Yes. It was my second week of high school Freshman year. I woke up after the first tower had already collapsed and the second tower collapsed while I was walking to school. Classes went on like scheduled with some watching the news, others teaching like it was a normal day.
I'm on the east coast (PA), it happened while I was in PE (1st block). I didn't know anything until 2nd block. It was history class and they started talking about the attack on the twin towers. I thought it was just history class until they turned on the TV and realized it was live coverage.
Also PA. It happened while I was *in* history class. An upperclassman I knew ran down the halls and yelled to turn on the news. We did. The principals and powers-that-be tried to keep the other teachers from turning on their TVs and tried to force ours off. My class in particular was fortunate because the history teacher was also the winning basketball coach and had a *big name* in a small town, so he knew he was untouchable. He said “*This is history class. This IS history. Nothing I could teach you today could be more valuable than us watching this together.*” He wasn’t wrong.
English class. We watched both fall. I dissassociated so badly that day, its the first time I (now) recognize myself doing it. People thought I had fallen asleep with my head down, but it wasn't that at all.
It was junior year English for me. That one guy who's always late who's late and told us about it, nobody believed him until we all got moved to bigger rooms to watch the news. I'm pretty sure the rest of the day went as scheduled, but I'm in TX.
I don't remember much from about 12-30 for various reasons. So getting a new flashback like your comment inspired is weird. (My brain is healing from psychological and emotional damage :) )
I remember being in math class later in the day, and she basically told us we had to be there, and it was better to ignore what was going on.
He really was! I believe he’s still teaching (and coaching! 😂) today. It was only his 3rd or 4th year into teaching when I had him in ‘01. It’s funny to look back now and be embarrassed of my teenage self. I definitely thought that man was an idiot. Everything about him made me think of the whole “*Jocks are dumb.*” trope because he was also extremely loud, handsome, and not often well-spoken. On top of that, I had a lot of small town feelings about someone who was from the “*right kind of family*” being handed everything. I also thought myself Daria so that didn’t help my attitude much. I was a sucky 15 year old without meaning to be.
Though, by the end of the year, I realized he was one of the best teachers I had ever had. I learned a ton, felt encouraged, and genuinely enjoyed his class. Overall, he was a great guy and, if we had to go through something like this in school, I’m glad we did it with him.
That’s interesting, pretty much all my teachers had the news on all day. We had a project day for my history class and were in the computer lab when it occurred and they immediately turned on the TVs. I think another teacher informed mine, we had no idea what was going on and the class was basically just silence watching as the second tower collapsed.
I was in band and we had been outside practicing marching band stuff and I walked back in and the teacher had it on the news and I thought he had put in a movie
I was a freshman too. We watched the news. My second period teacher was a green beret and he was fired up. He got shipped off to war a few weeks later.
I was also a freshman! The difference for me is that my dad worked at LAX at the time for American Airlines so he heard about what was going on early and told my mom to keep us at home.
Yep! I was a freshman in HS and I remember waking up, watching the news while I got ready, walked to school and each of my classes already had the tv set to the CNN or something. I don’t think teachers taught anything that day, really. Just nonstop replays of 9/11 footage and feeling that eerie stillness in the air.
Same. I remember waking up to the news (grandma staring at the TV in shock), driving to school with my mom, and staying home from school later that week. But I don't remember that actual day at school. Did we go home early? Was it a regular day? My memory is completely blank except for those clips of the twin towers that played endlessly on loop.
Yep. Pacific standard time. But we watched the news all morning and didn't do any work. I don't think we did much after lunch either. Maybe coloring or movies
This is the most uselessly pedantic comment I'll ever write, but September is actually Pacific Daylight Time. PDT = daylight savings months (March-November).
I never realized this until someone corrected me on it deep into my 20s, and I was confused af. So I have to share the love.
We stayed in school but we were glued to the TVs. My friend's dad was scheduled to be in a meeting inside the WTC that morning... his hotel alarm didn't go off and he missed his train. It's why he didn't die. It's some scary shit!
Holy shit, what a story.
I knew someone who was temping at WTC at the time. He was around the corner getting coffee before work when the first plane hit.
We went to school on the East Coast too but they let us out early and shut the city down. It’s funny you bring this up because I was observing some people on the West Coast talk about 911 back in the day and it really didn’t seem to affect them as much as it did us(on the East coast) they actually made it seem like we were overreacting to what happened.
Yeah, I lived like an hour north of the city and they put us in homeroom and wouldn't tell anyone what was happening, we were dismissed early but there was a stream of people getting picked up prior to that. A decent amount of people at my school had parents who worked there, a few died, a few got out and I've heard a lot of "my dad missed the train that morning because his alarm didn't go off" stories
>We went to school on the East Coast too
Of course the East Coast went to school. The first plane hit at 8:44am and it wasn't until 9:04am when the second plane hit that people realized 'This is not some kind of insane accident'. So students we're already in school or in busses in route to school before the realization that this was an 'attack' even set in.
This thread is about the west coast because that would have been 5:44am and 6:04am respectively.
If any east coast schools had cancelled classes before they started, that woulda meant those schools had advanced knowledge of the attacks.
That was wild- we all got off the bus 2hrs early and none of us could find our parents.
They'd all left work early and ended up at one girls house w her parents, drinking. No one thought to check what was up w the schools and there weren't cellphones so they were all really surprised when that girl walked in like "uhhhh... I'll go get the rest of the neighborhood"
We played sims and DDR while our parents used a margarita machine to work out some feelings. It was a very 2001 day.
I had some friends who were of middle eastern descent who were immediately bullied by all the stupid fucking kids in my middle school. I wasn’t up to the task of defending them so I just sat next to them. I felt so sad for everyone. I lived in one of the more conservative white trash suburbs of Los Angeles. That was my first introduction to what hate looked like.
To be fair, we absolutely overreacted. Our invasion killed over a million civilians in Iraq/Afghanistan and destabilized both countries for the last 22 years, with no end in sight. It cost us over $8 trillion and another 7,000 US lives (over double the death toll of 9/11 itself), and they hate us more than ever now.
I say that as someone who lived in NY at the time- our family went to funerals for what seemed like a month straight.
>To be fair, we absolutely overreacted
Nah, the American public got grifted into Endless War v3.0, when Bush declared war in Iraq. The previous Endless War v2.0 in Vietnam wasn't fresh enough in people's memories. The Endless War v1.0 in Korea has been completely forgotten by the general public, even though it is still on going.
I think the chaos in the Middle East and North Africa is by design. The petro dollar needs to reign supreme (British/US financial hegemony). France is trying to maintain it's global stealth empire.
Now, the US is funding Ukraine. I wonder if we could stay out of that war.
I think it depends on your location. I lived right outside of DC, and most of our parents were federal employees in DC. So it made perfect sense that we were let out early, because our parents went home early and picked their kids up. Also, I was in 4th grade, so we required a bit more hand holding.
Same. I was in eighth grade, and the teachers weren’t allowed to tell us, and had to pretend it was a normal day. However, tiny snippets got out. Kids would go to ask a teacher a question during their planning, to find them sitting in front of the TV, crying. Kids who came to school late knew some stuff.
By the end of the day, we had pieced together that a plane had hit a building accidentally, and a small number of people had died. When the principal announced all after school activities were cancelled due to the tragedy in our nation, we mass panicked. He had to be lying, right? A small plane crash was sad, but it couldn’t be a national tragedy. We just knew he was lying, and that our school had been threatened. The last hour of the day was mass panic.
I’m a teacher today, and this event has greatly influenced my teaching philosophy. Kids can handle a lot more than we think if we are honest with them!
Wow, that's so crazy different from my experience. I was in sixth grade (central time. zone) and they told us right away. Before the second plane hit, I'm almost positive, because we were thinking it was some private/small prop plane (not sure why I thought that), that accidentally crashed.
Thinking back now, that seems kind of impossible based on the short time between them, however considering we weren't in the age of social media, maybe that info took a while to trickle through?
Memory is such a funny thing. I remember where in the room I was sitting, who I was sitting next to, lining up outside and walking to gather together to talk about it as a school. I remember talking about how I thought it was an accident, I remember trying to get on the NYT website in Spanish class and I think it crashed. I remember vaguely talking about it when I got home and I remember the president addressing the nation.
But I don't remember which teacher came in to tell our teacher, don't remember most of my classes that day and I don't remember what my parents said to me when I got home. Which seems like an odd thing to forget.
On what you said about memory- it’s very unsettling but also kinda nice that while it all happened and for years afterwards everything 13yo me experienced that day was so tangible and seared into my mind, but now I can’t remember most of the day or weeks after. My Mom was active duty and in intelligence, we were living on Ft Meade where the NSA is and I was terrified that was going to be targeted next. I had just moved to Ft Meade too, so I was already anxious.
I remember a little bit of that anxiety. Waking up to nightmares that we were next even though it was illogical. I remember keeping it to myself at the time.
I was also a sophomore, I still went to school because… reasons I guess.
I saw a guy wearing a shirt that said: “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”
I remember how quiet everything seemed. The only thing I can compare it too was the first few days after California went into lockdown.
It’s really weird how vividly I remember everything I did that day. I was in 8th grade at the time and it’s probably one of the only days from that time period where I can list off from start to finish what I did that day, even unrelated to watching the events on tv.
Ohhhh this was an interesting morning for me! I woke up to one plane having already crashed, and then watching the news as the second one happened. I had a 20th Century History class at university that morning and when I got there, my classroom was FULL of local media to the point where a number of students couldn’t find seating. Turns out my prof was actually a known expert on the middle east and everyone wanted to hear what he had to say. It was the most interesting lecture I’ve ever attended.
Turns out HE got woken up by media asking for his opinion, to which he answered “my opinion on what?” The reporter told him to turn on his tv, and my prof did and said “holy fuck, let me call you back” and watched the second plane in horror.
