhelming feelings of shock, fear, anger and sadness. Since she was only 4 years old at the time, Kalthoff said for the most part, she just felt a sense that something had gone wrong.

“I don’t remember a lot,” Kalthoff said, “but I do remember standing with my brother, standing with him in front of the TV in my parents’ bedroom after we’d taken a bath and just watching all the smoke and the towers just falling.”

But even if students cannot recall exactly what changed after 9/11, according to Karen Taff, U.S. History and American Studies teacher, those changes have become integral parts of their lives.

Taff was a U.S. History teacher at this school in 2001 and was proctoring the ISTEP+ when the planes flew into the World Trade Center on 9/11, she said. She happened to take a break from supervising the students, she said, and saw the first tower on fire on a TV in the social studies office.

“I was also watching while the second plane flew into the second tower,” Taff said, “and at that point, like everybody, I realized that this was something larger than just an accident.”

Later that day and in the days that followed, she said, she and her class watched footage from the World Trade Center. Her students had similar reactions to the adults, she said, reactions of confusion, anger and fear. However, she said, they gave their teachers the difficult task of explaining what had happened and why, even though teachers were still trying to find answers for themselves. All this, Taff said, was a very draining experience for her.

“I remember that it was a Tuesday, and I remember that for most of the next week through Friday, like everything in there, the world just stopped,” Taff said. “We talked about it, watched a lot about it, tried to carry on, but certainly by the end of the week, we were in a very exhausted, traumatic state.”

According to Kalthoff, she believes that any fear or anxiety she experienced after the attacks pales in comparison to the feelings of those who were older and more aware.

“I think it would have been a lot more scary to understand that this is real and it’s happening, because when you’re little, you’re kind of oblivious to everything,” Kalthoff said.

For senior David Sutton, the mere experience of seeing the planes hit the towers played an important role in how he understands the attacks. Sutton was in second grade at the time, but it was only when he came home after school that he found out what had happened and saw the attacks on TV, he said. When his parents tried to explain what was going on, Sutton said, he didn’t quite understand, but he still felt sad.

“If I didn’t have that memory of coming home and seeing the second tower go down, it would have been a different experience,” Sutton said. “Remembering feelings and remembering facts are two different things.”

According to Sutton, while he comprehended little of the magnitude of the attacks, his younger sister, freshman Jill Sutton, probably understood even less.

Jill said she was most attuned to the fact that the adults around her were so afraid. According to her, she thinks she understood what happened more than other children her age did because she has five older siblings and parents who were very open with her. However, Jill said, her older siblings comprehended more because they were aware of world events in general. Also, she said, the fact that New York was so far away from her made the attacks harder to understand.

“Because I wasn’t there in that general area, it was hard to put the numbers to life,” Jill said.

Like his sister, David said for the next year he noticed adults around him being afraid and uptight. According to David, he remembers that every time his teachers perceived a remote threat they would cancel recess.

According to Taff, students who were young children on 9/11 often remember that day in terms of what concerned them at the time, like recess. She said she notes a contrast in how her daughter, who was in fourth grade, wanted to know what was going on, while her son, who was in second grade, was upset that the attacks were all that played on TV.

“I distinctly remember him saying, ‘I don’t want to watch any more of this,’” Taff said.

Part of her son’s distress was the fact that Taff herself was so upset, she said. According to Taff, many of her students were troubled because they saw that their parents were troubled.

In general, Taff said, the nation fell into fear, which led to expanded funding for security in airports, post offices and even schools. While this school had already revamped its security after the Columbine shootings in 1999, the security cameras installed throughout the school were set up only after 9/11, Taff said. While the situation did warrant a certain amount of fear, Taff said many people wanted more assurance of their safety than was necessary.

“(There was) a desire on the part of administration and school leaders to be able to demonstrate that they had taken concrete measurable actions to provide security,” Taff said.

According to Jill, people became more mistrustful after 9/11 as part of how afraid they were, citing heightened scrutiny and security at airports as one indication of this.

“You can’t judge that people are terrorists, but you can’t say no one is (a terrorist),” Jill said.

Security, however, was not the only change that occurred in the school after 9/11. According to Taff, she herself has changed how she teaches her history classes because of the questions raised by the attacks.

