RACINE, Wis.— Like most of us, Michael Jensen remembers exactly where he was when he heard the news of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Now, he heads to that same building every day for work. 

Jensen was a sophomore at Case High School when the loudspeaker clicked on.

“I heard on the loudspeaker something had happened,” Jensen told his current students during his first-period current events class. “The teacher had the old school TV on the cart and she wheeled it in and we just watched the news.” 

Today, Jensen teaches just three classrooms down from where he sat as a fifteen-year-old and watched the events of 9/11 unfold. As a social studies teacher, he has a unique challenge faced by many teachers around the country: How do you address 9/11 with students who were not alive when it happened.

For Jensen, the answer is twofold. He works to address the long-term impacts 9/11 continues to have on society. In addition, he said he tries to personalize the stories of the ones we lost on that fateful day. 

“I am trying to always have that human element to it," said Jensen. “Putting a face to the event so they can gain proper context for the impact. In my mind, it is becoming less of a historical event and more of this event that has all these things that shoot off of it that impact our daily lives today.”

Jensen said he utilizes the New York Times as a resource; he's compiled stories of everyone who was killed on 9/11. Students then pick one victim to research. They write a synopsis of their findings on a notecard, which are compiled together to form a flag that hangs in Jensen's classroom. 

“You see their picture. It's like 'Wow, this person actually got killed either in the building or by a plane or crashing themselves.' It is just so surprising,” Bryonna Billips said. 

Billips is a junior in one of Jensen's social studies classes who worked on the assignment. She said a lot of what she knows about 9/11 comes either from teachers or family members, specifically stories from her grandma. 

The Racine Unified School District said it has worked to ensure 9/11 is addressed across all grade levels in an age-appropriate manner, providing teachers with numerous resources to teach from. In addition, RUSD planned to observe a moment of silence at schools across the district Friday.