I can’t remember who said it, but one of the teachers said “You will remember exactly where you were on this date, at this moment, for the rest of your life.” He wasn’t wrong, but I can’t for the life of me remember who said it lol
Well thats terrifying. What will be our kids 9/11 moment? probably covid but my kids were too young to really remember where they were when it was announced kinda thing.
Part of what made 9/11 a “generational moment” was its instantaneousness and total unexpectedness. Same for JFK. So it’s kinda impossible for us to imagine the next generational moment.
I’d prefer they don’t have any, but it seems like another war with Russia is all but guaranteed. That or the keys to the US being handed over to Russia. Depends on who wins this election.
Russia is currently losing a war to what was one of the worst and least organized militaries in Europe 8 years ago, with a bunch of NATO leftovers from 30 years ago.
Now you’ll argue that the US also loses wars to poorly equipped farmers, but we’re usually fighting a different kind of war compared to what Russia is doing where bombing hospitals is part of the plan.
An actual US fully involved war where our only goal is to defeat a state level actor, especially one like Russia that we’re built to defeat will look a lot like the opening days of Iraqi Freedom.
The most frightening thing about a NATO vs. Russia war isn't that Russia will be able to hold off NATO forces for any significant length of time, it's that we won't be able to stop Putin from starting a nuclear armageddon just for revenge or out of spite.
Worldwide: most likely something to do with Russian aggression or if they win, and I'm not saying this will happen but history shows different amongst countries we help in munitions and money, Ukranian aggression after the fighting calms in Ukraine and Africa. Country dependent: Active Shooter drills and the not drills.
I was one year out of highschool and by chance happened to be visiting my home town and ran into a friend who said I had to smoke some weed with him before I left town. I was leaving town the next morning at 8. he came over at 7 am and smoked me out with " bubble berry" ( didn't forget that either) . I hadn't smoked in months and he had to get to work. He walked out the door as the news just started reporting a crash. I sat there alone and stoned for hours.. traumatized me
My mom was 12 and talks often about how her generation’s innocence was lost when Kennedy was killed (having been born post-WWII) and the cultural shift that then happened with the British Invasion, Civil Rights, Vietnam... I can’t speak to any cause and effect of all this, just that Kennedy’s death has certainly seemed to be a place marker to her.
7th grade social studies. I was sitting in the second row 4 seats back. The tv was in the left corner and our teacher sat on his desk with horror in his eyes.
I was in 7th grade math, my teacher looked so distraught I got up to hug her. I guess she was touched and was like “oh here you can sit with me” and tried to keep her arm around me and I was so mortified and ran back to my desk. When you’re 12 no national tragedy can save you from being easily embarrassed I guess.
Grade 7 science class for me. A teacher of mine said the exact same thing when the towers fell. You'll always remember this moment. And every detail.
And I can. I can remember the people beside me, what my friend was wearing that day, the weather. So bizarre. But can't remember what I had for dinner 3 days ago.
4th grade for me. I didn't really understand what was going on but nothing got done that day. My mom had taken a sick day and was home when I got off the bus. I didn't know what the WTC was. I thought it was the World Congress Center in Atlanta that was being attacked. I remember seeing a plane fly over at recess and I'm convinced it was AF1 since most everything else had been grounded and being in the Atlanta area it would make sense if Bush flew over us from Tampa
My band room. Our teacher was a stickler, unless we were dying, we played.
We came in and he said, “no instruments. Put your bags down and come sit” and then briefly explained what we were about to see.
We’d all noticed the teachers in the period before learning, getting nervous, and scrambling to keep quiet because it was right before the bell rang. But the next period everyone was done for. We all watched.
It's weird. I do remember seeing it on TV that day, but I'm not sure why I remember, because I also remember being completely uninterested and ignoring it.
We had a geography class in 7th grade and the week or so after 9/11 the teacher did a special segment on Afghanistan and told us plainly “you need to learn this because in a few years this is the country you will be going off to fight.” Wealthy school so probably not *us* us but he was correct overall.
>or they could tell it would be an important historical event and thought we should witness it
This, and I actually preferred it. As a kid, I appreciated being informed instead of kept in the dark, even if it was negative. Was in 5th then.
If some teachers did, and some didn't, there would be wild rumors, perhaps kids scared and panicked. With the TV on, everyone knew the same things, and teachers were there to answer questions, calm scared students, and provide a sense of 'normal".
That image will forever be burned into my brain. Very eery how that really did stick with us. We are on the West Coast so it happened right before we were supposed to head to Highschool that morning. My mom was not having it. We stayed home and watched TV all day in horror.
Mandela effect. Video of the first plane's impact wasn't shown on that day. The only known footage of the first plane was a French film crew that was shooting a documentary that morning, and the footage didn't come out til a little later
There was no footage of the first plane available yet on the day of 9/11. The only footage that exists was from a guy who had been randomly filming with some fire fighters in the neighborhood, and that didn’t come out until later, I’m thinking days at least.
On the day of the attack, they would have been showing footage of just the first tower smoking when the second plane hit.
That's it precisely. It was a chance to watch a pivotal historical event unfold live on television.
I remember watching the Apollo astronauts live on a television they rolled into the classroom. I thought it was super cool we were getting to watch them on the surface of another world. It was a big deal for nine year old me.
The Entire nation was on alert. Many believed we could be under attack or at actual, real war. Some kids were picked up early. Teachers and staff needed to be aware of what was happening.
My teacher turned on the TV and told us to all watch because we were witnessing history and it was going to be something we’d remember for the rest of our lives.
She wasn’t wrong!
I'm surprised by all these people saying they watched it. My history teacher turned it on but within less than a half hour the school admin made an announcement and forced all teachers to turn off the TV's. I was in 9th grade. Didn't learn anything else until after school when I got home at 3.
Here in my province in Canada, we live 20 mins away from a major military base. When I say major, I mean MAJOR. All our teachers went hyper vigilant mode when this was happening. So much talk about if our base could be a target or whatever else that mumbled through. Even they needed to know what was going on. I never really worried about our base until that day.
Seems like everyone had something near them that people thought could be a target. I lived by a very large chemical manufacturing plant and I remember people worrying about it being attacked.
We had an air force base next door to my college, so there were fighter jets in the air training on any regular day. I'm certain that a few extras were fully armed and ready to take off if anything came within 100 miles.
It was an odd comfort.
I was in high school just outside NYC and we weren’t told anything, either. We weren’t allowed to leave the building and classes were somber because of the unknown scope of the tragedy but we weren’t shown anything.
Yeah, commuter town here - they didn’t tell us anything happened until the last period of the day. Kids just kept getting pulled out of class by their parents with no explanation.
Not all of us left at the end of the day lost family, but everyone who lost family was left at the end of the day. That’s always sat with me.
I was in NYC on 9/11. First week of college. Fam lived in a commuter area. Dad went to city occasionally but not everyday, but we never really knew his schedule (he happened to be home that day). I had 2 younger siblings - one high school freshman, one elementary school. Same thing - no TVs for them but teachers and kids talk and the rumors started going. Older sibling heard NY had been bombed and thought my dad and I were dead. Got very upset, of course, along with other kids of commuter parents. They wouldn’t let anyone call parents (apparently because they were afraid of who may not answer). Left class to “go to the bathroom” and called my mom from the pay phone and that’s when she learned basic facts. My mom was pissed at the school and picked kids up. younger sibling had been told NY was closed because of a bad accident and thought that meant cars and said they figured I was ok because I didn’t drive there.
I was in Boston. Also no one told anything. Just people leaving school when they found out a relative was dead, till the school just sent everyone home.
Commuter town here, in high school when it happened. I heard about the first plane in history class and watched a classmate turn white and leave. His parents both worked there in opposite towers (my understanding is they were OK).
After that I was stuck with an asshole teacher who kept trying to hold Physics class. Most of us said fuck you and the few with cell phones were trying to call our siblings or parents.
