On September 11, 2001, I was teaching in my second grade classroom unaware of what was happening in New York and in Arlington, Virginia. The school secretary called me over the intercom telling me I had a phone call in the office. When I answered the call, it was my husband. He told me that he was watching the tv and that planes had crashed into the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Virginia. The newscasters were saying that it was a terrorist attack. I hung up and told my principal and the secretary what my husband had said. They immediately turned on the news in the office. I walked back to my classroom stunned at what I had just heard. Within the hour, the principal came to each classroom and told the teachers to just continue with our day as if nothing was happening and that we would all meet after school to discuss the next plan of action. It was difficult keeping my mind on the lessons that day knowing what I knew.
After school, we met in the lunchroom and the principal told us that we would not discuss this in class as our students' mental well being was our main concern. If parents wanted to discuss it with their children...fine, but we would not in school. At the time, our school was DK thru 4th grade.
That night, like so many others, my family watched the coverage on tv. I remember crying as I watched people running out of the buildings and down the streets, as first responders went into the damaged buildings looking for survivors and how some of those responders never came back out and the news that a plane which had been headed for the White House had gone down in a field in Pennsylvania due to the courageous actions of the passengers and crew. I felt pride at how we all came together to show that America could not be beaten and that we would find who had attacked us.
"Where were you when the world stopped turning..." by Alan Jackson
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