On being a teacher on 9/11/01

A colleague and a friend of mine walked by my room that beautiful, high-pressure brilliant sky Tuesday morning and motioned for me to come outside. I was a sixth grade teacher in a public school in a community that was home to several synagogues, a handful of churches and a large Islamic center which included a mosque and a school and a community center.

Becca’s summons to step out into the hall was nearly unheard of, and especially from this particular gal. If you saw a colleague actively teaching in the front of the room, with students’ eyes on her, you didn’t ask them to step out. It’s a courtesy and practicality that was tacit but understood and appreciated by all of us, I think. It’s a challenge to get elementary school kids to attend to something you’re doing on the board. I looked surprised, but she beckoned again. I excused myself and went out.

“Two planes have hit the Twin Towers in New York and I think I heard them say something about the Pentagon.”

“What?” This was confusing, and as usual, my friend was calm. Well, pretty calm. She repeated this information.

“They think it’s a terrorist attack.”

It was not making sense to me.

I wanted more information, more details, more everything, but there were twenty- five 11-year-olds in the next room where I had fortunately thought to shut the door to the hall. So I did what I needed to do for my job, and I went back in and taught Math.

Later, when the kids were at music or gym or something, I went down to the office. People were just sort of hanging around. I put myself down next to a young first grade teacher who was sitting on what I thought of frankly as the “bad kids’ couch” – it was right outside the principal’s office. We talked about how our cats had seemed strange that morning before we left for work, like they knew something was up. I really did think that, and so did she. Cats know all sorts of things; maybe they knew that a shift in the world was about to occur.

During lunch, teachers went into to the back room of the library and watched one of the only TVs in the building (this was before they were so ubiquitous in schools, or any place else except over bars.) There in the back of the library, hidden from children’s eyes, those two planes crashed into the towers over and over and then, the towers fell to the ground. Over and over. We didn’t tell the kids. All day, we would walk through the long halls of our school with trails of little kids behind us in line doing whatever kids do in line. The adults were silent, but we met each other’s eyes in the halls as we passed and said nothing. Our job was to hold a safe place for the children. I had the kids do reading, writing; I don’t know. I was distracted.

On September 12, we had a before school faculty meeting where we discussed how to handle the topic should it come up in the classroom. Those of us who taught the upper grades were encouraged to facilitate discussion as far as we felt appropriate. Sure enough, when the bulk of my class had come in and the day started, hands were up all over the room. I heard questions, comments about protesters they had seen and other concerns, observations speculation, and disappointment over us having school that day. Mostly, I was proud of my kids for being respectful in their discussion, and I did my best to give out the message that this was a small group of people; that it didn’t represents all members of the Muslim faith, etc, etc. Then, the phone rang.

The office called and said that some of my students would be coming a little late and that they were “carpooling.” These were the boys in my class and in the class across the halls that were Muslim. When I poked my head out of the door to check on them, I saw them, all walking down the hall in a line. They were all wearing Red Sox shirts, New England Patriots shirts and one had on that year’s Old Navy shirt with the American flag on it. Yesterday they were Omar, Faisel, Jawad, Kadir. in a suburban sixth grade class with Josh, Sarah, Luke, Jessica, and all the others. Today, they felt like they had to show they were American.

Omar, usually a truly happy camper, sat at his desk and put his head on it. Kadir, one of the most gifted and cheerful kids in the class sat on the windowsill and looked out at the playground for most of the morning. And really, I don’t remember the rest of that day or the days that followed. Kids are resilient, and as one of my former teaching mentors would say, “People return to type after a while.” We got through that day and days to follow.

9/11 opened my heart to the suffering of those particular boys on that day, I know that much. I try to balance what I know to have been the heinous actions of a few extremist people with politics, a work life in an increasingly diverse community, a home life where my neighbors put up flags and some who put “Terrorist hunting permits” on their trucks for months after those attacks.

How did 9/11 change the world? This is what we educators would call a great Essential Question. Regardless, 9/11 is a part of my memory as an adult and as a teacher, and for the latter reason maybe more than the former, it will always be a part of me.