Thursday, September 11, 2008

7 years later

September 11th happened in my 2nd week of my teaching career. I remember I hadn't yet received my first paycheck as a teacher.

The news came slowly. I heard an off-hand comment from a skittish woman I worked with that the U.S. had been bombed, but had no idea that it was a big deal until shortly before noon, when the principal came on the PA. He explained, briefly, what was happening, and told us school was out, and that was that. Kids cheered. No one really knew that our world had changed.

I went home to my two roommates, also new teachers, and we sat in a coma of television coverage for hours. I welcomed the fact that school wasn't cancelled the next day; returning to a degree of normalcy was helpful.

I dug up my old blog and checked out my entry I wrote that day. It is not particularly insightful or well-written, but it certainly put me in that moment again. Which is important to do.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was also in my second week of teaching. I taught second grade at the time and had only managed to regularly get them to the cafeteria without riot-like behavior once prior to that day. As I walked them into the cafeteria, I noticed teachers standing around a t.v. outside the janitor's office, but was so intent on getting the kids to lunch alive, I didn't stop. I was so new to Baltimore, I didn't understand how close we were to the Pentagon. I remember going home and freaking out (I was alone) and randomly deciding I should go grocery shopping...just because I needed to have people around me. My girlfriend found me standing in frozen foods, completely freaking, and wishing I had stayed back home where it was safe.