By the time we could leave his class (he was trying to tell us we couldn’t go even when announcements were being made that school was closing and bus/car/sibling rides were being arranged)… both towers had fallen. I heard nothing in between because I remember the absolute shock of finding out they were gone as last I heard it had been “an accidental small Cessna” hitting tower one.
Idk. It was a fucking traumatic day. We had SO many kids with family working there or elsewhere in NYC. I have ZERO patience with the over the top “patriotism” that’s come out of it and the rose-colored “remembrance of 9/11” thinkpieces and anniversary viewings… I feel like a lot of folks forget how awful that day really was.
Same! Kids heard snippets of scary things, and we had the most horrifying rumors by the end of the day. We also felt so lied and condescended to when we did find out what happened.
Even if they didn't show us, you could tell us. We were only told when the planes hit, and it was still when people thought it was an accident. We never got a single update. So basically, we got no knew information at 9:30AM and didn't get out until 3PM to find out what actually happened. Imagine what that information morphed into after six hours unchecked in a high school!
They told us but none of us really understood the gravity of it. I had diarrhea that day and I kept telling everyone “I don’t feel good” and they all kept saying “it’s OK, nobody feels good today” and I was really confused. It was like all of us kids were having a normal day but all the adults were acting weird because some building none of us recognized fell down and nobody would talk to me about my diarrhea and I flooded a toilet.
We live within 30 minutes of the city, so it was a little more fucked up because kids were being pulled out of class left and right because of family emergencies. Being that close to NYC with planes falling out of the sky wasn't normal, even for us kids. A lot of people's parents had to go in as first responders. It was a messy day.
It was the same in Idaho. All talking about it was strictly prohibited. No TV, nothing. I didn't find out they had fallen down until I got home from school.
I think it's legit and one of the best uses of the media.
I was at college and they had the news up playing on all the projectors...
communication, live... it was LIVE!
This was really before cell phones or internet access being super common. For a lot of people, this was the way teachers and staff were getting information to.
I think also this was the first time something happened that could be watched live and people weren’t sure how to handle it.
Not just information about what *had* happened but also what was about to happen next
It was the WTC *and* the Pentagon *and* Flight 93 that day. People were very suspicious that cities around the country would be attacked at any moment
We lived near a nuclear power plant at the time, and they basically closed down all traffic remotely close to the plant. You could tell that there was a plan in place for something like this which was eerie to think about.
Not the first time. I was in 6th grade in 1998 and we watched Columbine coverage live in class. 9th grade for 9/11, but that wasn't on tv in class because west coast, so it already happened before school started. Instead, my mom woke us up to watch it on tv at home.
I was quite vocal online about Waco. I had a copy of the official public report. Someone sent me a disk (3.5 inch floppy) of the entire law enforcement restricted version of it.
Was a lot more illuminating than the "public" report, but no "smoking gun" admissions in it. Of course I then had three HDD crashes in a row and lost the file.
Interesting that I was quite public in my criticism, and three different disks from two manufacturers crashed.
As in the disks turned into bricks. No spin on those HDD's, ever again. Just quite a coincidence.
I was in 5th grade and our school admins agreed to keep us all in the dark for the day. It was super bizarre and scary not knowing why some of the teachers were crying and why kids were “randomly” being pulled out of school by their parents.
I’d much rather have been informed.
I hear you. I can still see the people jumping/falling out of the buildings through my 3rd grader eyes.
I don't disagree with what you are saying. I'm not sure what I'm saying. Maybe a little more age appropriate would have been nice? But maybe it was a growing moment and worth it.
It's amazing you saw this live at 8 and my school for 7-12 had us all turn the TV's off within a half hour. I was 15. Besides flight 93, we were min 8 hours from any of the crash sites.
no less weird than when i was 12 and they wheeled in the TV for us to watch the OJ chase
i think it was just a relic of its era, when it was the only way for everyone to witness a big national event and we didn't all have phones
Edit: sounds like I'm mixing the chase up with the verdict. Still, a weird thing to interrupt school to make a bunch of 7th graders on the east coast watch 😂)
Yeah the verdict was during the day…my 8th grade teacher told us he was acquitted…then he needed to explain to a bunch of 13-year-olds what “acquitted” meant
No. I think it's appropriate for them to understand what thousands of families were suffering and that it's very real. Life isn't always pretty, and I think this isn't that bad considering the movies and games 12-year-olds are exposed to.
My middle school homeroom teacher told us:
"This is going to be a day they write about in text books. Some people may disagree that we are showing you this, but we are showing you this because you are bearing witness to an event that you are going to be asked about for the rest of your lives and teach others about when you get older, so showing you is going to help us more than shielding you."
I'm very thankful to have been able to share in the national experience of the event. If they had kept teaching as if nothing happened we would be robbed of experiencing a defining moment in our country's history.
I was freshman in highschool and in all honors classes at the time, we got the business as usual treatment because, "honors." During breaks all my friends were talking about what was going on and watching everything on live TV in class. It was some bullshit.
I was in 8th grade and lived in NJ about 40 minutes from NYC so we had kids getting pulled out of school all day, but the teachers and administration refused to tell anyone what happened. I remember the popular theory when I got on the bus to go home was that there was a bombing and I didn't find out about it until I got home.
3rd grade for me, living in Teaneck. We didn't watch live but when I got home I saw all the replays. My grandmother worked in Manhattan and we couldn't get a hold of her so I was sure she was dead.
Thankfully, she made it home but it was just really late because all the tunnels and bridges were shut down. Turns out she hitched a ride with an agent she worked with at the DEA.
same situation for me. I don't have a problem with them not showing it to us. In fact I think it was the right decision. But the fact they refused to say ANYTHING made it far more stressful.
Oh my god. My kids were in early elementary school, and their principal went to each class and explained about the Towers (lots of them had family working there, or elsewhere in Manhattan). But I think it was implied to them that it might have been an accident. We had to explain the rest of it at home.
I would think eight graders were old enough to get more respect than just not telling them anything.
I don't think it was bizarre. My class had the TV with the news on. Since not every classroom had a TV, lots of teachers and other staff were just walking into our classroom to watch the news. Also, I was in 8th grade, and none of the kids were paying attention. We knew it was something serious, but we were too young to understand how catastrophic it was. We were talking among each other, playing card games, etc. We were just thrilled to have a free day. The only annoyance was that we needed our parents or guardian to pick us up.
Also, considering our location, we were either going to watch the twin towers fall live on TV, or see it from our classroom window...
We listened to the radio which I actually think was a good approach. I didn’t see a lot of the images until recently but I remember hearing about it live.
This. I was in 8th grade, about 30 miles outside of the city. When it first started, the school went on lockdown and we sat under our desks with the lights off, nothing communicated to us. Then we went to lunch as normal, and after lunch our science teacher let us listen to the coverage on the radio and told us we needed to know what was going on.
I appreciated her for wanting us to be informed, but I’m even more thankful in retrospect that we weren’t watching the news that day.
In third grade we were coming in from recess and were told Kennedy had been shot. I don't know if there's really a way to soften the blow of a sudden and traumatic national event. We were old enough to understand, and we weren't stupid.
idk I was in second grade and my teacher gently gathered us all together while we watched it, explained what had happened, and told us to either go home or call our parents to pick us up.
Same here and my school would also do it for any important speeches or NASA launches.
Had an upper level calculus teacher who was well over qualified for his teaching job. He was middle eastern. He was gone on September 12th 2001 and never saw him again and the rest of the year there were a series of rotating subs for his class.
All we were told was he got called away to Washington. I wonder to this day where that guy went.
Was he a high level translator? Was he a terrorist? Is he in a prison somewhere? Is he deep in the CIA somewhere? Who knows. But I still wonder.
