nmah5120.xml

nmah5120.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-19

The morning began uneventfully - I was using my first block planning period to get organized. My World Civilization classes had been studying the safavid empire and that Tuesday was to be devoted to a more in depth discussion of Islam. How bizarre is that? I had the television on one of the morning news shows, as always, and watched the horror unfold from the beginning. When my students (all sophomores)joined me for second block, most had no idea anything was going on. We watched the scene unfold in shocked silence. Several sobbed, but no one said a word. That's what I will remember about that day - the students were hit so hard by the images they were seeing that they were totally silent and transfixed. They didn't want to even talk about it at first - writing about it was easier. Within several days they were able to begin asking questions, and engaging in discussion about it, but not right away. This continued with my third and fourth block classes, but my connection to 9-11 will be with that first group, who lost their innocence so to speak right in my classroom as those towers fell.