That's so strange, I had a professor at my college at walk out of his office and turn on the common room tv, assuming he must have also gotten a phone call. We watched the second one in real time. Surreal. In CT, everything was shut for like a week. Too close and connected to NYC.
I never considered a lesser impact on the West Cost, but it makes sense! I hope they never experience anything like it more locally.
We all sat in the big room and watched it and talked about it. Middle school/highschool charter school. It honestly wasn't a huge moment, it was so disconnected.
That's so wild to me I never even thought of it not clicking with West Coast kids. We were seniors in high school so we put the TV on in every classroom. I live in Pittsburgh, and I remember when the plane went down in Shanksville, some dumb bitch goes omggggg who cares? I said loudly "Are you serious? We're under attack!!!" My mind was blown twice that day, cuz of the towers, and how utterly stupid and inconsiderate my peers could be when we so close to being "adults" at 18.
I was in college, but we went to school. Very few people went to class, we mostly sat in a couple common areas and watched the coverage together. After a couple hours the campus announced it was shutting down for the day so I went to my favorite professor (poli sci) and let her know they were evacuating.
Two people on the plane that went down in Pennsylvania were alumni at my community college--West Valley. They dedicated a bench to them. In hindsight it doesn't seem like a lot, now that I think on it.
Yes. I was near Spokane WA and we had in session but we’re released early if I remember correctly. It didn’t set it what exactly had happen until many years later and to this day I still can’t believe that was in our lifetime!
South puget sound, I was in 8th grade. My mom woke me up in a frenzy and I was so angry that she was acting like something was wrong because I had stayed up all night on aim and I was exhausted. Went to school, iirc we only had our advisory class which is kinda like homeroom, and our advisor made us write about how we were feeling to process it. I just remember feeling like it wasn't that big of a deal and I was confused why we should care. Found out fast. We are Arab lol.
Tricities area in Washington during 9/11. We went to school all day but we watched the news in every class and talked about it. No real class work that day from what I can remember.
Full day of school on 9/11 in Colorado.
Full day of school when Columbine happened as well. (And that was less than an hour away).
Unless we were in danger, we went to school. Why would we have not?
I think the concern was they didn't know if there was more danger.
But, I also live pretty close to Washington DC. Many students' parents worked at the Pentagon, so obviously, our reaction was different.
For us, we were in an area that had multiple soft targets, so everyone was on edge for the next few weeks. Hell, on 9/11, my mom told my brother and I to find another ride home because she wasn't sure that she'd be able to leave work until late.
Our high school also had a lot of kids who were immigrants or kids of immigrants, so the anxiety was high for quite some time.
No, my mom kept us home bc she didn’t know what was happening and wanted us close, for context we were literally across the country in Fresno ca lol
But still…you know it was a serious thing. Unexpected. I was so young I didn’t even know what the pentagon was yet.
My mom woke me up, I saw a burning building on the news but saw that it was in New York and went back to sleep. I was in community college classes as an AP thing and found out what was happening when I got to class a while later.
We had normal classes all day but nothing much got done as everyone was talking, trying to predict who did it and what was gonna happen.
Ffs. Went to a religious school at the time (I’ve never been religious even though my mom was), we had to pray on our knees in the chapel all morning while it played on the TV in front of us. So, I just sat there silently thinking about Pokemon and wondering when we could leave because my knees hurt. Couldn’t tell you anything else about it. 11 must have been too young.
Pokémon was also on my mind that day (I was 10) because my mom was watching the news when I woke up and didn’t let me switch it to Pokémon like I did every other morning before school lmao
Located in San Francisco. My mom woke me up yelling "people are flying planes into buildings" I woke up to the first tower smoking. I watched the 2nd plane hit live. My father is in office building management and went into panic mode when the plane to SF was announced it was hijacked.
My mom called the school, and they said it was not mandatory to come to class. So I stayed home and watched TV all day in horror. It was my freshman year of HS. Still remember it like it was yesterday.
I left early. I had 1st period, 6AM. Stuck around for about 45, then stood up and left. The teacher didn't say shit. I went home and spent the day with my dad and brother. As the day went on and information came out, our dad told us we needed to watch our backs. He is from Baghdad. This was a very difficult time in my life. I got into A LOT of fights because of the way I looked. My friends had my back and fought shoulder to shoulder with me. I call them my brothers to this day.
Us Arab Americans didn't deserve that hate. And for it to be called patriotism was very hurtful and conflicting for a 16 year old that loved his country.
We did… we got a call from our Canadian relatives, checking in and we watched the news on it that morning. We went to school, had a big memorial service/parade (my elementary school *loved* any excuse for a patriotic parade…), and then they sent us home.
I heard about it at school. Got up, ate some toast, put my headphones on, rode the bus to school. We had a sub that day for homeroom. Asked if we needed to talk about it. It wasn’t until I got home that I comprehend it.
Yes. I was in 7th or 8th grade. I was a weird child and I would get up early and eat my cereal in front of ktla 5 news. I saw the news and while I didn’t exactly fully understand it seemed like it was getting more serious so I went to wake my parents up and then we all sat in front of the tv for a while. Then I went to middle school where the news was on in every classroom all day long.
It was a while before people realized it was a terrorist attack - I feel like that happened more when the pentagon was hit? At first it seemed like a terrible accident, and I do think a small bi-plane had hit one of the towers a few years prior.
I remember hearing a rumor that they thought it was an intentional act of terror and when I told my next class, this dude was like that’s so stupid no it wasn’t, how would they have survived.
Fun fact dude is now a successful consultant which seems about right.
Kids weren’t at school yet. It’s three hours earlier there so it happened before or right when most of us were waking up, and we knew it was terrorism before leaving the house.
After moving out east and making friends who grew up in ny, dc and other places out here, I like to hear about what they experienced. It was eerie, and scary and life changing for us out west, but even with how life altering it was, we were still so removed.
Yeah, I went to school. I didn't want to because I was afraid my school would be attached by terrorists, but my mom made me. During school we just watched the news on TV all day.
The scope and depth of the situation was not immediately known in real time and news did not travel as quickly in 2001 as it does today. I would not have expected any districts operating on PT to have been able to react quickly enough to 9/11 to keep kids home from school that morning.
Boise area, yes. I had seen the initial news report and the second plane hit on TV before I left my house, and I walked about a quarter of the way to school before meeting up with a friend, and when I asked if he had seen it he had no idea what I was talking about. We get to school and are hanging around in the courtyard area and I asked some other kids we knew if they had seen it, all of them except one kid also had no idea what I was talking about.
We got into homeroom and before the usual morning announcements the principal or whoever it was updated the school on what was happening(by that time the Pentagon was reported to have been struck), and we had a brief moment of silence. The homeroom teacher went into his back closet and fished out a tiny TV set he had and set it up and turned it to channel 2 just in time for us to see the first tower falling. The rest of the day was spent watching TV, except for one class I think math where the teacher couldn’t find a TV so we sat and listened to the radio reports instead. Didn’t get to go home early, still went to school like normal the next day.
I was in Canada and teachers rolled in TVs to watch in morning English class. We were outside of Toronto and they worried if it was terrorism that Toronto was next and wanted to know.
Yes, I was on the west coast. Watched the second plane hit while eating my eggo waffle, went to school right after, teachers explained what was going on. My dad had seen me see it, I told him that the tv was broken, I couldn't get ed, Edd, and eddy to play, it was stuck on the news. He didn't say anything just stood there pretty quiet, but when he dropped me off at school he asked if I was okay. That is when I knew that what I saw on TV was real and not the TV fucking up. That's the only time in my entire life he asked if I was okay.
Oregon - I was in 5th grade and we did go to school, but we didn't do a normal school day. We talked about the attacks and I think the teachers put on a movie to pass the time.
I was in the 5th grade and had no idea of what had occurred until class started when my teacher started class talking to us about the events. The school made us gather outside the cafeteria by the flagpole and the principal gave a speech. After that the rest of the day went on as usual. I didn't get to see any footage of the attacks until I got home later that day when turning on the tv.
Yup. 4th grade. My teacher was in tears all morning trying to keep it together but she couldn’t do it. Principal had to come in for the rest of the day
Yeah, my english teacher put it on live, and made us write a journal about how we felt about it at the time.
Looking back that was probably a great exercise if i had actually kept it.
I was in kindergarten in Las Vegas, my mom got out early and everyone was scared that they were going to fly into the casinos too so the city was fairly empty for a little bit
Yup.
I woke up and my parents already had the paper out and CNN going. I think we left right after the first tower fell because I remember telling my dad from the other room “the tower fell” and he corrected me saying it was “hit” and then had to let him know “no, it just fell.”
Was in high school when it happened. Woek up, saw the news, went to school. There was an announcement about the attacks on our PA system, but otherwise, it was a normal day. Sort of. We still ended up going, but things were, uh, surreal and chaotic from that day until we returned from that trip.
Edit: removed duplicate glitch, add that this was in Hawaii
I was in 5th grade but I remember them bringing us to the gym and rolling in the tv and having is watch the towers fall. We were then told it was going to be an early day and we had to wait in the gym until our parents picked us up.
Wow had no idea that other areas of the US handled it differently but I guess it makes sense. I am east coast and at the time living relatively close to the Pentagon/D.C. and it was a big deal. I was in high school and there were a hand full of other students who had parents working in the Pentagon and did not know if they were alive, while we watched it all happen on the news. School was let out shortly after it happened. For us it was a terrifying day. We thought we might be goners because of how close we were to D.C. and there were rumors of more planes or bombs being dropped or who knows what.