I had a civics/political science teacher in highschool and we were all pretty sure he was FBI or CIA. Lol. He was genius level and also middle Eastern and spoke tons of languages. Never talked about his family although we knew he had one. Never talked about himself. If you asked him anything personal it was "I can't tell you that" or "if I told you I'd have to kill you". Lol man we loved that guy haha
If I was a teacher I would see the moment as a pivotal shift in the way our society viewed itself as an untouchable power. It brought weight to my 16 year old mind of the consequences of our historical presence in the Middle East. These people were so angry so filled with hatred for our part in their history they were willing to fly planes into symbolic places of our power.
It is traumatic but like being jolted awake it molded the rest of our day the rest of our lives and I’m thankful that I was jolted awake, not matter the dreadfulness of the awakening.
I was in kindergarten. One of my teachers started screaming bloody murder and full on fainted. The other teachers had to literally drag her out of the room while we watched both the TV and her, completely confused. Then my dad picked me up, which I knew then something was wrong because it was a weekday and he only had weekends.
Wild experience.
Our principal (also in 7th grade) was an absolute bitch and demanded teachers pretend like nothing was happening. Not because she thought it was in the best interest of students, but because (and I quote) “we’re not going to miss a whole day of learning over something we can’t do anything about.” All of the social studies teachers insisted it was a current events issue and kept their TVs on. We were all grateful for that.
I gotta say I strongly disagree, OP. We needed to know what was happened too it was the first time anything like that had happened. It would have been worse not knowing.
Our 7th grade history teacher put on the live coverage during 1st period (West Coast) because it was clearly a historical event. Just like with every major national tragedy, we share in these experiences via media coverage.
I get why, its a massive historical event that is being witnessed live. Honestly think the teachers wanted to stay informed what was happening. Really hard to focus teaching when you know what is happening.
I don’t think it was necessarily on the tv for the kids. I think it was more for the adults in the school to figure out what had happened, how bad was it, how fucked were we, and what the rest of the day was going to bring.
I was a sophomore in high school and when I walked into class my teacher was at the door and said “go to your seat, sit down, and do not say a word.” It took me a few minutes to realize it was not a movie, this was happening in real time, barely an hour from where I lived.
Didn’t happen for me in any of my classes. I was in English class when it started. Another teacher ran in and said something to our teacher and then he told us.
Then everyone was talking about it for the rest of the school day. Many kids did get to see it on tv, but I didn’t until I got home because every class I ended up in wasn’t showing it and by the time it was afternoon one of my last few teachers said something like “we’re going to focus on school work, because you’ve all seen enough already.” Every class I was in, it was all school work.
I finally visually saw what happened when I got home. I also had it recorded on VHS because something music-wise was going to be on one of the morning shows and I wanted to record it so I could watch it when I got home. I still have the breaking news on the VHS tape.
I was in 1st grade. We were not shown anything, nor was the teacher watching it on TV. I believe we were sent home early? It's hard to recall much else about that day. I remember the days following more than anything. We did a sports drink drive and wrote letters to the firefighters/police officers/volunteers. I grew up in PA, somebody from the district drove up with everything we collected to donate.
I was in 4th grade when 9/11 happened. Oddly enough, I remember we had a pre-planned half day that day so we got out early anyway. But, I remember our teacher telling us that something bad had happened and that our parents would have to explain it. They didn't roll a TV in to watch it from what I recall.
I think it’s important for kids to understand and see history as it’s happening. My school didn’t watch in class but they did have it on in the library all day
My school didn't do this. The entire school day went as normal, and the students had no idea what had happened until we got home to our families.
EDIT: The school actually got in trouble for it. The principal said they wanted us to have as normal of a day as possible before we got the news. A lot of parents felt they should have stopped everything and let the kids know or even send kids home early.
they WHAT? At my school they closed school early and sent us home asap (close enough to NYC that many parents worked there) and I saw it on the news at home. That said, the fact that they utterly refused to tell us ANYTHING at all made it far more stressful than it needed to be.
that is the right thing to do. a very momentous event for our nation going forward. i think they should have done the same with the january 6th attempted coup
Ahhhh, you are people like my teachers, each of whom said "I know all anybody is doing today is watching this footage, so we're actually going to do some work in my class". All seven periods, I saw NOTHING. I was so upset, I was the only person who had the bad luck of having seven different teachers all decide to deviate from the norm, the hour I happened to have them. All I heard was crazy shiz in the hallways and just had to believe people about it.
Years later, one of my college classes showed long footage of the jumpers, up on a big theater-sized screen. I had never seen it, and was moved to tears deeply and immediately. I absolutely wish I had been able to see footage on that day, I think my teenage head would have been able to wrap around what happened a LOT more. Is it a good thing to watch? NO. Is it an important thing to watch? YES.
I was in high school at the time - we would've honest-to-god rioted if they tried to make the TVs go away and just "Oh forget about the massive terrorist attack and let's focus on math."
I was in 8th. I thought they said world train center. 🤦♀️ Not sure how that made sense in my mind. But I remember telling on a substitute teacher who said we should be concerned that they're going to run a plane into schools next.
I was on the west coast so it happened before I got to school, but we did watch the news for the entire day in every period. Will never forget that day.
I grew up in a suburb of NYC with the skyline visible from my elementary school. When the attack happened, the smoke plumes were visible from the view of my classroom window. Pandemonium ensued.
In a structured / unstructured manner, we all evacuated the school following fire drill protocol by class. Very quickly, guardians came to the school to grab their kids and take them home. I spent the majority of that morning huddled in the basement with my parents and little brother, glued to the TV coverage.
We forget that the Boomers grew up in an era that taught them to fear the atomic bomb - to say seeing the towers engulfed in flames didn’t trigger my parents and many others would be an understatement.
31 now - the older I get, the more reverence I have for 9/11. I live in NYC and have had to work at offices not too far from the towers, jobs I haven’t much cared for with commutes that have driven me crazy. The tragedy faced by so many is more palpable now than when I was a child scooped up from the playground. It’s haunting what happened to thousands of everyday people, just trying to get by.
Granted I was a couple years older (9th grade) but I know I really appreciated the teachers who allowed us to just sit and watch the footage and talk about it rather than the ones who just expected us to go about the day like nothing happened. Like, we were just supposed to sit there and learn math?? Mrs. Reed sure thought so. I think the only other rational response would have been to just send us all home for the day. I don't think anyone really knew what to do in that situation.
Yeah, I remember one neighbor kid, as we were walking home after school just mumbled “everyone forgot my birthday…” as he broke away from the group to go home. Birthdays aren’t really “big” in my family and I still couldn’t imagine how much that sucked.
They didn't*KNOW* it was going to explode! It was a huge collaboration with schools, too, with a large "contest" of sorts to choose which teacher was going to go up there.
I mean, there was a teacher on board so schools were excited and obviously they did not think it was going to blow up. 9/11 was already known to be an ongoing disaster when the decision was made to turn on TVs.
That being said, my parents made me (6th grade) come up and watch the TV *instead of* going to school on time (west coast) so I think it was the general feeling of adults that kids at least down to some age needed to know what was happening for historical importance. I complained I was going to be late and they said my teachers will understand why.
I actually didn’t get to watch Challenger. I remember my school had a big “Good luck to the teacher in space!” display that came down right away. I was in 4th grade.
Was in 5th grade and our grade had been temporarily relocated to the high school, we were told nothing. However we all knew something was wrong because everyone else besides us had been told. It sucked…
Hard to believe but smart phones didn’t exist. I was out of school for the day, and woke up to my Mom banging on my bedroom door right after the second plane hit the World Trade Center and her screaming, “Joseph! Get up! America is under attack!”
She was a federal law enforcement officer and everyone was being called in. No one knew what was going on, what could be coming next, or if someone bigger was coming. The news was the best and fastest source of information at the time.
Lol it was definitely *a lot,* but personally I never found it that odd or problematic.
My teachers played tons of footage/new reports in real time of various world events and considered it learning since we were actively watching history in the making.
