It was a Tuesday early in the semester. I almost scolded my fifth-grader to turn off the TV since we never had it on that early, but he turned to me with wide eyes and said, "New York is under attack. People are hijacking planes out of Boston. One of the twin towers just collapsed." My folks had taken off from Boston early that morning. (But a quick phone call relieved that fear: their flight was cancelled.)
Still, I sent him to school and drove numbly to mine. A colleague had cancelled class and instead tuned to news coverage on the AV monitor, but I let students vent for a few minutes and then taught as usual, as the course didn't address current events or history. Later, we held our first High Muckety-Muck Committee meeting of the year and got nothing done, as usual. A year later we were going over minutes and were shocked that we hadn't cancelled on that day.
It took a couple of weeks to understand why I felt so tense and uninterested in social obligations and department chitchat. Couldn't they see how pointless it all was? I started plastering the classroom walls with news clippings about the local neighborhoods and turbans associated with different ethnic groups and how none of them were flying those planes.
Thirsty: How did you handle Sept. 11, 2001 in the classroom or on campus?
I was adjuncting at three different campuses. Two of the campuses cancelled class, but the third did not (and had a policy of "no class? no pay."). I did the best I could - dismissed anyone who didn't want to be there, let the rest stay, and we talked about the day. Historical events. The need for tolerance. The fears of an ongoing attack.
ReplyDeleteI also got the opportunity to point out that the small number of students of Middle Eastern descent were not in class that evening, and asked students to consider why that might be. None of them talked about conspiracies, all of them recognized that those students might be afraid to come to school. I was very proud of my students that evening.
I had been working one of my jobs the previous night and my starter motor had died. My mother and I were having it towed and we had been listening to NPR up until five minutes before the attack. So it wasn't until I got home and saw the news that I knew the first plane had hit. I saw the second in real time.
ReplyDeleteI was living on the flight path to a large international airport and watched the planes practically drop out of the sky as US airspace was closed. It was about two hours into the attack before I found out that my father had boarded a flight out of Newark International that morning headed for Vancouver. It took me five hours to find out that he was stranded in the midwest.
The community college I was attending canceled class and I probably wouldn't have gone either way that day. So I went to the local hospital and gave blood. I couldn't think of anything else to do.
I worked at a Kinko's in downtown Chicago, next to one of the tallest buildings in the country that houses 40,000 employees.
ReplyDeleteThe building evacuated. My boss refused to let anyone go home.
So I spent the day printing out signs about never forgetting and donating blood and realizing all day long that this was going to be the beginning of a long-standing conservative shit-fest of killing people, making fucked-up laws, and touting safety as the reason for screwing people over.
Hey look, I was right.
I was in class, as a student. We didn't have any idea what was going on until a classmate that had left the classroom to go to the bathroom came back breathless, as she had seen was was happening in a television in a room that she passed on the way back. We didn't have a TV, but we did have a radio and we listened. At the time, my then boyfriend (now husband) was deployed and all I could think about was that he was overseas. Although I went to other classes that day, we didn't actually have class. We all quickly made our way to a next classes to continue to see what was happening.
ReplyDeleteI had a cousin in the first grade, and my aunt asked me to pick him up, as she couldn't get off from work. When I picked him up he looked at me with his huge innocent and scared eyes and asked me what was happening. He knew something was wrong. I didn't know what to tell him, so I wrapped him in a huge hug and told him that some very bad people had done some very bad, very mean things, but that he was safe and that I wouldn't let anything happen to him. Then he asked if the bad people were going to be punished because when you do bad things you get in trouble, and all I could tell him was that my husband (who he thought was the coolest dude in the world) was over there and would make sure the bad people were punished and that we would be safe. That seemed to satisfy him, and I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to entertain him without turning on the television,
I was teaching high school, on the Left Coast. I did not want to get out of bed that morning. My husband popped into the bedroom and said "hey, you should get up and check this out--a plane hit the World Trade Center."
ReplyDeleteWe stood in the dark living room and stared at the bizarre images. Then the second plane hit. We looked at each other and said "holy shit. It's on purpose."