“In the last 10 years, we’ve fought two wars. And I have students who are serving in the military right now. And of course we have a colleague here at the high school who lost her son in Iraq,” Taff said. “So the notions of what does it mean to be an American, what is America about in terms of our history and traditions—I think I try to bring a greater sense of urgency and reality (to that).”

According to David, this sense of what it means to be American was one of the most important consequences that came out of the 9/11 attacks.

“Immediately after 9/11, patriotism skyrocketed. We were all on the same side, and most of the world was with us. It was very unifying,” David said.

Now, 10 years later, David said patriotism has waned with skepticism after years of war overseas.

According to Kalthoff, though, whether they lived in New York at the time or know people who were affected or aren’t directly connected to the attacks at all, 9/11 affects all Americans, which led to the immediate outpour of patriotism and unity.

“You live in the United States so it affects you. You live in the same country as all these other people who are going through this, so even if you live 3,000 miles away, it still feels like you’re right next door…Unity has played a really important role (in post-9/11 America),” Kalthoff said. “That’s what I got out of 9/11—the positive side out of the tragedy.”

For Taff, patriotism manifested itself on the Wednesday or Thursday after the attacks, she said, when she came home feeling especially emotional and drained. She went down to her basement to retrieve an American flag she had stored there, Taff said, and as she took it outside to wire it onto her mailbox, she saw her neighbor making that same tribute.

“There was a line in a Bruce Springsteen song from his album, ‘The Rising,’ which is all about 9/11—‘The sky was unbelievably blue,’” Taff said. “And there were no planes in the sky. And looking up and the flags flying—there was just something I’ll never forget—the emotion of that moment.”

High school students now, however, likely did not experience moments like this. For many, like David, life post-9/11 is all they know. According to David, he hardly remembers his life from before the attacks.

This sentiment is shared by Kalthoff, who said, “I don’t remember a lot of change (after 9/11)…I think it’s just kind of there.”

According to Taff, this lack of recollection is one of the major differences between the older and younger generations.

“So much of what you have to ask and so much of the coverage that’s going to be happening (this month) is how have we changed,” Taff said. “For (current high school students), there’s been no change because that’s been the static of your life. You’ve always lived with the post 9/11 world.”

In the years after 9/11, students often had to wait before they actually learned about the attacks. For David, it was not until fourth grade that he ever talked about 9/11 in a school setting. Jill said she learned about 9/11 in middle school, mostly in eighth grade.

According to Kalthoff, her teachers started talking about 9/11 around third or fourth grade. These lessons often took the form of extra moments of silence on the day of Sept. 11 and reading articles about the events of that day. For Kalthoff, comprehension of the magnitude of 9/11 came only when she was in seventh grade.

“It was the day of Sept. 11, and that day in school we had talked about it, and we had done an activity in class and stuff. So I decided to come home and actually watch footage of (the attacks) again because I hadn’t really watched it in a long time,” Kalthoff said. “I just remember sitting at the computer and crying because it was so scary, and I just can’t image all those people—like, it makes me feel helpless just watching it happen. And I didn’t have anything to do with it, but I just felt right there with them. I just remember feeling sad and really just angry, too, at the people who were so sick-minded to do that.”

According to Taff, revisiting the life-changing events of 9/11 is an important task for all current high school students. She said she encourages students to take the opportunity of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 to read and watch and learn about the attacks.

“Pick out—because every network’s going to have one—the best, most objective documentary special and dedicate yourself to sitting down and watching it from beginning to end and learn about it from the perspective of not a 7- or 8- year old, but a 17-year-old,” Taff said.

Learning about 9/11 now as young adults, Taff said, will help students understand what happened that day in terms of history and how it affects them today.

From Kalthoff’s point of view, this 10th anniversary provides another sort of opportunity for Americans looking back at the tragic event of 9/11.

“I hope that this 10th year of remembering would be blessed, and that people who were affected and even people who weren’t—just everyone in the nation—would understand that this is our past but also know that the people who died are remembered and loved,” Kalthoff said. “Part of the future is working to make sure that these things don’t happen again. I think that 10 years have gone by, and we haven’t had another one, so I think people need to make sure they keep faith and they remember, but they also look forward.”