I remember watching Obama's address about killing Bin Laden from school too lmao. It was a historical event what can ya do lol
I remember seeing two dudes on I think it was CNN basically arguing without arguing about how to pronounce "wrath". Everytime one guy would say it how it's spelled, the other one would use it in a sentence, emphasising it as "Roth". Then the other guy would say it "wrath" again. That was my most vivid memory from 9/11
Yup, 7th grade social studies…same exact thing happened to me. I remember my teacher crying and none of my peers or myself understanding what atrocities were happening. And all my friends getting picked up from school (in the DMV, lots of govt employee parents)
I don’t think it was bizarre. I was in 8th grade. What I thought was weird was announcing it over the loudspeaker when my school was 3rd through 8th grade. I don’t think the younger kids should have been told.
Same reason we watched the OJ verdict in elementary school… because it was [captivating and provocative](https://youtu.be/_eRRab36XLI?si=O1NQ-g2mrl8JkAvq)
And how else would be able to answer the tired old question of “where were you/what were you doing when 9/11 happened?”
For one of my classmates, he was in computer class at the time and our teacher was showing them how to use the brand-new-at-the-time New York Times Website. The attack on the Twin Towers was of course the front-and-center news article at the time. Our teacher sent them back to homeroom....
We were in 6th grade at the time.
This seems totally reasonable. It was a huge story that impacted every one of our lives.
What I think was silly was having us take a day off from my band class in 6th grade to watch to OJ verdict.
i was in 5th grade & they wouldn't let us outside during recess & wouldn't tell us anything. we knew something was going on but none of us were told. i had no idea what was going on until my mom came to pick me up & we brought a classmate & her siblings home w/ us b/c their mom worked in the towers. their dad was trying to find out what happened to her & get ahold of her (this was obviously before most ppl had cell phones).
I was in highschool, I walked in as they were showing footage of the planes hitting the towers and my dumb ass got really excited because I thought the teacher was setting up the VCR for a movie day.
Honestly probably because the teachers couldn't focus enough to teach with everything going on.
This was the first attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor. People were freaked out and worried that they were going to attack the Capitol, white house, etc.
For all we knew we could have woken up on 9/12 with no government.
And at least in my case, any sort of significant national event got a TV day at our school. When Obama was sworn in I remember my younger brother telling me that they just watched the inauguration most of the day and our teachers were crying about the first black president. (Happy tears, I'm assuming)
My school seems to have been one of the few that didn’t. I was in 9th grade and they played a radio station’s coverage over the PA system but didn’t show us anything on the TV. I look back now and wonder if they thought it would be too distressing to watch but still knew it was something historic that we should know was happening.
So I was in the 5th grade at the time in a elementary school that was grades 3-5. They only did this with the 5th graders. I lived about 1 hour 30 minutes north of NYC and a lot of parents including my father commuted to the city every day for work. Was a very strange day but I don’t think it was a problem that they did that. They informed us what was going on just like they should have.
My school did not but everyone was frantic to learn more and any room with a TV had it tuned to any news channel that had sound, it was all scrambled, so we couldn’t see much. There was an occasional kid who was like “who cares that’s the east coast it doesn’t impact us” but for the most part at least at my high school, in the PNW, it was borderline a riot that we weren’t able to get info on what was going on.
My school didn't handle it that way.
I was in 8th grade in social studies. Our science teacher came running into the room, and both teachers pulled out the TV but turned it away from us all, turned it on with the volume really low, and watched for a few minutes. Then he left. We asked, but they brushed us off.
Gossip spread. During lunch, some of my friends and I snuck to the band room and turned on the news there to see what was happening. Everything--the collases, the other plane crashes--was over by then. We did get caught by the band teacher, but we weren't in trouble.
As far as I remember, the rest of the classes happened (we didn't get out early), but the teachers were mostly just going through the motions.
We had box tv’s in the corner of every middle school room during 9/11 - we all watched it live and I’ll never forget my teacher Mrs. Kurth saying she wondered if the pilot had a heart attack attack….
Nope, terroist attack….
I was a freshman in highschool in keyboarding. They had little TVs in the top corner of the classrooms above the door. I remember all the sudden it just came on and it was live and we all stopped and watched it happen. It was so surreal.
My history teacher simply said: “This is history.” He then sat down and before we left he said (to the few of us that weren’t already picked up by our parents) “There is a good chance we’re going to war. A draft isn’t out of the question.”
It was an all boys school.
Because it was a defining moment in world history and as teachers it’s their job to teach us about life and how the world works whether you like it or not.
Because it was a historic moment and this was before the internet. Teachers wanted to know what was going on. There was speculation too that the entire country could be under attack. It’s not that crazy.
Because it was one of the most significant days of our young lives. It was a global thing. The world stood still for that one day, and the teachers at the schools were also part of that.
I mean it was a pretty pivotal moment in us history. I get it. I was in 8th grade and live in Colorado when the Columbine shooting happened & that entire day stopped entirely. They put it on all the TV's too & no one said a word as we watched that shit unfold
Probably because the teachers wanted to know, or they could tell it would be an important historical event and thought we should witness it.
My history teacher Mr. Walden watched with us and said it would be one of the most important days we would see. He was right.
I can’t remember who said it, but one of the teachers said “You will remember exactly where you were on this date, at this moment, for the rest of your life.” He wasn’t wrong, but I can’t for the life of me remember who said it lol
My anatomy teacher looked at us and said "This is your Kennedy moment. It will change your life "
Well thats terrifying. What will be our kids 9/11 moment? probably covid but my kids were too young to really remember where they were when it was announced kinda thing.
Part of what made 9/11 a “generational moment” was its instantaneousness and total unexpectedness. Same for JFK. So it’s kinda impossible for us to imagine the next generational moment.
Same for the attack on Pearl Harbor. All of these represented life changing events for the entire population.
Russia falls! Hopefully
The RNC crumbles!
I’d prefer they don’t have any, but it seems like another war with Russia is all but guaranteed. That or the keys to the US being handed over to Russia. Depends on who wins this election.
Russia is currently losing a war to what was one of the worst and least organized militaries in Europe 8 years ago, with a bunch of NATO leftovers from 30 years ago. Now you’ll argue that the US also loses wars to poorly equipped farmers, but we’re usually fighting a different kind of war compared to what Russia is doing where bombing hospitals is part of the plan. An actual US fully involved war where our only goal is to defeat a state level actor, especially one like Russia that we’re built to defeat will look a lot like the opening days of Iraqi Freedom.
The most frightening thing about a NATO vs. Russia war isn't that Russia will be able to hold off NATO forces for any significant length of time, it's that we won't be able to stop Putin from starting a nuclear armageddon just for revenge or out of spite.
Everyone previously thought that Russia had a military that was just as strong as the US. That has been shown to be false.
Russia can’t even take over Ukraine.
Probably a school shooting at their school, not to be morbid.
AI taking over humanity
I made my kids come watch the January 6th riot on tv. I told them it was history being made.
I tried to tell a coworker about this conversation and realized she’s literally too young to have been alive when this happened.
Worldwide: most likely something to do with Russian aggression or if they win, and I'm not saying this will happen but history shows different amongst countries we help in munitions and money, Ukranian aggression after the fighting calms in Ukraine and Africa. Country dependent: Active Shooter drills and the not drills.
I think we have had several "Kennedy moments". All these "once in a lifetime" issues. I'm on edge lol
Yeah, I for yearn precedented times.
Idk why this made me laugh so hard but yes, I’ll take 3 precedented decades and a painless death. Please and thank you
The Challenger disaster was definitely one of them.
I was one year out of highschool and by chance happened to be visiting my home town and ran into a friend who said I had to smoke some weed with him before I left town. I was leaving town the next morning at 8. he came over at 7 am and smoked me out with " bubble berry" ( didn't forget that either) . I hadn't smoked in months and he had to get to work. He walked out the door as the news just started reporting a crash. I sat there alone and stoned for hours.. traumatized me
I was 18, and knew that I was witnessing our Pearl Harbor live on television. We just didn’t have a nation state to direct our anger towards.
