What's the big deal with 12/07/41 anyway? It's not like it's 09/11/01. (Redux)

There's something I noticed during my first eight years of public education: In all that time, I never once had a class in which we completed the textbook. This means English, Math, Spelling and History, especially History. It seemed like every time we got close to World War II, it was already the last day of school.

I think the reason for this was that the History teachers were alive when World War II was going on and remember that period very vividly. To talk to students about things they lived through probably made them feel old, so they probably delayed getting to that subject as long as possible and spent a lot more time on the Civil War, which they likely didn't experience (although I don't know about some teachers I had).

So when we came to my first period English class on 12/07/77, the teacher asked if we were aware the occasion that this particular day marked. None of us knew. She got really upset and went on this rant about the importance of this day and how we should know what happened in 1941.

None of us knew what to say. I mean, we all knew about Pearl Harbor, but no one ever made a big deal about the date. She made it seem like it was our fault we were ignorant. It wasn't. I felt that if she felt so strongly about everyone knowing what December 7th was, she should have been a History teacher. We probably would have been better off.

However, I will point out that she made no mention of the anniversary for 11/22/63 when that came to pass two weeks prior.

I will say this: After that incident, I always knew what December 7th was about.

So this makes me wonder if the events of 09/11/01 will be regarded in the same fashion come 2037. Eighth graders that year will have been born in 2024, which is just 11 years from now. Will they know the date, or will they just know about that time that terrorists crashed jets into the World Trade Center? It also makes me wonder how much history students are going to have to learn at that point in time. It seems like every year, we gather more and more history. This means some stuff gets pushed out of the way.