story9088.xml

story9088.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-02-24

I was a 22 year old, first year teaching assistant at a specialized high school for the emotionally disturbed in Springfield, Virginia. It was the first class of the day, and I had just finished checking off students names from the roll call sheet in front of me, when the telephone rang. We were all used to the telephone ringing in the classroom, and no one really thought anything special about it. (The phone rang all the time, calls from psychologists to come and speak with students, calls from the main office for students to come and take medicine, calls from other teachers warning us that a particular students was having a rough morning, and to be on the lookout.) However, this particular phone call was different. The lead teacher answered it, and immediately said: "Oh no, oh that's terrible." Her hand went to her heart, and I looked up from the roll book. My first thought was that someone had passed away. She covered the reciever and said: "A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center." In my head, I said, "What a terrible accident." She spoke a bit more on the telephone with her husband, and then she exclaimed: "ANOTHER ONE JUST HIT THE OTHER TOWER!" and I said, "That's not an accident."
Having students in the room who were emotionally fragile, we put on our game faces and taught our English lesson without discussing what was going on. When the bell rang, I said to the lead teacher, "I'm not sure what to do about this." She said, "There's nothing to do." Another teacher joined us at the door of our classroom, "Did you hear?" she asked. We nodded that we had. "We can't talk about it in front of the students." We all decided, but spent the next few hours scrambling for information. We heard rumors, that a plane had crashed on The Mall in Washington. A helicopter had been bombed on the landing pad at the Pentagon. We didn't know what was true and what wasn't.
Being within 15 miles of the Pentagon, many of the other teachers had spouses that worked in Washington DC and the Pentagon. Looking out the windows, there were many people standing in the parking lot, dialing cellular phones, crying and trying to reach their loved ones.
At lunch that day, the kids were catching on that something had happened, so we decided to make it a relaxing day. We showed movies instead of teaching, and the kids were calm.
In the custodian's closet, a small black and white television was set up, and people stopped in to see what was new.
Most of our students live in Washington DC, and are bused into our Springfield, VA school. All the roads leading into and out of DC were shut down, and we were told that we may have to spend the night in the school with the kids, if they couldn't get on busses home. No one wanted to abandon the kids, but no one wanted to spend the night separated from their loved ones. By the end of the day, everyone, even the teachers, were beginning to become frazzled, ready to leave, to go home, to be safe, to be with family and friends. We had Fairfax County police officers escort the school buses into the city, so that the children could get home. As soon as the last bus left the parking lot, we teachers all jumped in our cars and sped home.
I remember looking out the window at the faces of other drivers. Everyone looked dazed.
I arrived home, and my roommate was watching the news. I sat down on the couch beside her, still in my work clothes, and watched, for my first time, the two World Trade Center buildings collapse.
The following morning, our neighborhood (which is closer to the Pentagon than my school) smelled heavy with chemicals and smoke. We could smell the Pentagon burning.