It was the first few weeks of my first year of teaching, it was the very start of second period, I had a classroom of 9th and 10th grade students. The school locked us down for the day, in our second period classrooms. We watched the towers be hit, explode and go down over and over again, with our students, for the entire day.
Some of the students were young enough to not completely understand the gravity of what we were watching. Many were quiet. One student picked up on my concern and started to tear up and cry, asking to be picked up by her mother.
I watched the TV monitor, over and over for eight hours, and wept for my students, because I understood we would go to war for a very long time, and that many of them would likely enlist when they came of age. I could not wish this for them. I cried for days.
I was at home on the phone with an orthopedic nurse inquiring about the status of a client who had recently recovered from knee replacement surgery but continued to complain of knee pain. The nurse told me that she had to get off the phone because and airplane had just crashed into the Trade Center in New York. Everything changed in that moment.
I was sitting in my classroom in Spartanburg, SC alone during my planning period when an email popped up from my then spouse that the World Trade Center was bombed. That is all he knew at the time. I turned on the classroom TV, which had CNN and watched as the second plane flew into the second tower. I was thankful that I was alone, unlike the time several classes were piled in a classroom when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded before our eyes. Though, it was the same sick feeling - only the magnitude of human life compounded. Thoughts racing included "Was this our generation's Pearl Harbor?" None of us knew what the world would be after those moments and I know that I haven't felt like we have ever crawled out of it. Thanks, William.
It was the first few weeks of my first year of teaching, it was the very start of second period, I had a classroom of 9th and 10th grade students. The school locked us down for the day, in our second period classrooms. We watched the towers be hit, explode and go down over and over again, with our students, for the entire day.
Some of the students were young enough to not completely understand the gravity of what we were watching. Many were quiet. One student picked up on my concern and started to tear up and cry, asking to be picked up by her mother.
I watched the TV monitor, over and over for eight hours, and wept for my students, because I understood we would go to war for a very long time, and that many of them would likely enlist when they came of age. I could not wish this for them. I cried for days.
The events of the day come rushing back. We can never forget.
I was at home on the phone with an orthopedic nurse inquiring about the status of a client who had recently recovered from knee replacement surgery but continued to complain of knee pain. The nurse told me that she had to get off the phone because and airplane had just crashed into the Trade Center in New York. Everything changed in that moment.
I was sitting in my classroom in Spartanburg, SC alone during my planning period when an email popped up from my then spouse that the World Trade Center was bombed. That is all he knew at the time. I turned on the classroom TV, which had CNN and watched as the second plane flew into the second tower. I was thankful that I was alone, unlike the time several classes were piled in a classroom when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded before our eyes. Though, it was the same sick feeling - only the magnitude of human life compounded. Thoughts racing included "Was this our generation's Pearl Harbor?" None of us knew what the world would be after those moments and I know that I haven't felt like we have ever crawled out of it. Thanks, William.