Thursday, September 11, 2008

September 11, 2001

I was in my kindergarten classroom filled with 21 innocent little children.  They were seated on the rug right in front of me.  We were going about our morning routine of calender, singing songs, going over the alphabet and sounds the letters make  just as we had done every other school day before this one.  One parent came to my door with the school counselor & wanted to take their child home with them right at that instant.  I thought that was really strange and immediately began thinking what on earth I had done wrong for a parent to be crying and that upset to pull their child out of my classroom at that very minute.  About five minutes later, another mom came to my door and wanted to take their child home... All I could think is "what is the world is going on!"  After two more students left with their parents, I began to start freaking out thinking that something major is happening and immediately worry about my 2 year old daughter, Payton who is down the street at her baby sitter's house.  I do my best to only freak out on the inside... I do have 17 precious children who are watching my every move.

Finally, the school counselor pulls all of the Kindergarten teachers aside, away from the students.  I can see the terror on her face as she proceeds to tell us that two planes have crashed into the World Trade Center twin towers and that it might have been a planned attack. She tells us that we are going to be in lock down mode and to be prepared for many of our students to go home early.  Wow.  I think that the information that I had just received was more than I could handle... I pulled myself back together with the help of God and walked back into my classroom with a smiling face and started singing fun songs with them.  We had song time a long time that morning.  It was the only way I could keep from losing it.... the kids thought it was the best day ever!  They kept making requests for the next cd to be played!

Over the next days and weeks, I, like all other Americans were mourning the loss of so many innocent lives.    This was such a tragedy.  

My thoughts and prayers are with those who lost family and loves ones that horrible day seven years ago.  That is one day in history that everyone will always remember were they were and what they were doing when they found out.

3 comments:

Allison said...

Hi Jill! I read your comment on Shelley's blog. YES, come to San Antonio and DO go to Sea World.

We LOVE it. We have gone all summer and to be totally honest the time we went with Jason and Shelley it was pretty horrible. So hot, and BY far the most crowded we have ever seen it. (It was the week before school started so everyone had the 'last minute' family vacation idea).

I hope Shelley's 'negative-ness' doesn't turn ya'll off of SW. It's our favorite part of living in San Antonio!

Allison said...

Oh and Sake is pretty horrible.

And one question...I LOVE all the pictures of your girls. What kind of camera do you have? We are wanting a new really good one and have NO idea where to even start.

Nikki said...

Isn't wild to think back to the fact that I too was in my classroom, alone, waiting on my 5th graders to re-enter from art. I remember getting an e-mail from my mom telling me to turn on my tv and asking if I was okay. How do you explain to a 10 year old that our country, the most powerful nation in the world, was now under attack. My kids came in and I was in tears. Other than life lessonsm, there was no other teaching accomplished that day. Thank you sor sharing your "where I was" moment with the world. Take care.