I drove to school. One of my students, an exchange student who had just arrived here a couple of weeks earlier, was standing out in the middle of the parking lot. I went to check on her; she looked at me and said "We're all going to die." [She ended up in a psych ward within the next few days. Her parents had to wait for the flight restrictions to lift, of course, before they could fly to take her home.] Two other exchange students also went home as soon as possible.
When my students came in for each class, they were in various states of shock and agitation. We jettisoned that day's lesson, and talked. We circled up our desks. I had them journal, if they felt like it. We talked about how important it is to live each day well, and to hold our loved ones close. I talked with them about how we all needed to avoid jumping to conclusions and spreading rumors, and vet our sources of information. The prior summer I'd attended an Islamic studies conference. I have friends who are Muslim. Most of my students had never met a Muslim. I spent a lot of time trying to plant seeds of fact and reason in the hope that, whatever direction events took, my students would have the tools they needed to battle hatred and bigotry.
More than anything, I felt that I needed to keep it together and be a strong, calming presence for my students.
That afternoon I went for a walk. We live along a major north-south flyway, and the absence of contrails was chilling. In the following weeks, as planes returned to the sky, I found the sight of them equally chilling.
More than anything, I felt numb and exhausted. I could not, and still cannot, fathom the depths of loss and sorrow for the families and friends of those lost that day, and the thousands lost in the ensuing years in actions directly related to that day.
I was in a technical communication class as a student (I teach this class now) and wandered off to pee. [As a complete side note: At the time I thought the teacher didn't know what she was talking about, as she had no experience in the field. Today, I know she had no idea what she was talking about. Maybe my snowflakiness wasn't so bad after all.]
ReplyDeleteThere were tvs that would normally show ads for student organizations in the building, and one of them was tuned to the newscoverage. I had seen a link earlier in the day about a plane hitting a building, but there had been several incidents of small planes hitting skyscrapers lately and I thought nothing of it, so I was shocked at what was really going on.
I returned and told classmates only to have the teacher admit she knew, and, I quote, "Yes, that's going on, but shit that's happening in the world is not more important than my class. Now get back on task or I'm throwing you out."
Ugh. We stayed. One of my group members was in the National Guard and was quite rightly freaked out that he might be called in. He had his phone on silent on his desk. It was taken away. We held his hand.
Later in the day, my intercultural communications class was held and we talked about how things were being reported, how muslims would be blamed, how it wasn't fair--that was a good class. It was an excellent example of what can be done in an emergency. Four of those students went on to go into political science and are doing very well as Congressional aids and such--I'd like to think that teacher made a difference that day.
I found my students somber and reflective the day of 9/11, when I had late afternoon classes. We were in Baltimore, not so far away from things. But my students at the time were mostly grad students and seniors.
ReplyDeleteThe event that shook me and my classes the most actually happened years earlier, when I was teaching in Texas.
Walking into classes for a day or two after the Branch Dividian massacre in Waco was very difficult. We talked a lot about what it meant to live in society, and to turn one's backs on society. And what cost that brought.
I've never forgotten those days and the hollow look my freshmen had.
Calico, thank you for widening the scope to include Waco.
ReplyDeleteI remember the day after Waco happened. I looked at my high school, my government, my family and felt -- for the first time in my life -- deep-seated suspicion. It began my intense advocacy for those who are portrayed as criminals or scapegoats in the media. It's really hard even now to convince me that someone is guilty of something. I trace that to watching government tanks charge into a religious compound and massacring everyone in sight, while no one in my life seemed to care.
I was at home the day of the attacks, and quickly turned into puttering around doing mindless chores while listening to the radio, since I clearly wasn't going to be able to concentrate on the prep I was supposed to be doing. I also tried to find a way to let the three middle-eastern-looking men who had been cleaning my gutters know what had happened, without making it seem like I was suspicious of them myself (I'm old enough to remember the Iran hostage crisis, and some of the nasty reactions to people who looked "foreign" then, and didn't want to send them out onto the roads without some sort of warning of what was going on). I think I said something about possibly heavy traffic, and the reasons for that, and hoped they'd figure it out from there.
