Ten years ago at 9:00AM, I was…

Ten years ago at 9:00 a.m. I was in my classroom in Port Chester, N.Y. teaching English to 20+ foreign born adults as these New Yorkers gazed up into the lower Manhattan skyline speechless and forever changed….

I notice Jose, the computer instructor, standing silently in the doorway of my classroom. Walkman in hand, “What’s going on, Jose?”
 “A plane just crashed into the Twin Towers.”
 “What plane, a small plane?”
 “I don’t know. No, I don’t think it was a small plane.”
“O.K.  Well, let me know what’s happening. I’ll be down during the break.”

My students barely notice the exchange. The classroom is productively noisy with different accents asking and answering questions. The clear September morning is alive with the sounds of English.

It’s 9:30 and we take our break. Several students go outside to the coffee truck. I remember to check with Jose about the plane, it had almost slipped my mind.

“Another plane crashed into the Twin Towers.” now Jose looks worried. Two other teachers are with him listening to the radio in the school office.
“A second plane? The Twin Towers?” Are you sure? It must be a mistake. Two planes, that’s no accident. What’s going on?”

By this time many students are gathered at the office door, some visibly alarmed. My students look at me, I look back at them.

“Do you want to leave? Do you want to go home? I’ll stay as long as I think we should, but
maybe you should go…”
Most of them are already out the door. I stand in silence looking from the door to the office.
I walk with the few remaining students back to our classroom. We want to be together so
we talk. I have no memory of what we do or say from that time until class ends at 11:15………….

The next day my students return to my class. We are still afraid, confused.
We discover that one of the new students Noriko Tanaka, has lost her husband. She is in the city looking for him.
We talk about what we can do to help. We talk  and talk…
It isn’t enough…We need to write!

Some of those writings are in the next blog. They were published in our local newspaper
a few weeks after that terrible Tuesday which wasn’t called nine-eleven yet.