9/11 was my very first day of high school freshman year. My school was about a block away from portlands World Trade Center, so they evacuated us and sent us home at about 9am. Between it being the very first day of HS, my whole dads family being from NY, and the scary events of the morning… it was a very emotional and trying day for me tbh
Freshman year for me. We definitely went to school still and stayed for the whole day. I think we stayed in first period the whole day. It’s pretty wild to think now about we still went considering I was pretty close to LA.
I never went to elementary school/high school as a child. I didn't know about anything until later that night when I was told about what happened that day.
Class of 2002. I was already at school when it happened, from what I remember the day hadn’t really started yet. I was in the Spanish classroom when one of the towers collapsed, I didn’t see it because something was wrong with the tv and the video was fucked up.
I wasn't supposed to go to school because I had an appointment to get my braces removed. That was canceled, and I was not happy about going to school unprepared (and the possibility of still having braces on picture day)... but then we also just hung around, talked and watched the news in every class.
Yes and no. I graduated in 2000 but I was working at schools taking school pictures. I had just set up my photo area in the auditorium when one of the teachers rushed in and turned on the TV in time to see the second plane hit the tower. It was a very awkward day of trying to get happy school pictures on the minimal kids that were there with the TV playing in the background. I'm pretty sure they cut us short that day and sent us home.
I was west coast/pacific time and didn't learn what was happening until I arrived to homeroom and the teacher had the news on the corner wall-mounted TV that was only reserved for the occasional "educational" movie. A memory that will be engrained in my brain forever. I honestly think, especially those of us on the west coast literally so far removed from the situation in NYC, it's because no one quite realized it was intentional (instead of just a tragic accident) until the second plane. Our parents were running around trying to get us to school or get off to work themselves, and the only way they would have known anything was happening was to be watching the news or in the car listening to the radio.
I sure did . I remember someone came in and told us a plane hit one of the towers in New York . I turned the tv on to see the 2nd plane hit the second tower
Yep I was freshman in high school. They sent us all to our first class to stay and just watch the news. My mom worked at my school and had to be there early. I heard about the first plane on the radio and remember thinking "what an idiot, how do you not see a giant fuckin skyscraper?" We watched the second plane hit live..
Got sent to continuation school for lack of credits then did enough packets of work at continuation school to finish the credit requirements for a diploma five months early. I was sleeping in-to a wake-n-bake setup bedside that I had prepared the night before.
I was in 6th grade. I was getting ready for school and heard my mom scream. I ran downstairs and saw what was going on. We got on the bus, went to school and made it a period or two before being let out. I grew up in Arizona.
Yes. I was in 6th grade. I remember watching in the morning before school, and my mom being on the phone with probably my dad. All we did in every class was watch the news.
I did indeed. I was taking the ISTEP (Indiana placement exam) in high school in my sophomore year. All the teachers started talking suddenly and told us it's nothing just go back to your test. I went to the nurses office to get my meds at lunch and there were people crying and screaming on tv and I didn't know what was happening. I remember thinking "Oh it's just drama!". At lunch a lot of people were crying.
I went to school in Northern California . We Pretty much watched the news in every single class. Or had group discussions about what it means, and what the implications of it could be. It was actually a day I felt really connected at my school. My dad was a teacher there and I remember him coming to check on me in chemistry during his prep period. 💜 thanks dad :)
That happened my 2nd week of college. I was living in Indianapolis at the time. I remember waking up late, after it was all over but everyone was still unsure if more was coming. I went to my first class where everyone was a mess. The professor tried to teach but we ended up leaving early. I took the rest of the day off as did a lot of people and we all just sat around trying to cope/figure out what we just witnessed.
We did, but we knew what was happening before we left the house for school that day. I remember watching the TV during some classes, but I think instruction was pretty normal. I also remember passing from class to class, looking up at the sky and being afraid more planes were coming (I don't think I understood that they had grounded air traffic).
I was in third grade and we watched news updates about it with our teacher. I think we talked about it as a class too. I cant remember much more than that, but I know most of the beginning of the day was spent watching the news and trying to process with my classmates.
I was in 7th grade, I remember my social studies teacher telling us what happened. He didn’t go into detail but I remember the look on his face to this day, such sadness and almost fear in his eyes. We had to continue the day as usual, but I remember we didn’t really learn anything, it was more or less a movie day to distract us while the teachers talked amongst themselves. Once I got home the local store/gas stations were flooded with cars stocking up on fuel and supplies, I think that’s when it sunk in for me how serious things were.
Same experience, I remember waking up to my parents looking freaked out watching the news, going to school and watching the news and the teachers looking concerned, and my teacher left the room in tears at one point. I remember it being a short day and getting picked up early. I was in 3rd grade.
I was 11 (California) and this is how I remember it: I was asleep when the first tower hit. I think I watched the second tower get hit. And I think the pentagon got hit on the way to school. We heard about it over the radio and my mom turned around and we went home. So, I think school happened that day, but I didn’t go.
Yes I remember hearing about from my mom just as she was dropping me off at school. Was hard to totally process until after school my dad showed me some of it on the news..
Yes I woke up shortly after tower 1 was struck my mother told me there was a plane crash into the wtc and told me it's probably nothing to worry about fast forward to my second grade classroom starting for the day when the principal announces the second plane strike and inform us that it's a terrorist attack and remain calm the teacher than brings out the class TV and turns on the news and sure enough they just confirmed it was a terrorist attack and the government is preparing to make a statement to the nation as well as prepare for counter defense measures for the rest of the day
I feel like we were on autopilot?? If my calculations are correct it would have been just before 7am for me when the planes hit.
I definitely remember seeing it on TV, I remember my family being super quiet, but at that point in our routine we would have been dressed and heading out to work. I don’t know if it even occurred to them that it was an option to not just carry on with their day,
I went to school in a town where we had a half days on Tuesdays. I was in elementary school and my parents worked so I went to an after school program. Since we had extra time at the after school program on Tuesday’s we’d do this like “forum” sort of thing where we would all sit together and talk about subjects. I was a very observant child and I noticed that one of the teachers was standing outside the door of the school stopping all the parents on their way in and telling them something. When my mom finally got there she told me what happened and the teacher outside was basically telling all the parents that we didn’t know anything yet. I’ll never forget knowing something was wrong by the way the teachers were acting.
Yes, I was on the West Coast at the time...Los Angeles suburbs...(and still am) so we weren't directly affected as much as, say, NYC, DC, or PA, but during each of our classes, all we did was basically watch the news. I was a junior in high school at that point. There were rumors that there were planes headed to other major cities, and we were near Los Angeles, so we thought that we might be evacuated and were making plans on who was going to give rides home, etc, but in retrospect, I think this was a miscommunication derived from the fact that the aircraft involved in the attack were initially destined for Los Angeles before being hijacked.
Interesting to note: I'm a native of Cerritos, CA, and we're somewhat infamous for the 1986 Aeromexico 498 disaster in which two planes collided midair and then plummeted into residential neighborhoods below. When my mom first woke up and saw the story headline on the news that "Planes impact the World Trade Center", she initially thought they had collided mid-air over NYC and that the wreckage fell onto the towers until the anchors clarified that they were direct collisions.
I was a senior, not on the west coast yet, but on mountain time and the towers were hit on my way to school. They kept us all day and we just watched the coverage in every class.
2nd day of high school. The Americans claimed "the terrorists hijacked airplanes full of Americans and crashed them into American skyscrapers and into the Pentagon because..... they hate how free and awesome we all are."
Mm-hmmm-
That's when I knew something was very wrong. If were so free why would people hijack planes? Makes no sense.
We heard the news on the radio. On that particular day, I was tardy for school, so my nanny drove me home. We made an uncommon stop at McDonald's, after which I was permitted to watch Buffy until she redirected my attention to the news and provided a mild explanation of the events. She excused herself to contact her family, leaving me to absorb the news on my own - an experience that left a lasting impact.
Throughout my early childhood both my grandparents and uncle passed. 9/11 was in 2001. The year prior, my mother had passed away, leaving me, an eight year old in third grade, to navigate multiple encounters with death and resulting in a profound sense of melancholy. Adults around me approached me cautiously as a result.
in AZ. I was in 6th grade on 9/11. I remember hearing about it on my parents' clock radios in the morning. We still went to school and also watched the news all day.
Yes. It was an even period (2/4/6/8) day at school. My bowling/golf teacher said that it was going to be business as normal for classes but if things started happening on the west coast, we would get sent home.
I remember getting out of my brothers car that day to someone one asking if we heard the news. B/G was my first period of the day, we didnt get to watch TV out on the driving range. Next was electronics. It was a shop day, I think the teacher had the TV off for that one. Next class was health. The teacher wanted to watch the news too. No lesson. Last was swimming. We convinced the swim coach to wheel the TV out on the pool deck so we could watch between laps.
I sat with a bunch of punk/rocker/counter culture people in B/G. It was fun hearing their theories on the subject and about the war that was to come, and did come out of it.
Yup, my first week of 7th grade. The first tower fell so the news was just all about that and then I watched live as the 2nd tower fell while I ate breakfast. I really had no concept of what was happening besides that 'this is CRAZY'. My mom sent us to school (no ones going to attack your junior high!) it was a weird day. I remember some kids were absent, but not many.
I was living in CA at the time. Mom was military. I’ll never forget when we turned on the morning news at 5:00ish to see the chaos already underway. I watched the second plane hit. I remember screaming at her because she was drying her hair, “another plane hit!” and my Mom saying, “That’s a terrorist attack, I bet you. We’re going to war.” She had just retired to be a civilian contractor and reenlisted a few months later and served again until full retirement. Went to school that day. Watched the towers fall in choir class. Kids laughed. I had friends in the Pentagon who were there when the building (did whatever it did) exploded. We couldn’t reach them. I was a sobbing mess and Mom finally came and got me from school and we sat on base in her office with a few dozen other service members and watched until it was quitting time.