ReplyDeleteThe next day, our campus was open, and I taught my classes, which were composed entirely of first-years who seemed rather disappointed that classes hadn't been canceled. I explained that since the goal of the attacks had been to disrupt our lives, it made sense to carry on, since we were in a position to do so. Some of them bought it; some didn't. And I, too, noticed that women wearing headscarves and more completely-covering versions of Islamic dress -- a fairly common sight on our campus -- were nearly all missing that day.
We were renovating the basement at the time and the contractor was half an hour late, which was unusual. When he got there with his guys he said "you won't believe what's happening, a plane has hit the World Trade Center, turn on your TV!" We did, and watched the coverage, horrified.
ReplyDeleteMy university responded admirably. I don't remember if I had classes that day but all classes were cancelled in the afternoon to make space for a joint service by all of the chaplains, beginning with the Muslim chaplain, in the middle of the central square. The imam began with a reading from the Koran, that killing was forbidden, that Allah's way was the way of peace, to emphasize that this was not done "by Muslims" but by terrorists, pure and simple. The other chaplains followed with prayers for all those affected, and for world peace. The university even managed to scramble the University Chorus, on 2 hours notice, for appropriate music.
We felt such enormous sympathy and solidarity with our American cousins that day and for weeks afterwards, like so much of the world. Whenever I have to fly through an American airport these days and am irritated at having to strip to the skin and get felt up by guards I try to remember that if people were blowing up buildings and murdering thousands of innocents in my country I might be a little antsy myself.
I taught. At that point I wasn't at all sure whether my own mother was alive or dead, but I taught. Didn't know what else to do.
ReplyDeleteStella, was your mother okay?
ReplyDeleteI was not in academia at this time, but rather working a corporate job. The owner of the company came over to my desk to complain about how the attack was going to hold up the shipping of our merchandise. He only let us all go home at nearly 4:00 (it was only an hour before quitting time)because he saw none of us could concentrate, and he was furious with all thirty of us (sales, marketing, customer service, warehouse) for not doing our jobs.....
ReplyDeleteI was in my first week at a new teaching assignment in NYC ... about a mile north of the Twin Towers. After the first plane hit, I walked a couple block to an electronics store to get an antenna for the classroom TV. I'm pretty sure I saw the second strike as it happened.
ReplyDeleteMy wife was taking the day off ... it is her birthday ... and she was 7 months pregnant with our first child.
I also was doing a lot of travelling as an officer in a national professional organization. I had the fortune of being bumped into first class during an August flight (when silverware was still actually metal) and then had to fly again on October 11, 2001. Things were quite a bit different.
As of 09/11/11, I am teaching online exclusively so there was little classroom impact.
But, needless to say, the day will always a certain resonance for me.
I was on active duty, in training to be an instructor pilot. We were in classroom training that day, which continued, but with snippets of events coming in during breaks. We had no doubt it would significantly alter our career paths.
ReplyDeleteOur college didn't close or cancel classes.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough, I had a blood drive scheduled that day. The line was so long we started making appointments and had the whole day filled by 10:00 am CDT. Students, faculty, and staff were being turned away unless they were documented O negative.
After seeing the footage of the planes hitting the towers, and of their collapse, I made my way across campus to my first class at 11. About half of the students looked shell-shocked and the other half were chatting like normal. When I arrived, they all realized that something was up because I did not have my normal class materials with me. I told them what was going on, as far as I knew. One student asked me about the "bombing in Pittsburgh," but I had not no news for him. At that point, I had not yet heard about Flt. 93.
ReplyDeleteAfter we talked for awhile, and I was pretty sure that they were OK, I dismissed them, though I stayed to comfort a student whose sister worked in lower Manhattan (she wound up being OK, thankfully). I teach in NY state and many of our students have ties to the city. Our campus was closed by the governor not long after that, which meant that my afternoon class was canceled. At that point, several of us went over to the student union, where the Counseling Center staff had set up shop. We hung out and talked with students until the evening.
It was my first week of grad school, and I found out when my 9:00-10:00 class let out. A classmate heard via the administrators in the main office and told us all that a plane had hit the WTC. We assumed it was a tragic accident, and I went upstairs to my lab. That's where I saw a Russian post-doc crouched next to a radio, looking scared out of her mind, and she explained that a second plane had just hit the towers.
