story20731.xml

story20731.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2006-09-11

As a school teacher I was in class with 9th graders teaching government.I had just put an original paper from the bombing of Pearl Harbor away when I received a text message on my phone from CNN. It read a plane has flown into a building in New York. I quietly leaned over to a student to go the the library for a tv and video connection. It was about 9:10 a.m. For the remainder of the day students in my class and school stayed glued to the TV. We watched the second plane go into the building and heard reports from the Pentagon. I sat on the heater by the window of my classroom as students watched in awe the happenings on TV. I called a friend in DC, Quannah- just 2 miles from the Pentagon. She was in the street crying with her neighbor who knew people on the American flight and flew as an Attendant for American. Quannahs' husband worked in the Pentagon but was in Korea at the time. My students didn't know what to think. Quannah cried that she heard the plane go by the house...she heard the explosions. I could still hear explosions in the background as we spoke.
Students kept coming in my room. Classes congregated in rooms where there were televisions. A room that normally had 30 kids now had 50. They were quiet and respectful, but where full of questions as to why would it happen. Kids checked the internet about the Pentagon and found it had been dedicated on September 11. One boy was very upset, yet couldn't verbalize why... he came back the next day and told me his Aunt worked at the Pentagon and made it out safely. I remember the superintendent of schols came by to make sure the kids were fine. It was a memorial day as a teacher and one I hope I don't have to repeat.