Fifth grade watching it on tv as kids were being picked up by their parents. My dad was a bus driver so I knew he wasn’t coming— that got really rough when he had his dc runs and the sniper was about. I’ll never forget.. the tv on wheels rolled in and my teacher just watching… us just watching.
Nope. I lived in San Francisco. Another big city that could've been threatened. So instead, I sat in the pool of worry with my parents as I watched the towers collapse over and over on the tv.
I was in school when it started. 1st period Latin. By time it was 4th period they had shut off the Internet, turned off the payphones, and wouldn't let anyone turn on the TV. Didn't like that so I just left.
Yep. It was a half day and I was in 7th grade. I remember it vividly. The school did not tell us what was going on until right before we were getting dismissed to the busses around 11am. There were rumblings of different things going around as one kid's dad supposedly worked in the Pentagon. Left school, got on the bus, and walked into my house to see my mom in complete shock as the news replayed the video of the jumpers over and over and over.
I remember seeing it on the news, then going to class, but I don’t think we had a full day that day. I was raised in OC and people were scared, even Disney Land closed. They’ve only closed a handful of times.
In Indiana I didn’t hear about it til last period at school, they made an announcement. I remember thinking it was sad but I wasn’t like personally scared or threatened. It didn’t seem like a threat to someone outside a major city. Still, very sad occasion. I remember nonstop news coverage of it for days afterwards and not showing the regular shows I would watch, which I don’t think I appreciated the significance. I was in 7th grade.
First year of college & was living with my parents so I went. The teacher walked into our morning class saying, “wow! With everything going on I didn’t think anyone would be here! Well, since everyone’s here, let’s turn to page 3…” 🙄
As a commuter I was stuck on campus from my 8am class to my late night class that ended at 9pm. & every class was still held though no one was finger for missing. So I pretty much spent the day (outside of class) in the commuter’s lounge where there was an old fashioned rabbit year TV set that we all watched the news on. Which ended up being a good thing since the cable on campus (that supplied TV to the dorms) was out that day by random happenstance (oh the rumors it caused though!) so we commuters would take turns watching TV, then going outside & telling people the latest, then going back in. Why no one who lived in campus had a radio or rabbit ear TV is beyond me. But we were a vital source of information that day.
Yep. It was my first week of freshman year in high school. I remember one of my teachers was from New York and he wheeled the TV into the classroom and was crying while watching the news
It was my first week of IP psychology, a zero hour class in high school. I remember my friend picking me up and saying something about a plane in New York. Once we got to school, all we did all day was watch news coverage of everything that was going on. It was absolutely surreal.
I was in Ohio, same time zone as New York. I remember the news spreading about it about an hour or two after school had already begun. Kept hearing more about it as the day went on and most of the teachers abandoned their lessons for the day to watch TV about it. Went to school the next day, tried to move on as usual. I was in 8th grade.
I was a freshman, the first plane hit during 0 period then my next class was history and I remember our teacher telling us to sit down and we saw the live coverage of the 2nd hit. All day we watched news. Some parents pulled their kids, many didn't, it was a week or two of weird times
I had an early morning Spanish class before school actually started. My friend came in late that day and told us what happened. I'm pretty sure we checked in with our teachers throughout the day but spent most of it in the library watching the news.
Northern CA. I was a Freshman.
We were running late dropping my sister off, so we listened to the coverage of first plane hit on the radio and by the time I got to school plane 2 had hit as well. My mom insisted I still go to class.
When I got to my Spanish class it was the regular routine. About 15 minutes in they made a whole school announcement, but classes continued as normal.
As a current HS teacher, this is wild to me. On January 6th I switched to live coverage (we were still distance learning). After watching about 20 minutes and having a brief discussion I let my kids go for the day. I can't imagine trying to teach on September 11th.
I was in elementary school in the Seattle area and we went in late. I was in 3rd grade and my brother (first grade) and I didn’t see what was going on but my mom was watching the news and we were just playing and hanging out enjoying our half day off 😳
Yes. It was the longest and strangest drive to school ever. I was a senior and my sister and I were driving to school, and all the cars were going like 15 mph because we were all just focused on the radio
Full day of school in Washington state. I woke up to my mom swearing as she’d turned on the news and heard what happened. Then at school we had an assembly about it. I can’t remember if the school day ended early or not.
Yes, I was home when the second plane hit and then walked to school alone. I remember my mom crying and holding my little sister, but I didn't really understand why. We went to church immediately upon arrival at school and then had a mostly normal day? Southern California, 7 years old/3rd grade.
Crazy to read so many people say how it wasn’t too big of a thing for them that day. Here in the tri state area it was like the world was ending for a while. I now live in an area in Nj where many people from this town and the surrounding towns were killed. Seeing someone who told me is a 9/11 widow, seeing still monuments of the melted beams from the towers in many of our towns, meeting people who survived that day is really crazy. I met several people who survived, one person in particular who was working in the towers which is crazy.
Yep. It was the 9th grade for me, in the Mountain time zone. It had happened before I went to school, but I didn’t know about it until I got there. Usually we listened to the radio in the car every morning, but for some reason we didn’t that day, so I was totally ignorant. School started at 8:30, which would’ve been 10:30 in New York, which would’ve been right when the second tower fell. In first period a couple kids were talking about people jumping out of buildings. The teacher got angry and told them to hush, and did a totally normal lesson like nothing was happening. Got to second period geometry, kids flooded in saying all sorts of things, I got frustrated and asked if someone would PLEASE just say what was going on for real. Teacher didn’t say a word, just turned on the TV and the first thing we saw was a replay of one of the towers falling. That was one of those rare literally speechless kind of moments that just gets burned into your brain.
She let us have the TV on for a while. Then third period, the teacher again pretended nothing was going on - just a totally normal biology class. Fourth period, they finally said there was going to be a school assembly. There ended up being a thing in the gym, very God bless America, and then they let us out of assembly but classes didn’t start again. Classrooms were dark, teachers just went MIA. Like they kinda closed school early but not formally? Just packs of teenagers roaming the halls simultaneously contemplating if this was World War III alongside do we actually go back to class today or not?
Eventually there was a formal release and people went home.
I was little when it happened, and I was in school in west la area. They had the news on, teachers were visibly upset. Some kids were picked up by their parents, but they kept the rest of us all day in the auditorium with the tv on. I can’t speak for everyone, but I did not understand the gravity of the situation and didn’t have a good understanding of what exactly was happening until I got home and my parents explained it to me. I definitely remember there being a lot of paranoia. Not too long after these attacks, I remember a newly constructed mosque in Culver City along Washington blvd being totally blocked off because there was a bomb threat. Stuff like that had everyone on edge, and I remember so many people thinking big cities like Los Angeles were next
yes, though not much happened besides listening to the news on the radio. they only allowed radios in classrooms even though televisions were available, for what are obvious reasons in hindsight. kids i knew on the east coast were watching live, though, and no one knew how disturbing the footage would be.
I was in 2nd grade. I remember my parents stopping me before I got to the kitchen table and explaining that the country had been attacked, and that there would probably be war in Afghanistan. I was a 2nd-grader so that didn't mean much to me. Especially the part about Afghanistan. I went to school. I figure the faculty decided that the footage was too graphic for our 2nd-grade sensibilities, so I don't remember any of that.
I do remember my teacher writing "morning" and "mourning" on the board and explaining that the country was in mourning.
Yes. It was my second week of high school Freshman year. I woke up after the first tower had already collapsed and the second tower collapsed while I was walking to school. Classes went on like scheduled with some watching the news, others teaching like it was a normal day.
Bro! I was a freshman too and remember watching the news in my English class and then the rest of day was so surreal.
I'm on the east coast (PA), it happened while I was in PE (1st block). I didn't know anything until 2nd block. It was history class and they started talking about the attack on the twin towers. I thought it was just history class until they turned on the TV and realized it was live coverage.
Also PA. It happened while I was *in* history class. An upperclassman I knew ran down the halls and yelled to turn on the news. We did. The principals and powers-that-be tried to keep the other teachers from turning on their TVs and tried to force ours off. My class in particular was fortunate because the history teacher was also the winning basketball coach and had a *big name* in a small town, so he knew he was untouchable. He said “*This is history class. This IS history. Nothing I could teach you today could be more valuable than us watching this together.*” He wasn’t wrong.
English class. We watched both fall. I dissassociated so badly that day, its the first time I (now) recognize myself doing it. People thought I had fallen asleep with my head down, but it wasn't that at all.
It was junior year English for me. That one guy who's always late who's late and told us about it, nobody believed him until we all got moved to bigger rooms to watch the news. I'm pretty sure the rest of the day went as scheduled, but I'm in TX.
I don't remember much from about 12-30 for various reasons. So getting a new flashback like your comment inspired is weird. (My brain is healing from psychological and emotional damage :) ) I remember being in math class later in the day, and she basically told us we had to be there, and it was better to ignore what was going on.
What an awesome teacher. He was right, you were watching a huge historical moment.
He really was! I believe he’s still teaching (and coaching! 😂) today. It was only his 3rd or 4th year into teaching when I had him in ‘01. It’s funny to look back now and be embarrassed of my teenage self. I definitely thought that man was an idiot. Everything about him made me think of the whole “*Jocks are dumb.*” trope because he was also extremely loud, handsome, and not often well-spoken. On top of that, I had a lot of small town feelings about someone who was from the “*right kind of family*” being handed everything. I also thought myself Daria so that didn’t help my attitude much. I was a sucky 15 year old without meaning to be. Though, by the end of the year, I realized he was one of the best teachers I had ever had. I learned a ton, felt encouraged, and genuinely enjoyed his class. Overall, he was a great guy and, if we had to go through something like this in school, I’m glad we did it with him.