ReplyDeleteAs the events of the morning unfolded, my advisor eventually came into the room and turned off the radio, saying that it was distracting us from our lab work. Seriously. We had no idea who was attacking or why or whether they were done, and he wanted us to get back to pipetting. (I ended up doing my graduate research in a different lab.)
I biked home at lunchtime and grabbed a little portable radio with headphones I'd gotten at a job fair, then listened to it the rest of the day while pipetting.
@Annie: Yes, my mother was fine, but I didn't know for days. I had spoken to her the night before, and she was all set to go into the city the next day, and was to be exactly around the Twin Towers at the time they were hit.
ReplyDeleteShe got a late start. Curiously enough she was also in Madrid exactly when it was hit a couple of years later--and her hotel was only a few blocks away. We have this family joke that Al Qaeda is actually trying to kill my mother.
Note to everyone: never travel with Stella's mother. ;)
ReplyDeleteI was working in investment banking. I was at home that morning because I'd switched with another researcher to come in during the afternoon. I saw the second plane hit on live tv. It was all I could do not to throw up.
ReplyDeleteTwo of our Managing Directors (one of whom is now the mayor of Chicago) were supposed to be flying back from NY. We didn't know if they were on the planes. My cousin Bob, a surgeon, got a 110 mph police escort across the GW bridge, but they had no one to save. He said it was well over 100 degrees at 3:00am--the heat from the buildings was tremendous.
When I came back to teaching in 2002, I tried doing "units" on 9/11. Students weren't that interested. And 10 years later, they were little kids when it happened, and it's just another cultural artifact.
Our campus handled the anniversary by placing a ginourmous enlarged photo of the fiery destruction of the Twin Towers right before they collapsed, as a "tribute," in the lobby entrance so that every student, faculty, and staff member would be greeted with this "remembrance." It made us all feel sad and anxious as we entered each morning, forced to look at an image of the largest mass murder in US history. They have been swapping out the photos - last week it was the fiery inferno, today it was the charred wreckage. Perhaps a huge photo of a pile of corpses will greet us tomorrow. Thanks for helping us to "remember," for a moment there we almost got through the anniversary without feeling intense despair. While everyone else is remembering, some of us are still trying to forget, just a little, just enough to make it as close to bearable as such a thing can be.
ReplyDeleteI was a postdoc, plugging away on a lab computer, occasionally flipping over to my web browser to either track down an article or goof off, and I read the breaking news headline about the 2nd plane hitting on one of those gateway webpages at the time, I think it was Yahoo. I immediately flipped over to cnn.com but the webpage was already down, consisting solely of an America Under Attack headline and a blurry photo of people covered in dust. I decided to head over to the grad pub, where I knew there'd be a big television blaring the news.
ReplyDeleteWhat sticks out most in my mind was that immediately opposite of me was an office with two Arab postdocs, and I was met with a strange sight as I came out into the hallway. They were standing very close to each other in the middle of their office, facing each other, looking down at the floor, hands on hips, not saying a word, with grim, grim faces. I stopped in my tracks and looked into the office, wondering what was going on with these two. I'd never heard of al Qaeda or bin Laden until later that day, but these fellows obviously had, and they obviously knew what the near future had in store for them as young Arab males.
I was in my office, sorting out a few things with three of my research students. One of the Biology professors stuck her head in and said "Look out your window."
ReplyDelete@Kari: I'm so sorry.
ReplyDelete@Everyone: I'm so sorry if you lost someone that day.
@Patty: I'd be pissed off, too, with the photos. In fact, I've been pissed off at my college's anniversary responses, complete with patriotic bunting, every year. Rah, rah. My goal in asking was to weigh my own classroom response to what other people did, hoping to learn whether I did the right thing. I learned that I did not.
@Everyone: Thank you for opening up, for widening the scope to include Waco, and (especially those who were students or low-level employees at the time) teaching me how to handle public traumas differently in the classroom. May we never need to use these lessons.
Most of you started grieving immediately, while I stumbled numbly through what Joan Didion has called "the dailiness of life."
“It was in fact the ordinary nature of everything preceding the event that prevented me from truly believing it had happened, absorbing it, incorporating it, getting past it.”
Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking (writing about her response to the sudden death of her husband)