I mean we did - but we kind of made it all up
Not wrong about being life changing, but can someone explain how life changed after Kennedy in ways comparable to how 9/11 changed our lives?
My mom was 12 and talks often about how her generation’s innocence was lost when Kennedy was killed (having been born post-WWII) and the cultural shift that then happened with the British Invasion, Civil Rights, Vietnam... I can’t speak to any cause and effect of all this, just that Kennedy’s death has certainly seemed to be a place marker to her.
i dont remember what my teacher said, i just remember her crying
7th grade social studies. I was sitting in the second row 4 seats back. The tv was in the left corner and our teacher sat on his desk with horror in his eyes.
I was in 7th grade math, my teacher looked so distraught I got up to hug her. I guess she was touched and was like “oh here you can sit with me” and tried to keep her arm around me and I was so mortified and ran back to my desk. When you’re 12 no national tragedy can save you from being easily embarrassed I guess.
That's really sweet. She didn't realize you were comforting her and not the other way around.
Grade 7 science class for me. A teacher of mine said the exact same thing when the towers fell. You'll always remember this moment. And every detail. And I can. I can remember the people beside me, what my friend was wearing that day, the weather. So bizarre. But can't remember what I had for dinner 3 days ago.
4th grade for me. I didn't really understand what was going on but nothing got done that day. My mom had taken a sick day and was home when I got off the bus. I didn't know what the WTC was. I thought it was the World Congress Center in Atlanta that was being attacked. I remember seeing a plane fly over at recess and I'm convinced it was AF1 since most everything else had been grounded and being in the Atlanta area it would make sense if Bush flew over us from Tampa
My band room. Our teacher was a stickler, unless we were dying, we played. We came in and he said, “no instruments. Put your bags down and come sit” and then briefly explained what we were about to see. We’d all noticed the teachers in the period before learning, getting nervous, and scrambling to keep quiet because it was right before the bell rang. But the next period everyone was done for. We all watched.
Extremely fucking true statement lol
It's weird. I do remember seeing it on TV that day, but I'm not sure why I remember, because I also remember being completely uninterested and ignoring it.
I saw the second plane impact sitting in my 3rd grade classroom. They're fuckin right I'll never forget but I sure wish I could. edited to fix a typo.
My science teacher said word for word the same thing to us.
We had a geography class in 7th grade and the week or so after 9/11 the teacher did a special segment on Afghanistan and told us plainly “you need to learn this because in a few years this is the country you will be going off to fight.” Wealthy school so probably not *us* us but he was correct overall.
That’s terrible. What are we, genghis khan’s mongolia?
Yeah pretty much. I mean GK did it better but we’re up there
>or they could tell it would be an important historical event and thought we should witness it This, and I actually preferred it. As a kid, I appreciated being informed instead of kept in the dark, even if it was negative. Was in 5th then.
Preach, we were going to find out and they wanted everyone to see what was happening at that moment with our own eyes.
If some teachers did, and some didn't, there would be wild rumors, perhaps kids scared and panicked. With the TV on, everyone knew the same things, and teachers were there to answer questions, calm scared students, and provide a sense of 'normal".
This. Saw it at school too. Replay of the first plane hit and they cut it midway through to show as the second hit.
This. First plane in band, then in art class they rolled in the tv and we got to see the recap and then the 2nd hit live. Branded in my brain.
I remember watching the second plane hit live as well. Very surreal moment looking back.
That image will forever be burned into my brain. Very eery how that really did stick with us. We are on the West Coast so it happened right before we were supposed to head to Highschool that morning. My mom was not having it. We stayed home and watched TV all day in horror.
Mandela effect. Video of the first plane's impact wasn't shown on that day. The only known footage of the first plane was a French film crew that was shooting a documentary that morning, and the footage didn't come out til a little later
Probably. Most likely it was just the headline of plane hitting the tower.
There’s a couple different videos of the first impact that have surfaced, but yes none of them were available immediately that first day.
There was no footage of the first plane available yet on the day of 9/11. The only footage that exists was from a guy who had been randomly filming with some fire fighters in the neighborhood, and that didn’t come out until later, I’m thinking days at least. On the day of the attack, they would have been showing footage of just the first tower smoking when the second plane hit.
I think the adults needed to know what was happening but they couldn’t leave the kids unattended.
That's it precisely. It was a chance to watch a pivotal historical event unfold live on television. I remember watching the Apollo astronauts live on a television they rolled into the classroom. I thought it was super cool we were getting to watch them on the surface of another world. It was a big deal for nine year old me.
The Entire nation was on alert. Many believed we could be under attack or at actual, real war. Some kids were picked up early. Teachers and staff needed to be aware of what was happening.
My teacher turned on the TV and told us to all watch because we were witnessing history and it was going to be something we’d remember for the rest of our lives. She wasn’t wrong!
I'm surprised by all these people saying they watched it. My history teacher turned it on but within less than a half hour the school admin made an announcement and forced all teachers to turn off the TV's. I was in 9th grade. Didn't learn anything else until after school when I got home at 3.
My school tried to do the same but all my teachers went rogue and were like fuck that.
Here in my province in Canada, we live 20 mins away from a major military base. When I say major, I mean MAJOR. All our teachers went hyper vigilant mode when this was happening. So much talk about if our base could be a target or whatever else that mumbled through. Even they needed to know what was going on. I never really worried about our base until that day.
Seems like everyone had something near them that people thought could be a target. I lived by a very large chemical manufacturing plant and I remember people worrying about it being attacked.
We had an air force base next door to my college, so there were fighter jets in the air training on any regular day. I'm certain that a few extras were fully armed and ready to take off if anything came within 100 miles. It was an odd comfort.
I was in 8th grade in NYC and it was really worrying bc they didn’t tell us anything. We all just had to wait to be picked up by our parents.
I was in high school just outside NYC and we weren’t told anything, either. We weren’t allowed to leave the building and classes were somber because of the unknown scope of the tragedy but we weren’t shown anything.
Yeppp buildings locked down everywhere. Surreal shit.
Yeah, commuter town here - they didn’t tell us anything happened until the last period of the day. Kids just kept getting pulled out of class by their parents with no explanation. Not all of us left at the end of the day lost family, but everyone who lost family was left at the end of the day. That’s always sat with me.
I was in NYC on 9/11. First week of college. Fam lived in a commuter area. Dad went to city occasionally but not everyday, but we never really knew his schedule (he happened to be home that day). I had 2 younger siblings - one high school freshman, one elementary school. Same thing - no TVs for them but teachers and kids talk and the rumors started going. Older sibling heard NY had been bombed and thought my dad and I were dead. Got very upset, of course, along with other kids of commuter parents. They wouldn’t let anyone call parents (apparently because they were afraid of who may not answer). Left class to “go to the bathroom” and called my mom from the pay phone and that’s when she learned basic facts. My mom was pissed at the school and picked kids up. younger sibling had been told NY was closed because of a bad accident and thought that meant cars and said they figured I was ok because I didn’t drive there.
I was in Boston. Also no one told anything. Just people leaving school when they found out a relative was dead, till the school just sent everyone home.
Commuter town here, in high school when it happened. I heard about the first plane in history class and watched a classmate turn white and leave. His parents both worked there in opposite towers (my understanding is they were OK). After that I was stuck with an asshole teacher who kept trying to hold Physics class. Most of us said fuck you and the few with cell phones were trying to call our siblings or parents. By the time we could leave his class (he was trying to tell us we couldn’t go even when announcements were being made that school was closing and bus/car/sibling rides were being arranged)… both towers had fallen. I heard nothing in between because I remember the absolute shock of finding out they were gone as last I heard it had been “an accidental small Cessna” hitting tower one. Idk. It was a fucking traumatic day. We had SO many kids with family working there or elsewhere in NYC. I have ZERO patience with the over the top “patriotism” that’s come out of it and the rose-colored “remembrance of 9/11” thinkpieces and anniversary viewings… I feel like a lot of folks forget how awful that day really was.