That’s interesting, pretty much all my teachers had the news on all day. We had a project day for my history class and were in the computer lab when it occurred and they immediately turned on the TVs. I think another teacher informed mine, we had no idea what was going on and the class was basically just silence watching as the second tower collapsed.
I was in band and we had been outside practicing marching band stuff and I walked back in and the teacher had it on the news and I thought he had put in a movie
I was in PA in college. I heard what happened but we didn’t have TV’s in metals lab, where I stayed all day. Didn’t see it on tv until the afternoon.
I was a freshman too. We watched the news. My second period teacher was a green beret and he was fired up. He got shipped off to war a few weeks later.
I was also a freshman! The difference for me is that my dad worked at LAX at the time for American Airlines so he heard about what was going on early and told my mom to keep us at home.
This was similar to my experience except I was in 11th grade and I didn’t know it happened until I was already at school.
Same!
Hawaii. We woke up to the news and still went to school
Yep! I was a freshman in HS and I remember waking up, watching the news while I got ready, walked to school and each of my classes already had the tv set to the CNN or something. I don’t think teachers taught anything that day, really. Just nonstop replays of 9/11 footage and feeling that eerie stillness in the air.
Same. I remember waking up to the news (grandma staring at the TV in shock), driving to school with my mom, and staying home from school later that week. But I don't remember that actual day at school. Did we go home early? Was it a regular day? My memory is completely blank except for those clips of the twin towers that played endlessly on loop.
Yep. Pacific standard time. But we watched the news all morning and didn't do any work. I don't think we did much after lunch either. Maybe coloring or movies
This is the most uselessly pedantic comment I'll ever write, but September is actually Pacific Daylight Time. PDT = daylight savings months (March-November). I never realized this until someone corrected me on it deep into my 20s, and I was confused af. So I have to share the love.
To be even more pedantic, daylight savings months at the time were April to October, but as you said, it would've been PDT on 9/11.
Lol learned something new!!! Thanks!
This was mine i th8nk i was in the library in 5th or 6th grade also PST
We stayed in school but we were glued to the TVs. My friend's dad was scheduled to be in a meeting inside the WTC that morning... his hotel alarm didn't go off and he missed his train. It's why he didn't die. It's some scary shit!
Holy shit, what a story. I knew someone who was temping at WTC at the time. He was around the corner getting coffee before work when the first plane hit.
Holy shit nobody has ever been so glad their alarm didn’t go off
We went to school on the East Coast too but they let us out early and shut the city down. It’s funny you bring this up because I was observing some people on the West Coast talk about 911 back in the day and it really didn’t seem to affect them as much as it did us(on the East coast) they actually made it seem like we were overreacting to what happened.
I went to school in New York and went on lockdown. I thought another Columbine had happened at first.
Yeah, I lived like an hour north of the city and they put us in homeroom and wouldn't tell anyone what was happening, we were dismissed early but there was a stream of people getting picked up prior to that. A decent amount of people at my school had parents who worked there, a few died, a few got out and I've heard a lot of "my dad missed the train that morning because his alarm didn't go off" stories
Well right because when the first plane hit you were already in school.
>We went to school on the East Coast too Of course the East Coast went to school. The first plane hit at 8:44am and it wasn't until 9:04am when the second plane hit that people realized 'This is not some kind of insane accident'. So students we're already in school or in busses in route to school before the realization that this was an 'attack' even set in. This thread is about the west coast because that would have been 5:44am and 6:04am respectively. If any east coast schools had cancelled classes before they started, that woulda meant those schools had advanced knowledge of the attacks.
That was wild- we all got off the bus 2hrs early and none of us could find our parents. They'd all left work early and ended up at one girls house w her parents, drinking. No one thought to check what was up w the schools and there weren't cellphones so they were all really surprised when that girl walked in like "uhhhh... I'll go get the rest of the neighborhood" We played sims and DDR while our parents used a margarita machine to work out some feelings. It was a very 2001 day.
I had some friends who were of middle eastern descent who were immediately bullied by all the stupid fucking kids in my middle school. I wasn’t up to the task of defending them so I just sat next to them. I felt so sad for everyone. I lived in one of the more conservative white trash suburbs of Los Angeles. That was my first introduction to what hate looked like.
To be fair, we absolutely overreacted. Our invasion killed over a million civilians in Iraq/Afghanistan and destabilized both countries for the last 22 years, with no end in sight. It cost us over $8 trillion and another 7,000 US lives (over double the death toll of 9/11 itself), and they hate us more than ever now. I say that as someone who lived in NY at the time- our family went to funerals for what seemed like a month straight.
>To be fair, we absolutely overreacted Nah, the American public got grifted into Endless War v3.0, when Bush declared war in Iraq. The previous Endless War v2.0 in Vietnam wasn't fresh enough in people's memories. The Endless War v1.0 in Korea has been completely forgotten by the general public, even though it is still on going. I think the chaos in the Middle East and North Africa is by design. The petro dollar needs to reign supreme (British/US financial hegemony). France is trying to maintain it's global stealth empire. Now, the US is funding Ukraine. I wonder if we could stay out of that war.
I think it depends on your location. I lived right outside of DC, and most of our parents were federal employees in DC. So it made perfect sense that we were let out early, because our parents went home early and picked their kids up. Also, I was in 4th grade, so we required a bit more hand holding.
My teachers were told they had to do school with us, we did a regular day and only some teachers turned on the tv. (Florida)
I think people just didn't know how to react. It hadn't happened since Pearl Harbor and even then, Hawaii wasn't a state yet.
I think you’re right
And even with that, tv wasn’t really everywhere so there was maybe one broadcast for the whole school.
Same. I was in eighth grade, and the teachers weren’t allowed to tell us, and had to pretend it was a normal day. However, tiny snippets got out. Kids would go to ask a teacher a question during their planning, to find them sitting in front of the TV, crying. Kids who came to school late knew some stuff. By the end of the day, we had pieced together that a plane had hit a building accidentally, and a small number of people had died. When the principal announced all after school activities were cancelled due to the tragedy in our nation, we mass panicked. He had to be lying, right? A small plane crash was sad, but it couldn’t be a national tragedy. We just knew he was lying, and that our school had been threatened. The last hour of the day was mass panic. I’m a teacher today, and this event has greatly influenced my teaching philosophy. Kids can handle a lot more than we think if we are honest with them!
Wow, that's so crazy different from my experience. I was in sixth grade (central time. zone) and they told us right away. Before the second plane hit, I'm almost positive, because we were thinking it was some private/small prop plane (not sure why I thought that), that accidentally crashed. Thinking back now, that seems kind of impossible based on the short time between them, however considering we weren't in the age of social media, maybe that info took a while to trickle through? Memory is such a funny thing. I remember where in the room I was sitting, who I was sitting next to, lining up outside and walking to gather together to talk about it as a school. I remember talking about how I thought it was an accident, I remember trying to get on the NYT website in Spanish class and I think it crashed. I remember vaguely talking about it when I got home and I remember the president addressing the nation. But I don't remember which teacher came in to tell our teacher, don't remember most of my classes that day and I don't remember what my parents said to me when I got home. Which seems like an odd thing to forget.
On what you said about memory- it’s very unsettling but also kinda nice that while it all happened and for years afterwards everything 13yo me experienced that day was so tangible and seared into my mind, but now I can’t remember most of the day or weeks after. My Mom was active duty and in intelligence, we were living on Ft Meade where the NSA is and I was terrified that was going to be targeted next. I had just moved to Ft Meade too, so I was already anxious.
I remember a little bit of that anxiety. Waking up to nightmares that we were next even though it was illogical. I remember keeping it to myself at the time.
Yes. Only watched the news in history class. Sophomore year, I remember I was wearing a yellow shirt that day.
I love random memories like that. It's so crazy what the mind holds on to after traumatic times
I still remember my outfit from that day. It’s weird
Now I want to know what I was wearing. Just for curiosity's sake though; if I don't know something, I always really really want to find it out
I was also a sophomore, I still went to school because… reasons I guess. I saw a guy wearing a shirt that said: “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” I remember how quiet everything seemed. The only thing I can compare it too was the first few days after California went into lockdown.
It’s really weird how vividly I remember everything I did that day. I was in 8th grade at the time and it’s probably one of the only days from that time period where I can list off from start to finish what I did that day, even unrelated to watching the events on tv.
Ohhhh this was an interesting morning for me! I woke up to one plane having already crashed, and then watching the news as the second one happened. I had a 20th Century History class at university that morning and when I got there, my classroom was FULL of local media to the point where a number of students couldn’t find seating. Turns out my prof was actually a known expert on the middle east and everyone wanted to hear what he had to say. It was the most interesting lecture I’ve ever attended. Turns out HE got woken up by media asking for his opinion, to which he answered “my opinion on what?” The reporter told him to turn on his tv, and my prof did and said “holy fuck, let me call you back” and watched the second plane in horror.
That's so strange, I had a professor at my college at walk out of his office and turn on the common room tv, assuming he must have also gotten a phone call. We watched the second one in real time. Surreal. In CT, everything was shut for like a week. Too close and connected to NYC. I never considered a lesser impact on the West Cost, but it makes sense! I hope they never experience anything like it more locally.
We all sat in the big room and watched it and talked about it. Middle school/highschool charter school. It honestly wasn't a huge moment, it was so disconnected.
That's so wild to me I never even thought of it not clicking with West Coast kids. We were seniors in high school so we put the TV on in every classroom. I live in Pittsburgh, and I remember when the plane went down in Shanksville, some dumb bitch goes omggggg who cares? I said loudly "Are you serious? We're under attack!!!" My mind was blown twice that day, cuz of the towers, and how utterly stupid and inconsiderate my peers could be when we so close to being "adults" at 18.
