Where were you?

In my first class today a student walked in and said to me, "Did you ever notice that 9/11 is the number we call for an emergency?  911?

I told her that yes, that had occurred to me and that in the past 11 years I had often wondered if they had planned it for that day because of the significance 911 already had and that it meant emergency.  I found it interesting that she should ask that because I truly have wondered that often and have never heard anyone else voice that.

What followed was a 10 minute discussion with the students about things in your life that happen and you can say, "Where were you when..."

The students I had today have never known a pre 9/11 America.  They have grown up with Osama Bin Laden as a name they have always known.  I hadn't thought if it that way until today.  In their life, terrorism on American soil has always been a reality, where to most of us it was a shock and something I think we never thought would happen.  We were used to terrorism happening elsewhere, but not here in America to us.

So in this discussion with the students they were bringing up things like, "I'll always know where I was when I broke my arm."  This made me giggle.  I tried to explain that what I mean by a "Where were you when" event, I mean that everyone in the city, state or country would be able to answer the same question.  They looked at me with confusion.  I continued with the examples that I have had in my life.

I told them that when I was in 10th grade the Challenger exploded.  Even the Para Educator in the room didn't know what that was.  Wow, that made me feel old.  I explained that the Challenger was one of the space shuttles.  Well, NASA doesn't have a shuttle program any more, and these kids are only 10-11 years old, so to them,, that's all old news and they know nothing about it.

I said that I remember when the Berlin wall came down.  Again, complete blank faces.  Tried to explain what the Berlin wall was and blockade.  They thought it was like the Great Wall of China.  I attempted to explain the difference, but the treat of Communism and that idea is so far beyond their experiences, they just didn't get it.

A few at least knew who JFK was when I said that my parents remember where they were when JFK was shot.

It was enlightening to be seeing 9/11 through the eyes of these young students.  To us, we all remember, quite vividly probably, where we were when we heard about 9/11 and when the towers came down.  We can remember being glued to the TV and watching the same scene played over and over again.  We can remember hearing the phone calls that loved one received being played over and over again on the news.  We can see those planes in the towers, the smoke rising from the buildings.  We can see the image of the buildings crumbling to the ground.

To our students, these are a part of history, something they may study at some point, but nothing to really concern themselves with at this point.  It really has no emotional pull on them, and in some ways it confuses them why it has such a large pull on the adults around them.  Kind of like when we were kids and read about WWII or JFK being shot or Watergate.  We are old enough now that even if we didn't live these events, we know enough about them that they do have an emotional pull now.  But as kids, learning about them, they were just history, things that happened in the past and we had to learn about.  Yes, we knew it had an effect on our lives, but there was no emotional pull, no emotional tie to these events, so it was just facts and information.

I had one student tell me, "I watched the towers fall."  This made me laugh since he just turned 11.  Yes, he maybe did watch the towers fall, but he was in infant!  But he felt it was significant because his mother had told him so many times that he had watched the towers fall on TV.  He was trying to connect himself to the emotion he saw the adults having to being tied to the event.  He wanted to be a part of what we were feeling and experiencing.

I remember where I was on 9/11.  I worked at WDC at the time.  I was mom to Maggie who was 19 months old.  I was working part time in the Deer Creek building teaching 5th and 6th graders.  Since I was part time, I didn't have to be to work until about 9:45 or so.  I had seen the first tower collapse while watching TV at home before I left.  While driving to work, the 2nd tower collapsed. I remember checking the TV in the teacher's lounge and seeing that the 2nd tower had fallen while I was en route to work.

It was hard to go to class.  What do you say, what don't you say?  I remember that the staff had discussed that we needed to say something because we had students who had come to school late and knew about it and were talking about it and we didn't want the rest of the students being scared.  We confirmed that the planes had hit the towers and the towers had collapsed and that other than that, we really didn't know any more for certain.  We also made sure to affirm that we were safe in our school and nothing was going to happen there.

I remember coming home that night and Mike saying that in his High School in Battle Lake, they all had the TV's  on.  He said classes pretty much ceased for that day and class was watching the ongoing coverage.  (Reminded me of the day the Challenger exploded.  I remember my next door neighbor finding out about the Challenger and he got up and left geometry to go to the Library where it was on the TV.  He was a huge space program fan and he "needed" to be watching the coverage.)

The thing that I think I remember most about that day was the remarkable footage of the heroism occurring in NYC.  People helping others, people not caring who the others were, what their beliefs were, just helping because help was needed.  I saw on facebook tonight someone had posted a picture of Congress on the steps of the capitol singing "God Bless America."  In the caption it said, there were no Democrats or Republicans that day, just Americans.

Wouldn't it be nice if everyday we could forget our differences and focus on our similarities!