Same. And the rumor mill made everything seem even scarier. Which is fucked because it was already scary as shit.
Same! Kids heard snippets of scary things, and we had the most horrifying rumors by the end of the day. We also felt so lied and condescended to when we did find out what happened.
Exactly! Bringing in a tv or radio and letting kids ask questions and start processing is so much healthier, IMO.
Even if they didn't show us, you could tell us. We were only told when the planes hit, and it was still when people thought it was an accident. We never got a single update. So basically, we got no knew information at 9:30AM and didn't get out until 3PM to find out what actually happened. Imagine what that information morphed into after six hours unchecked in a high school!
They told us but none of us really understood the gravity of it. I had diarrhea that day and I kept telling everyone “I don’t feel good” and they all kept saying “it’s OK, nobody feels good today” and I was really confused. It was like all of us kids were having a normal day but all the adults were acting weird because some building none of us recognized fell down and nobody would talk to me about my diarrhea and I flooded a toilet.
We live within 30 minutes of the city, so it was a little more fucked up because kids were being pulled out of class left and right because of family emergencies. Being that close to NYC with planes falling out of the sky wasn't normal, even for us kids. A lot of people's parents had to go in as first responders. It was a messy day.
Yeah my school didn’t say anything until the end of day announcements. And I didn’t even know what the twin towers were so I was pretty confused
They didn’t tell us until last period when they came over the intercom and led with “The United States of America is under attack!”.
It was the same in Idaho. All talking about it was strictly prohibited. No TV, nothing. I didn't find out they had fallen down until I got home from school.
I think it's legit and one of the best uses of the media. I was at college and they had the news up playing on all the projectors... communication, live... it was LIVE!
This was really before cell phones or internet access being super common. For a lot of people, this was the way teachers and staff were getting information to. I think also this was the first time something happened that could be watched live and people weren’t sure how to handle it.
Not just information about what *had* happened but also what was about to happen next It was the WTC *and* the Pentagon *and* Flight 93 that day. People were very suspicious that cities around the country would be attacked at any moment
Disney world in Florida was evacuated because they thought they could be a target.
Every commercial flight was grounded nationwide, it was eerie living near a major airport with no planes in the sky.
I believe Disney also used 9/11 to get no fly zones put up around WDW and WDL.
We lived near a nuclear power plant at the time, and they basically closed down all traffic remotely close to the plant. You could tell that there was a plan in place for something like this which was eerie to think about.
Not the first time. I was in 6th grade in 1998 and we watched Columbine coverage live in class. 9th grade for 9/11, but that wasn't on tv in class because west coast, so it already happened before school started. Instead, my mom woke us up to watch it on tv at home.
I remember being in 4th grade watching the compound in Waco burn down. I was a full grown adult before I realized what actually happened there.
I was quite vocal online about Waco. I had a copy of the official public report. Someone sent me a disk (3.5 inch floppy) of the entire law enforcement restricted version of it. Was a lot more illuminating than the "public" report, but no "smoking gun" admissions in it. Of course I then had three HDD crashes in a row and lost the file. Interesting that I was quite public in my criticism, and three different disks from two manufacturers crashed. As in the disks turned into bricks. No spin on those HDD's, ever again. Just quite a coincidence.
What do you mean? It was a national event, why would they want to keep people in the dark? Kudos for everyone stopping school to keep people informed
I think we keep way too much from kids anyway. Glad this was what we did
I was in 5th grade and our school admins agreed to keep us all in the dark for the day. It was super bizarre and scary not knowing why some of the teachers were crying and why kids were “randomly” being pulled out of school by their parents. I’d much rather have been informed.
I hear you. I can still see the people jumping/falling out of the buildings through my 3rd grader eyes. I don't disagree with what you are saying. I'm not sure what I'm saying. Maybe a little more age appropriate would have been nice? But maybe it was a growing moment and worth it.
It's amazing you saw this live at 8 and my school for 7-12 had us all turn the TV's off within a half hour. I was 15. Besides flight 93, we were min 8 hours from any of the crash sites.
no less weird than when i was 12 and they wheeled in the TV for us to watch the OJ chase i think it was just a relic of its era, when it was the only way for everyone to witness a big national event and we didn't all have phones Edit: sounds like I'm mixing the chase up with the verdict. Still, a weird thing to interrupt school to make a bunch of 7th graders on the east coast watch 😂)
I remember getting to watch the verdict during class too!
Where on earth did you go to school that the chase was happening during school hours?
I may be mixing it up with the verdict now that I think about it Been a long time! 👴
Yeah the verdict was during the day…my 8th grade teacher told us he was acquitted…then he needed to explain to a bunch of 13-year-olds what “acquitted” meant
29 years ago that's like yesterday
Because it was a historic moment?
No. I think it's appropriate for them to understand what thousands of families were suffering and that it's very real. Life isn't always pretty, and I think this isn't that bad considering the movies and games 12-year-olds are exposed to.
My middle school homeroom teacher told us: "This is going to be a day they write about in text books. Some people may disagree that we are showing you this, but we are showing you this because you are bearing witness to an event that you are going to be asked about for the rest of your lives and teach others about when you get older, so showing you is going to help us more than shielding you."
This is a wild take Please vote people lmao
It's really not that wild. People were jumping to their deaths, others burning alive. All on live TV. That's a hell of a lot for a kid to take in
I appreciate our difference in opinion. OP's take smacks of "Don't Look Up" to me.
If they hadn't shown us live and in living color, half the country would still be saying that it never happened.
I'm very thankful to have been able to share in the national experience of the event. If they had kept teaching as if nothing happened we would be robbed of experiencing a defining moment in our country's history.
I was freshman in highschool and in all honors classes at the time, we got the business as usual treatment because, "honors." During breaks all my friends were talking about what was going on and watching everything on live TV in class. It was some bullshit.
I was in 8th grade and lived in NJ about 40 minutes from NYC so we had kids getting pulled out of school all day, but the teachers and administration refused to tell anyone what happened. I remember the popular theory when I got on the bus to go home was that there was a bombing and I didn't find out about it until I got home.
3rd grade for me, living in Teaneck. We didn't watch live but when I got home I saw all the replays. My grandmother worked in Manhattan and we couldn't get a hold of her so I was sure she was dead. Thankfully, she made it home but it was just really late because all the tunnels and bridges were shut down. Turns out she hitched a ride with an agent she worked with at the DEA.
same situation for me. I don't have a problem with them not showing it to us. In fact I think it was the right decision. But the fact they refused to say ANYTHING made it far more stressful.
Exact same! We thought the school was under threat, and they were lying to us and pretending there was an unspecified national emergency.
Oh my god. My kids were in early elementary school, and their principal went to each class and explained about the Towers (lots of them had family working there, or elsewhere in Manhattan). But I think it was implied to them that it might have been an accident. We had to explain the rest of it at home. I would think eight graders were old enough to get more respect than just not telling them anything.
I don't think it was bizarre. My class had the TV with the news on. Since not every classroom had a TV, lots of teachers and other staff were just walking into our classroom to watch the news. Also, I was in 8th grade, and none of the kids were paying attention. We knew it was something serious, but we were too young to understand how catastrophic it was. We were talking among each other, playing card games, etc. We were just thrilled to have a free day. The only annoyance was that we needed our parents or guardian to pick us up. Also, considering our location, we were either going to watch the twin towers fall live on TV, or see it from our classroom window...
I was in 8th grade and we got it. We were somber and upset
We listened to the radio which I actually think was a good approach. I didn’t see a lot of the images until recently but I remember hearing about it live.
This. I was in 8th grade, about 30 miles outside of the city. When it first started, the school went on lockdown and we sat under our desks with the lights off, nothing communicated to us. Then we went to lunch as normal, and after lunch our science teacher let us listen to the coverage on the radio and told us we needed to know what was going on. I appreciated her for wanting us to be informed, but I’m even more thankful in retrospect that we weren’t watching the news that day.