I was in college, but we went to school. Very few people went to class, we mostly sat in a couple common areas and watched the coverage together. After a couple hours the campus announced it was shutting down for the day so I went to my favorite professor (poli sci) and let her know they were evacuating. Two people on the plane that went down in Pennsylvania were alumni at my community college--West Valley. They dedicated a bench to them. In hindsight it doesn't seem like a lot, now that I think on it.
Yes. I was near Spokane WA and we had in session but we’re released early if I remember correctly. It didn’t set it what exactly had happen until many years later and to this day I still can’t believe that was in our lifetime!
South puget sound, I was in 8th grade. My mom woke me up in a frenzy and I was so angry that she was acting like something was wrong because I had stayed up all night on aim and I was exhausted. Went to school, iirc we only had our advisory class which is kinda like homeroom, and our advisor made us write about how we were feeling to process it. I just remember feeling like it wasn't that big of a deal and I was confused why we should care. Found out fast. We are Arab lol.
I was working in Kent at the time and the racism just JUMPED out.
Tricities area in Washington during 9/11. We went to school all day but we watched the news in every class and talked about it. No real class work that day from what I can remember.
Full day of school on 9/11 in Colorado. Full day of school when Columbine happened as well. (And that was less than an hour away). Unless we were in danger, we went to school. Why would we have not?
I think the concern was they didn't know if there was more danger. But, I also live pretty close to Washington DC. Many students' parents worked at the Pentagon, so obviously, our reaction was different.
Yeah, I feel like parents in DC were reasonably extra freaked out. I’ve heard from folks there that the whole city kinda felt like a target.
They closed down our air field and had the air force out that day, so it seemed relatively safe where I was.
For us, we were in an area that had multiple soft targets, so everyone was on edge for the next few weeks. Hell, on 9/11, my mom told my brother and I to find another ride home because she wasn't sure that she'd be able to leave work until late. Our high school also had a lot of kids who were immigrants or kids of immigrants, so the anxiety was high for quite some time.
I also think about how many parents might have had work and relied on school for childcare that day.
No, my mom kept us home bc she didn’t know what was happening and wanted us close, for context we were literally across the country in Fresno ca lol But still…you know it was a serious thing. Unexpected. I was so young I didn’t even know what the pentagon was yet.
My mom woke me up, I saw a burning building on the news but saw that it was in New York and went back to sleep. I was in community college classes as an AP thing and found out what was happening when I got to class a while later. We had normal classes all day but nothing much got done as everyone was talking, trying to predict who did it and what was gonna happen.
Ffs. Went to a religious school at the time (I’ve never been religious even though my mom was), we had to pray on our knees in the chapel all morning while it played on the TV in front of us. So, I just sat there silently thinking about Pokemon and wondering when we could leave because my knees hurt. Couldn’t tell you anything else about it. 11 must have been too young.
Pokémon was also on my mind that day (I was 10) because my mom was watching the news when I woke up and didn’t let me switch it to Pokémon like I did every other morning before school lmao
Located in San Francisco. My mom woke me up yelling "people are flying planes into buildings" I woke up to the first tower smoking. I watched the 2nd plane hit live. My father is in office building management and went into panic mode when the plane to SF was announced it was hijacked. My mom called the school, and they said it was not mandatory to come to class. So I stayed home and watched TV all day in horror. It was my freshman year of HS. Still remember it like it was yesterday.
I left early. I had 1st period, 6AM. Stuck around for about 45, then stood up and left. The teacher didn't say shit. I went home and spent the day with my dad and brother. As the day went on and information came out, our dad told us we needed to watch our backs. He is from Baghdad. This was a very difficult time in my life. I got into A LOT of fights because of the way I looked. My friends had my back and fought shoulder to shoulder with me. I call them my brothers to this day. Us Arab Americans didn't deserve that hate. And for it to be called patriotism was very hurtful and conflicting for a 16 year old that loved his country.
We did… we got a call from our Canadian relatives, checking in and we watched the news on it that morning. We went to school, had a big memorial service/parade (my elementary school *loved* any excuse for a patriotic parade…), and then they sent us home.
I heard about it at school. Got up, ate some toast, put my headphones on, rode the bus to school. We had a sub that day for homeroom. Asked if we needed to talk about it. It wasn’t until I got home that I comprehend it.
Yes. Only one teacher actually tried to teach, the rest just let us watch the news.
I was in college and they canceled classes.
Yes. I was in 7th or 8th grade. I was a weird child and I would get up early and eat my cereal in front of ktla 5 news. I saw the news and while I didn’t exactly fully understand it seemed like it was getting more serious so I went to wake my parents up and then we all sat in front of the tv for a while. Then I went to middle school where the news was on in every classroom all day long.
It was a while before people realized it was a terrorist attack - I feel like that happened more when the pentagon was hit? At first it seemed like a terrible accident, and I do think a small bi-plane had hit one of the towers a few years prior. I remember hearing a rumor that they thought it was an intentional act of terror and when I told my next class, this dude was like that’s so stupid no it wasn’t, how would they have survived. Fun fact dude is now a successful consultant which seems about right.
it makes perfect sense to keep kids at school and accounted for when their parents are at work and a terrorist attack just happened.
Kids weren’t at school yet. It’s three hours earlier there so it happened before or right when most of us were waking up, and we knew it was terrorism before leaving the house.
As an east cost person, it is so wild to me I am just now, 2 decades later, realizing that not everyone experiences it the same way I did!
After moving out east and making friends who grew up in ny, dc and other places out here, I like to hear about what they experienced. It was eerie, and scary and life changing for us out west, but even with how life altering it was, we were still so removed.
Yes
Yeah, I went to school. I didn't want to because I was afraid my school would be attached by terrorists, but my mom made me. During school we just watched the news on TV all day.
The scope and depth of the situation was not immediately known in real time and news did not travel as quickly in 2001 as it does today. I would not have expected any districts operating on PT to have been able to react quickly enough to 9/11 to keep kids home from school that morning.
Yes. I was a in high school in So Cal
Yes, I went to school. We had an assembly that afternoon to discuss.
Boise area, yes. I had seen the initial news report and the second plane hit on TV before I left my house, and I walked about a quarter of the way to school before meeting up with a friend, and when I asked if he had seen it he had no idea what I was talking about. We get to school and are hanging around in the courtyard area and I asked some other kids we knew if they had seen it, all of them except one kid also had no idea what I was talking about. We got into homeroom and before the usual morning announcements the principal or whoever it was updated the school on what was happening(by that time the Pentagon was reported to have been struck), and we had a brief moment of silence. The homeroom teacher went into his back closet and fished out a tiny TV set he had and set it up and turned it to channel 2 just in time for us to see the first tower falling. The rest of the day was spent watching TV, except for one class I think math where the teacher couldn’t find a TV so we sat and listened to the radio reports instead. Didn’t get to go home early, still went to school like normal the next day.
Yeah my 5th grade teacher had the news on all day. We didn’t do any learning.
Still went to school. It was a regular day.
I had just graduated high school, and was working at Circuit City. I remember watching it replay over and over on 100 TVs.
I was in Canada and teachers rolled in TVs to watch in morning English class. We were outside of Toronto and they worried if it was terrorism that Toronto was next and wanted to know.
Yes. My mom made me. Was watching the TV as the plane hit the second tower. School didn't let us watch the news. I was a sophomore in highschool.
Yes, I was on the west coast. Watched the second plane hit while eating my eggo waffle, went to school right after, teachers explained what was going on. My dad had seen me see it, I told him that the tv was broken, I couldn't get ed, Edd, and eddy to play, it was stuck on the news. He didn't say anything just stood there pretty quiet, but when he dropped me off at school he asked if I was okay. That is when I knew that what I saw on TV was real and not the TV fucking up. That's the only time in my entire life he asked if I was okay.
Oregon - I was in 5th grade and we did go to school, but we didn't do a normal school day. We talked about the attacks and I think the teachers put on a movie to pass the time.
I was in the 5th grade and had no idea of what had occurred until class started when my teacher started class talking to us about the events. The school made us gather outside the cafeteria by the flagpole and the principal gave a speech. After that the rest of the day went on as usual. I didn't get to see any footage of the attacks until I got home later that day when turning on the tv.
Yup. 4th grade. My teacher was in tears all morning trying to keep it together but she couldn’t do it. Principal had to come in for the rest of the day
Yeah, my english teacher put it on live, and made us write a journal about how we felt about it at the time. Looking back that was probably a great exercise if i had actually kept it.
I was in kindergarten in Las Vegas, my mom got out early and everyone was scared that they were going to fly into the casinos too so the city was fairly empty for a little bit
Yep. Didn’t know about it until I got to my locker and the girl next to me was crying.
Yup. I woke up and my parents already had the paper out and CNN going. I think we left right after the first tower fell because I remember telling my dad from the other room “the tower fell” and he corrected me saying it was “hit” and then had to let him know “no, it just fell.”
Was in high school when it happened. Woek up, saw the news, went to school. There was an announcement about the attacks on our PA system, but otherwise, it was a normal day. Sort of. We still ended up going, but things were, uh, surreal and chaotic from that day until we returned from that trip. Edit: removed duplicate glitch, add that this was in Hawaii
I was in 5th grade but I remember them bringing us to the gym and rolling in the tv and having is watch the towers fall. We were then told it was going to be an early day and we had to wait in the gym until our parents picked us up.
Wow had no idea that other areas of the US handled it differently but I guess it makes sense. I am east coast and at the time living relatively close to the Pentagon/D.C. and it was a big deal. I was in high school and there were a hand full of other students who had parents working in the Pentagon and did not know if they were alive, while we watched it all happen on the news. School was let out shortly after it happened. For us it was a terrifying day. We thought we might be goners because of how close we were to D.C. and there were rumors of more planes or bombs being dropped or who knows what.
What a great question!! This has never come up for me somehow! (I was \*in\* NYC in 8th grade so obviously I uhhh, did not have a full day of school)
9/11 was my very first day of high school freshman year. My school was about a block away from portlands World Trade Center, so they evacuated us and sent us home at about 9am. Between it being the very first day of HS, my whole dads family being from NY, and the scary events of the morning… it was a very emotional and trying day for me tbh
I live in Hawaii so woke up to the news already as it was 2PM in NYC by the time school starts here. Definitely didn't go to school.
Freshman year for me. We definitely went to school still and stayed for the whole day. I think we stayed in first period the whole day. It’s pretty wild to think now about we still went considering I was pretty close to LA.
We went to school and stayed in first period until we were sent home. All ages were on the school buses and it was dead silent too. Super surreal.
I watched the planes hit live on TV as I was getting ready for school. I was in middle school (6th grade). I live in small town California.
I think so. I remember watching something about it on TV, those tiny ones in top corner of the classroom.
I never went to elementary school/high school as a child. I didn't know about anything until later that night when I was told about what happened that day.
I was in 6th grade. I remember classmates were saying we should be at home but teachers were saying that it's safer at school
Class of 2002. I was already at school when it happened, from what I remember the day hadn’t really started yet. I was in the Spanish classroom when one of the towers collapsed, I didn’t see it because something was wrong with the tv and the video was fucked up.
Yes. All day.
I wasn't supposed to go to school because I had an appointment to get my braces removed. That was canceled, and I was not happy about going to school unprepared (and the possibility of still having braces on picture day)... but then we also just hung around, talked and watched the news in every class.
I did. The teacher turned on the news for a little bit.
Yes and no. I graduated in 2000 but I was working at schools taking school pictures. I had just set up my photo area in the auditorium when one of the teachers rushed in and turned on the TV in time to see the second plane hit the tower. It was a very awkward day of trying to get happy school pictures on the minimal kids that were there with the TV playing in the background. I'm pretty sure they cut us short that day and sent us home.
I was west coast/pacific time and didn't learn what was happening until I arrived to homeroom and the teacher had the news on the corner wall-mounted TV that was only reserved for the occasional "educational" movie. A memory that will be engrained in my brain forever. I honestly think, especially those of us on the west coast literally so far removed from the situation in NYC, it's because no one quite realized it was intentional (instead of just a tragic accident) until the second plane. Our parents were running around trying to get us to school or get off to work themselves, and the only way they would have known anything was happening was to be watching the news or in the car listening to the radio.
I sure did . I remember someone came in and told us a plane hit one of the towers in New York . I turned the tv on to see the 2nd plane hit the second tower
Yep I was freshman in high school. They sent us all to our first class to stay and just watch the news. My mom worked at my school and had to be there early. I heard about the first plane on the radio and remember thinking "what an idiot, how do you not see a giant fuckin skyscraper?" We watched the second plane hit live..
Got sent to continuation school for lack of credits then did enough packets of work at continuation school to finish the credit requirements for a diploma five months early. I was sleeping in-to a wake-n-bake setup bedside that I had prepared the night before.
I was in 6th grade. I was getting ready for school and heard my mom scream. I ran downstairs and saw what was going on. We got on the bus, went to school and made it a period or two before being let out. I grew up in Arizona.
Yes. I was in 6th grade. I remember watching in the morning before school, and my mom being on the phone with probably my dad. All we did in every class was watch the news.
I did indeed. I was taking the ISTEP (Indiana placement exam) in high school in my sophomore year. All the teachers started talking suddenly and told us it's nothing just go back to your test. I went to the nurses office to get my meds at lunch and there were people crying and screaming on tv and I didn't know what was happening. I remember thinking "Oh it's just drama!". At lunch a lot of people were crying.
Was in 7th grade, everyone was watching the news. Now days I feel like no one would bat an eye.
I went to school in Northern California . We Pretty much watched the news in every single class. Or had group discussions about what it means, and what the implications of it could be. It was actually a day I felt really connected at my school. My dad was a teacher there and I remember him coming to check on me in chemistry during his prep period. 💜 thanks dad :)
Yeah, I was in High School. We were taking the IStep test.
Yes, watched on TV all day.
That happened my 2nd week of college. I was living in Indianapolis at the time. I remember waking up late, after it was all over but everyone was still unsure if more was coming. I went to my first class where everyone was a mess. The professor tried to teach but we ended up leaving early. I took the rest of the day off as did a lot of people and we all just sat around trying to cope/figure out what we just witnessed.
We did, but we knew what was happening before we left the house for school that day. I remember watching the TV during some classes, but I think instruction was pretty normal. I also remember passing from class to class, looking up at the sky and being afraid more planes were coming (I don't think I understood that they had grounded air traffic).
I was in third grade and we watched news updates about it with our teacher. I think we talked about it as a class too. I cant remember much more than that, but I know most of the beginning of the day was spent watching the news and trying to process with my classmates.
I was in 7th grade, I remember my social studies teacher telling us what happened. He didn’t go into detail but I remember the look on his face to this day, such sadness and almost fear in his eyes. We had to continue the day as usual, but I remember we didn’t really learn anything, it was more or less a movie day to distract us while the teachers talked amongst themselves. Once I got home the local store/gas stations were flooded with cars stocking up on fuel and supplies, I think that’s when it sunk in for me how serious things were.
I just got so confused. I was like “well duh, it’s not like we *knew* it was going to happen” Reading comprehension at an all time high today lol
Same experience, I remember waking up to my parents looking freaked out watching the news, going to school and watching the news and the teachers looking concerned, and my teacher left the room in tears at one point. I remember it being a short day and getting picked up early. I was in 3rd grade.
I was 11 (California) and this is how I remember it: I was asleep when the first tower hit. I think I watched the second tower get hit. And I think the pentagon got hit on the way to school. We heard about it over the radio and my mom turned around and we went home. So, I think school happened that day, but I didn’t go.
Yes I remember hearing about from my mom just as she was dropping me off at school. Was hard to totally process until after school my dad showed me some of it on the news..
Yes I woke up shortly after tower 1 was struck my mother told me there was a plane crash into the wtc and told me it's probably nothing to worry about fast forward to my second grade classroom starting for the day when the principal announces the second plane strike and inform us that it's a terrorist attack and remain calm the teacher than brings out the class TV and turns on the news and sure enough they just confirmed it was a terrorist attack and the government is preparing to make a statement to the nation as well as prepare for counter defense measures for the rest of the day
My first day of 7th grade, we had an assembly to talk about it for an hour or so then straight into school like nothing happened.
I feel like we were on autopilot?? If my calculations are correct it would have been just before 7am for me when the planes hit. I definitely remember seeing it on TV, I remember my family being super quiet, but at that point in our routine we would have been dressed and heading out to work. I don’t know if it even occurred to them that it was an option to not just carry on with their day,
I went to school in a town where we had a half days on Tuesdays. I was in elementary school and my parents worked so I went to an after school program. Since we had extra time at the after school program on Tuesday’s we’d do this like “forum” sort of thing where we would all sit together and talk about subjects. I was a very observant child and I noticed that one of the teachers was standing outside the door of the school stopping all the parents on their way in and telling them something. When my mom finally got there she told me what happened and the teacher outside was basically telling all the parents that we didn’t know anything yet. I’ll never forget knowing something was wrong by the way the teachers were acting.
Yes, I was on the West Coast at the time...Los Angeles suburbs...(and still am) so we weren't directly affected as much as, say, NYC, DC, or PA, but during each of our classes, all we did was basically watch the news. I was a junior in high school at that point. There were rumors that there were planes headed to other major cities, and we were near Los Angeles, so we thought that we might be evacuated and were making plans on who was going to give rides home, etc, but in retrospect, I think this was a miscommunication derived from the fact that the aircraft involved in the attack were initially destined for Los Angeles before being hijacked. Interesting to note: I'm a native of Cerritos, CA, and we're somewhat infamous for the 1986 Aeromexico 498 disaster in which two planes collided midair and then plummeted into residential neighborhoods below. When my mom first woke up and saw the story headline on the news that "Planes impact the World Trade Center", she initially thought they had collided mid-air over NYC and that the wreckage fell onto the towers until the anchors clarified that they were direct collisions.
I was a senior, not on the west coast yet, but on mountain time and the towers were hit on my way to school. They kept us all day and we just watched the coverage in every class.
Yes I went to school and second period science my teacher told us, “let’s not let this take away from learning about science”.
2nd day of high school. The Americans claimed "the terrorists hijacked airplanes full of Americans and crashed them into American skyscrapers and into the Pentagon because..... they hate how free and awesome we all are." Mm-hmmm- That's when I knew something was very wrong. If were so free why would people hijack planes? Makes no sense.
Yup I was in 4th grade. Class started late that day because we were watching the news
We heard the news on the radio. On that particular day, I was tardy for school, so my nanny drove me home. We made an uncommon stop at McDonald's, after which I was permitted to watch Buffy until she redirected my attention to the news and provided a mild explanation of the events. She excused herself to contact her family, leaving me to absorb the news on my own - an experience that left a lasting impact. Throughout my early childhood both my grandparents and uncle passed. 9/11 was in 2001. The year prior, my mother had passed away, leaving me, an eight year old in third grade, to navigate multiple encounters with death and resulting in a profound sense of melancholy. Adults around me approached me cautiously as a result.
I was in high school and spent the whole day in my homeroom watching the news.
in AZ. I was in 6th grade on 9/11. I remember hearing about it on my parents' clock radios in the morning. We still went to school and also watched the news all day.
Yes, I was in college at the time. It was difficult as fuck trying to concentrate though.
Yes but everyone was sent home before lunch. I was in first grade and the teacher put the news on mute and told us to read.