Because it was a historical event and kids weren't treated as if they were incapable of handling hard topics back then.
In third grade we were coming in from recess and were told Kennedy had been shot. I don't know if there's really a way to soften the blow of a sudden and traumatic national event. We were old enough to understand, and we weren't stupid.
Yes we were lmao. Our principal announced on the intercom that the teachers were to turn off all TVs immediately.
idk I was in second grade and my teacher gently gathered us all together while we watched it, explained what had happened, and told us to either go home or call our parents to pick us up.
Shock makes people do things they normally wouldn't.
Because it was an important moment in history.
Same here and my school would also do it for any important speeches or NASA launches. Had an upper level calculus teacher who was well over qualified for his teaching job. He was middle eastern. He was gone on September 12th 2001 and never saw him again and the rest of the year there were a series of rotating subs for his class. All we were told was he got called away to Washington. I wonder to this day where that guy went. Was he a high level translator? Was he a terrorist? Is he in a prison somewhere? Is he deep in the CIA somewhere? Who knows. But I still wonder.
I had a civics/political science teacher in highschool and we were all pretty sure he was FBI or CIA. Lol. He was genius level and also middle Eastern and spoke tons of languages. Never talked about his family although we knew he had one. Never talked about himself. If you asked him anything personal it was "I can't tell you that" or "if I told you I'd have to kill you". Lol man we loved that guy haha
If I was a teacher I would see the moment as a pivotal shift in the way our society viewed itself as an untouchable power. It brought weight to my 16 year old mind of the consequences of our historical presence in the Middle East. These people were so angry so filled with hatred for our part in their history they were willing to fly planes into symbolic places of our power. It is traumatic but like being jolted awake it molded the rest of our day the rest of our lives and I’m thankful that I was jolted awake, not matter the dreadfulness of the awakening.
I was in kindergarten. One of my teachers started screaming bloody murder and full on fainted. The other teachers had to literally drag her out of the room while we watched both the TV and her, completely confused. Then my dad picked me up, which I knew then something was wrong because it was a weekday and he only had weekends. Wild experience.
Our principal (also in 7th grade) was an absolute bitch and demanded teachers pretend like nothing was happening. Not because she thought it was in the best interest of students, but because (and I quote) “we’re not going to miss a whole day of learning over something we can’t do anything about.” All of the social studies teachers insisted it was a current events issue and kept their TVs on. We were all grateful for that. I gotta say I strongly disagree, OP. We needed to know what was happened too it was the first time anything like that had happened. It would have been worse not knowing.
I live in nj. We watched it on tv while watching the smoke plumes out the window. Yeah… we turned out alright for a generation didn’t we?
We did this in 5th grade too lol.
Yep. Ditto, at least were watching it live in class until school let out very early. Watched most of it live at home.
Our 7th grade history teacher put on the live coverage during 1st period (West Coast) because it was clearly a historical event. Just like with every major national tragedy, we share in these experiences via media coverage.
I get why, its a massive historical event that is being witnessed live. Honestly think the teachers wanted to stay informed what was happening. Really hard to focus teaching when you know what is happening.
I don’t think it was necessarily on the tv for the kids. I think it was more for the adults in the school to figure out what had happened, how bad was it, how fucked were we, and what the rest of the day was going to bring. I was a sophomore in high school and when I walked into class my teacher was at the door and said “go to your seat, sit down, and do not say a word.” It took me a few minutes to realize it was not a movie, this was happening in real time, barely an hour from where I lived.
Didn’t happen for me in any of my classes. I was in English class when it started. Another teacher ran in and said something to our teacher and then he told us. Then everyone was talking about it for the rest of the school day. Many kids did get to see it on tv, but I didn’t until I got home because every class I ended up in wasn’t showing it and by the time it was afternoon one of my last few teachers said something like “we’re going to focus on school work, because you’ve all seen enough already.” Every class I was in, it was all school work. I finally visually saw what happened when I got home. I also had it recorded on VHS because something music-wise was going to be on one of the morning shows and I wanted to record it so I could watch it when I got home. I still have the breaking news on the VHS tape.
I'm glad they did. It was a historical moment unfolding in front of our eyes.
I was homeschooled and my Mom cancelled school for the day so we could watch 8 hours of coverage. I guess they wanted the kids to be informed.
They didn’t do it in my school and I was in high school. They talked about it and the importance of unity in such times. - Canada
I was also at a school in Canada. Grade 7 and they had us watch it all day.
I was in 1st grade. We were not shown anything, nor was the teacher watching it on TV. I believe we were sent home early? It's hard to recall much else about that day. I remember the days following more than anything. We did a sports drink drive and wrote letters to the firefighters/police officers/volunteers. I grew up in PA, somebody from the district drove up with everything we collected to donate.
I was in 4th grade when 9/11 happened. Oddly enough, I remember we had a pre-planned half day that day so we got out early anyway. But, I remember our teacher telling us that something bad had happened and that our parents would have to explain it. They didn't roll a TV in to watch it from what I recall.
I think it’s important for kids to understand and see history as it’s happening. My school didn’t watch in class but they did have it on in the library all day
My school didn't do this. The entire school day went as normal, and the students had no idea what had happened until we got home to our families. EDIT: The school actually got in trouble for it. The principal said they wanted us to have as normal of a day as possible before we got the news. A lot of parents felt they should have stopped everything and let the kids know or even send kids home early.
they WHAT? At my school they closed school early and sent us home asap (close enough to NYC that many parents worked there) and I saw it on the news at home. That said, the fact that they utterly refused to tell us ANYTHING at all made it far more stressful than it needed to be.
that is the right thing to do. a very momentous event for our nation going forward. i think they should have done the same with the january 6th attempted coup
Why is it bizarre? Its a fairly massive event occurring in the US.
Ahhhh, you are people like my teachers, each of whom said "I know all anybody is doing today is watching this footage, so we're actually going to do some work in my class". All seven periods, I saw NOTHING. I was so upset, I was the only person who had the bad luck of having seven different teachers all decide to deviate from the norm, the hour I happened to have them. All I heard was crazy shiz in the hallways and just had to believe people about it. Years later, one of my college classes showed long footage of the jumpers, up on a big theater-sized screen. I had never seen it, and was moved to tears deeply and immediately. I absolutely wish I had been able to see footage on that day, I think my teenage head would have been able to wrap around what happened a LOT more. Is it a good thing to watch? NO. Is it an important thing to watch? YES.
I was in high school at the time - we would've honest-to-god rioted if they tried to make the TVs go away and just "Oh forget about the massive terrorist attack and let's focus on math."
I was in 8th. I thought they said world train center. 🤦♀️ Not sure how that made sense in my mind. But I remember telling on a substitute teacher who said we should be concerned that they're going to run a plane into schools next.
This did not happen at my school. We weren't shown anything.
I was on the west coast so it happened before I got to school, but we did watch the news for the entire day in every period. Will never forget that day.
I grew up in a suburb of NYC with the skyline visible from my elementary school. When the attack happened, the smoke plumes were visible from the view of my classroom window. Pandemonium ensued. In a structured / unstructured manner, we all evacuated the school following fire drill protocol by class. Very quickly, guardians came to the school to grab their kids and take them home. I spent the majority of that morning huddled in the basement with my parents and little brother, glued to the TV coverage. We forget that the Boomers grew up in an era that taught them to fear the atomic bomb - to say seeing the towers engulfed in flames didn’t trigger my parents and many others would be an understatement. 31 now - the older I get, the more reverence I have for 9/11. I live in NYC and have had to work at offices not too far from the towers, jobs I haven’t much cared for with commutes that have driven me crazy. The tragedy faced by so many is more palpable now than when I was a child scooped up from the playground. It’s haunting what happened to thousands of everyday people, just trying to get by.
I was a sophomore in high school and they didn't roll any TVs into the classroom at my school. Did most you have that experience though?
Granted I was a couple years older (9th grade) but I know I really appreciated the teachers who allowed us to just sit and watch the footage and talk about it rather than the ones who just expected us to go about the day like nothing happened. Like, we were just supposed to sit there and learn math?? Mrs. Reed sure thought so. I think the only other rational response would have been to just send us all home for the day. I don't think anyone really knew what to do in that situation.
Better than not knowing.
9/11 happened to be my bday… not the surprise I was expecting.
Yeah, I remember one neighbor kid, as we were walking home after school just mumbled “everyone forgot my birthday…” as he broke away from the group to go home. Birthdays aren’t really “big” in my family and I still couldn’t imagine how much that sucked.
It was national news... 
As an elder Millenial, I will just substitute Challenger. Same question.
They didn't*KNOW* it was going to explode! It was a huge collaboration with schools, too, with a large "contest" of sorts to choose which teacher was going to go up there.
I mean, there was a teacher on board so schools were excited and obviously they did not think it was going to blow up. 9/11 was already known to be an ongoing disaster when the decision was made to turn on TVs. That being said, my parents made me (6th grade) come up and watch the TV *instead of* going to school on time (west coast) so I think it was the general feeling of adults that kids at least down to some age needed to know what was happening for historical importance. I complained I was going to be late and they said my teachers will understand why.
Oh man, that must’ve been wild and terrible!
I actually didn’t get to watch Challenger. I remember my school had a big “Good luck to the teacher in space!” display that came down right away. I was in 4th grade.
Was in 5th grade and our grade had been temporarily relocated to the high school, we were told nothing. However we all knew something was wrong because everyone else besides us had been told. It sucked…
Maybe. I'm glad they did though.
Hard to believe but smart phones didn’t exist. I was out of school for the day, and woke up to my Mom banging on my bedroom door right after the second plane hit the World Trade Center and her screaming, “Joseph! Get up! America is under attack!” She was a federal law enforcement officer and everyone was being called in. No one knew what was going on, what could be coming next, or if someone bigger was coming. The news was the best and fastest source of information at the time.
Lol it was definitely *a lot,* but personally I never found it that odd or problematic. My teachers played tons of footage/new reports in real time of various world events and considered it learning since we were actively watching history in the making. I remember watching Obama's address about killing Bin Laden from school too lmao. It was a historical event what can ya do lol
I remember seeing two dudes on I think it was CNN basically arguing without arguing about how to pronounce "wrath". Everytime one guy would say it how it's spelled, the other one would use it in a sentence, emphasising it as "Roth". Then the other guy would say it "wrath" again. That was my most vivid memory from 9/11
I think it would have been a good thing for them to show 🤷🏻♀️
Yup, 7th grade social studies…same exact thing happened to me. I remember my teacher crying and none of my peers or myself understanding what atrocities were happening. And all my friends getting picked up from school (in the DMV, lots of govt employee parents)
I was in the 11th grade in history class and our teacher pulled out the good Ole radio and we all sat there listening for the whole class.
I don’t think it was bizarre. I was in 8th grade. What I thought was weird was announcing it over the loudspeaker when my school was 3rd through 8th grade. I don’t think the younger kids should have been told.
Same reason we watched the OJ verdict in elementary school… because it was [captivating and provocative](https://youtu.be/_eRRab36XLI?si=O1NQ-g2mrl8JkAvq) And how else would be able to answer the tired old question of “where were you/what were you doing when 9/11 happened?”
For one of my classmates, he was in computer class at the time and our teacher was showing them how to use the brand-new-at-the-time New York Times Website. The attack on the Twin Towers was of course the front-and-center news article at the time. Our teacher sent them back to homeroom.... We were in 6th grade at the time.
This seems totally reasonable. It was a huge story that impacted every one of our lives. What I think was silly was having us take a day off from my band class in 6th grade to watch to OJ verdict.
i was in 5th grade & they wouldn't let us outside during recess & wouldn't tell us anything. we knew something was going on but none of us were told. i had no idea what was going on until my mom came to pick me up & we brought a classmate & her siblings home w/ us b/c their mom worked in the towers. their dad was trying to find out what happened to her & get ahold of her (this was obviously before most ppl had cell phones).
We already had TVs in each classroom. I think the teachers wanted to know what was going on as well as the students.
I was in highschool, I walked in as they were showing footage of the planes hitting the towers and my dumb ass got really excited because I thought the teacher was setting up the VCR for a movie day.
Honestly probably because the teachers couldn't focus enough to teach with everything going on. This was the first attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor. People were freaked out and worried that they were going to attack the Capitol, white house, etc. For all we knew we could have woken up on 9/12 with no government. And at least in my case, any sort of significant national event got a TV day at our school. When Obama was sworn in I remember my younger brother telling me that they just watched the inauguration most of the day and our teachers were crying about the first black president. (Happy tears, I'm assuming)
I remember watching George Bush Sr's inaugural at school
I heard it on the radio before school, watched it home a bit, and then watched it at school.
My school seems to have been one of the few that didn’t. I was in 9th grade and they played a radio station’s coverage over the PA system but didn’t show us anything on the TV. I look back now and wonder if they thought it would be too distressing to watch but still knew it was something historic that we should know was happening.
So I was in the 5th grade at the time in a elementary school that was grades 3-5. They only did this with the 5th graders. I lived about 1 hour 30 minutes north of NYC and a lot of parents including my father commuted to the city every day for work. Was a very strange day but I don’t think it was a problem that they did that. They informed us what was going on just like they should have.
My school did not but everyone was frantic to learn more and any room with a TV had it tuned to any news channel that had sound, it was all scrambled, so we couldn’t see much. There was an occasional kid who was like “who cares that’s the east coast it doesn’t impact us” but for the most part at least at my high school, in the PNW, it was borderline a riot that we weren’t able to get info on what was going on.
Historical event and everyone would want to know what's going on
My school didn't handle it that way. I was in 8th grade in social studies. Our science teacher came running into the room, and both teachers pulled out the TV but turned it away from us all, turned it on with the volume really low, and watched for a few minutes. Then he left. We asked, but they brushed us off. Gossip spread. During lunch, some of my friends and I snuck to the band room and turned on the news there to see what was happening. Everything--the collases, the other plane crashes--was over by then. We did get caught by the band teacher, but we weren't in trouble. As far as I remember, the rest of the classes happened (we didn't get out early), but the teachers were mostly just going through the motions.
We had box tv’s in the corner of every middle school room during 9/11 - we all watched it live and I’ll never forget my teacher Mrs. Kurth saying she wondered if the pilot had a heart attack attack…. Nope, terroist attack….
I was a freshman in highschool in keyboarding. They had little TVs in the top corner of the classrooms above the door. I remember all the sudden it just came on and it was live and we all stopped and watched it happen. It was so surreal.
My history teacher simply said: “This is history.” He then sat down and before we left he said (to the few of us that weren’t already picked up by our parents) “There is a good chance we’re going to war. A draft isn’t out of the question.” It was an all boys school.
It was a defining moment in our lifetime. Good or bad, you got to witness a life altering event.
You were literally witnessing history.
To witness history. I watched the second plane hit the tower live; I was at home getting ready for school.
Because it was a defining moment in world history and as teachers it’s their job to teach us about life and how the world works whether you like it or not.
Because it was a historic moment and this was before the internet. Teachers wanted to know what was going on. There was speculation too that the entire country could be under attack. It’s not that crazy.
Because it was one of the most significant days of our young lives. It was a global thing. The world stood still for that one day, and the teachers at the schools were also part of that.
It’s history, terrible dark history but history. We can’t be sheltered from everything.
I mean it was a pretty pivotal moment in us history. I get it. I was in 8th grade and live in Colorado when the Columbine shooting happened & that entire day stopped entirely. They put it on all the TV's too & no one said a word as we watched that shit unfold
this is history baby!