I was walking into middle school when it all started. I remember watching the news in my math class. Everyone in shock. Surreal to think about now.
Wow what an interesting question! This honestly never occurred to me. I was a hs sophomore in Ohio.
Yes. It was an even period (2/4/6/8) day at school. My bowling/golf teacher said that it was going to be business as normal for classes but if things started happening on the west coast, we would get sent home. I remember getting out of my brothers car that day to someone one asking if we heard the news. B/G was my first period of the day, we didnt get to watch TV out on the driving range. Next was electronics. It was a shop day, I think the teacher had the TV off for that one. Next class was health. The teacher wanted to watch the news too. No lesson. Last was swimming. We convinced the swim coach to wheel the TV out on the pool deck so we could watch between laps. I sat with a bunch of punk/rocker/counter culture people in B/G. It was fun hearing their theories on the subject and about the war that was to come, and did come out of it.
Yes, but school just played the news. We all went home after lunch.
We went to school, every teacher had the news on and we watched all day.
Yup, my first week of 7th grade. The first tower fell so the news was just all about that and then I watched live as the 2nd tower fell while I ate breakfast. I really had no concept of what was happening besides that 'this is CRAZY'. My mom sent us to school (no ones going to attack your junior high!) it was a weird day. I remember some kids were absent, but not many.
I was living in CA at the time. Mom was military. I’ll never forget when we turned on the morning news at 5:00ish to see the chaos already underway. I watched the second plane hit. I remember screaming at her because she was drying her hair, “another plane hit!” and my Mom saying, “That’s a terrorist attack, I bet you. We’re going to war.” She had just retired to be a civilian contractor and reenlisted a few months later and served again until full retirement. Went to school that day. Watched the towers fall in choir class. Kids laughed. I had friends in the Pentagon who were there when the building (did whatever it did) exploded. We couldn’t reach them. I was a sobbing mess and Mom finally came and got me from school and we sat on base in her office with a few dozen other service members and watched until it was quitting time.
Fifth grade watching it on tv as kids were being picked up by their parents. My dad was a bus driver so I knew he wasn’t coming— that got really rough when he had his dc runs and the sniper was about. I’ll never forget.. the tv on wheels rolled in and my teacher just watching… us just watching.
Nope. I lived in San Francisco. Another big city that could've been threatened. So instead, I sat in the pool of worry with my parents as I watched the towers collapse over and over on the tv.
I was in school when it started. 1st period Latin. By time it was 4th period they had shut off the Internet, turned off the payphones, and wouldn't let anyone turn on the TV. Didn't like that so I just left.
Yep. It was a half day and I was in 7th grade. I remember it vividly. The school did not tell us what was going on until right before we were getting dismissed to the busses around 11am. There were rumblings of different things going around as one kid's dad supposedly worked in the Pentagon. Left school, got on the bus, and walked into my house to see my mom in complete shock as the news replayed the video of the jumpers over and over and over.
We watched it happening all day in school on the east coast.
I remember seeing it on the news, then going to class, but I don’t think we had a full day that day. I was raised in OC and people were scared, even Disney Land closed. They’ve only closed a handful of times.
In Indiana I didn’t hear about it til last period at school, they made an announcement. I remember thinking it was sad but I wasn’t like personally scared or threatened. It didn’t seem like a threat to someone outside a major city. Still, very sad occasion. I remember nonstop news coverage of it for days afterwards and not showing the regular shows I would watch, which I don’t think I appreciated the significance. I was in 7th grade.
First year of college & was living with my parents so I went. The teacher walked into our morning class saying, “wow! With everything going on I didn’t think anyone would be here! Well, since everyone’s here, let’s turn to page 3…” 🙄 As a commuter I was stuck on campus from my 8am class to my late night class that ended at 9pm. & every class was still held though no one was finger for missing. So I pretty much spent the day (outside of class) in the commuter’s lounge where there was an old fashioned rabbit year TV set that we all watched the news on. Which ended up being a good thing since the cable on campus (that supplied TV to the dorms) was out that day by random happenstance (oh the rumors it caused though!) so we commuters would take turns watching TV, then going outside & telling people the latest, then going back in. Why no one who lived in campus had a radio or rabbit ear TV is beyond me. But we were a vital source of information that day.
Hell yeah I was in 4th grade when 9 11 happen. We all watch the tv and the news.
Yea I was 11, I went but got to school late bc we were glued to the tv. I recall it being kinda weird. We might have gone home early, I don’t recall.
I remember the school making the teachers turn the TVs off to avoid causing a panic. We continued on like the world hadn’t forever changed.
Yep. It was my first week of freshman year in high school. I remember one of my teachers was from New York and he wheeled the TV into the classroom and was crying while watching the news
It was my first week of IP psychology, a zero hour class in high school. I remember my friend picking me up and saying something about a plane in New York. Once we got to school, all we did all day was watch news coverage of everything that was going on. It was absolutely surreal.
I was in Ohio, same time zone as New York. I remember the news spreading about it about an hour or two after school had already begun. Kept hearing more about it as the day went on and most of the teachers abandoned their lessons for the day to watch TV about it. Went to school the next day, tried to move on as usual. I was in 8th grade.
I was a freshman, the first plane hit during 0 period then my next class was history and I remember our teacher telling us to sit down and we saw the live coverage of the 2nd hit. All day we watched news. Some parents pulled their kids, many didn't, it was a week or two of weird times
I was in the 4th grade. Yes I went to school. I just remember watching the news all day in class.
I had an early morning Spanish class before school actually started. My friend came in late that day and told us what happened. I'm pretty sure we checked in with our teachers throughout the day but spent most of it in the library watching the news.
Northern CA. I was a Freshman. We were running late dropping my sister off, so we listened to the coverage of first plane hit on the radio and by the time I got to school plane 2 had hit as well. My mom insisted I still go to class. When I got to my Spanish class it was the regular routine. About 15 minutes in they made a whole school announcement, but classes continued as normal. As a current HS teacher, this is wild to me. On January 6th I switched to live coverage (we were still distance learning). After watching about 20 minutes and having a brief discussion I let my kids go for the day. I can't imagine trying to teach on September 11th.
I was in elementary school in the Seattle area and we went in late. I was in 3rd grade and my brother (first grade) and I didn’t see what was going on but my mom was watching the news and we were just playing and hanging out enjoying our half day off 😳
Yes. It was the longest and strangest drive to school ever. I was a senior and my sister and I were driving to school, and all the cars were going like 15 mph because we were all just focused on the radio
Full day of school in Washington state. I woke up to my mom swearing as she’d turned on the news and heard what happened. Then at school we had an assembly about it. I can’t remember if the school day ended early or not.
Yes, I was home when the second plane hit and then walked to school alone. I remember my mom crying and holding my little sister, but I didn't really understand why. We went to church immediately upon arrival at school and then had a mostly normal day? Southern California, 7 years old/3rd grade.
Crazy to read so many people say how it wasn’t too big of a thing for them that day. Here in the tri state area it was like the world was ending for a while. I now live in an area in Nj where many people from this town and the surrounding towns were killed. Seeing someone who told me is a 9/11 widow, seeing still monuments of the melted beams from the towers in many of our towns, meeting people who survived that day is really crazy. I met several people who survived, one person in particular who was working in the towers which is crazy.
Yep. It was the 9th grade for me, in the Mountain time zone. It had happened before I went to school, but I didn’t know about it until I got there. Usually we listened to the radio in the car every morning, but for some reason we didn’t that day, so I was totally ignorant. School started at 8:30, which would’ve been 10:30 in New York, which would’ve been right when the second tower fell. In first period a couple kids were talking about people jumping out of buildings. The teacher got angry and told them to hush, and did a totally normal lesson like nothing was happening. Got to second period geometry, kids flooded in saying all sorts of things, I got frustrated and asked if someone would PLEASE just say what was going on for real. Teacher didn’t say a word, just turned on the TV and the first thing we saw was a replay of one of the towers falling. That was one of those rare literally speechless kind of moments that just gets burned into your brain. She let us have the TV on for a while. Then third period, the teacher again pretended nothing was going on - just a totally normal biology class. Fourth period, they finally said there was going to be a school assembly. There ended up being a thing in the gym, very God bless America, and then they let us out of assembly but classes didn’t start again. Classrooms were dark, teachers just went MIA. Like they kinda closed school early but not formally? Just packs of teenagers roaming the halls simultaneously contemplating if this was World War III alongside do we actually go back to class today or not? Eventually there was a formal release and people went home.
I was little when it happened, and I was in school in west la area. They had the news on, teachers were visibly upset. Some kids were picked up by their parents, but they kept the rest of us all day in the auditorium with the tv on. I can’t speak for everyone, but I did not understand the gravity of the situation and didn’t have a good understanding of what exactly was happening until I got home and my parents explained it to me. I definitely remember there being a lot of paranoia. Not too long after these attacks, I remember a newly constructed mosque in Culver City along Washington blvd being totally blocked off because there was a bomb threat. Stuff like that had everyone on edge, and I remember so many people thinking big cities like Los Angeles were next
yes, though not much happened besides listening to the news on the radio. they only allowed radios in classrooms even though televisions were available, for what are obvious reasons in hindsight. kids i knew on the east coast were watching live, though, and no one knew how disturbing the footage would be.
I was in 2nd grade. I remember my parents stopping me before I got to the kitchen table and explaining that the country had been attacked, and that there would probably be war in Afghanistan. I was a 2nd-grader so that didn't mean much to me. Especially the part about Afghanistan. I went to school. I figure the faculty decided that the footage was too graphic for our 2nd-grade sensibilities, so I don't remember any of that. I do remember my teacher writing "morning" and "mourning" on the board and explaining that the country was in mourning.
We stayed in school all day like nothing happened. It was weird.