MY 9-11 TEACHING DAY REVISITED

In thirty two years of teaching there are certain days that I remember almost everything about. One that obviously stands out as a New York City teacher was September 11, 2001.

I think everyone recalls what a bright, sunny morning it was. The night before there was a UFT Executive Board meeting where I can't even recollect what we were arguing over with then UFT President Randi Weingarten but I do remember being tired that Tuesday morning as I got to school. My friend UFT Delegate extraordinaire Barbara Cohen wanted to talk about some dreadful injustice the Principal of Jamaica High School was perpetuating on someone and we spoke for a while before my first class which was period 2. Period 2 started right around 9:00 A.M.

As period 1 ended and I walked toward class, my colleague Mike Pallisco gave me the news that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. I responded by saying something like "huh?" I didn't want to be late for class which was a Participation in Government course. I was all excited looking forward to spending at least a few minutes talking about the Democratic Primary for mayor that was taking place that day. The UFT endorsed Alan Hevesi. We were going to get rid of anti-teacher Mayor Rudy Giulliani in just a few short months. I wanted to talk about the election and maybe get a few students interested. I was neutral in class so I was pondering how to bring it up as we were covering a unit on the foundations of government.*

I was teaching in room 301 that term. If someone went across the hall to room 302, on a clear day it was easy to see the World Trade Center. After my friend told me a little of what was going on, it kind of made the election rather irrelevant but the magnitude of the story still hadn't hit me. I rushed to class without going to room 301 to look at the towers.

In those days there was no such thing as a Smartboard, certainly not at Jamaica High School. High tech for us consisted of an electrician coming in after years of waiting to upgrade the electricity in the Social Studies Office so we could use the copying machine and coffeemaker simultaneously without blowing a fuse and then having to call the Custodian and wait a while to get the electricity back in the office.

At that point the ever frustrated inner journalist in me had to know what was going on and this story seemed very important so I did what I did during the 2000 election recount. I told a few kids to take out their ubiquitous Walkman radios to keep us updated on what was occurring in lower Manhattan.

Remember the Walkman? They were the smartphones of their day; a real pain for teachers to attempt to get kids to put away. Walkmen were prohibited in schools at the time. Since it was the beginning of the term, many students didn't really know me. I had to do some persuading to convince some correspondents to take out their well hidden radios. This was high school, not the third grade; I figured these seniors could handle it and I had no clue how utterly disastrous the situation was. A few kids finally pulled out their little radios and were monitoring what was going on and feeding the class information.

It only took a minute or two to realize this was beyond serious and no accidental plane hitting the Twin Towers. Young people who didn't know that there was an AM band on their radio were suddenly listening to 1010 WINS and were telling the class this was really bad as the second tower was hit. One pupil just sat there listening to his headphones and didn't say a word. Suddenly, he burst out crying and I mean bawling. He was just crying really loudly and I asked him what was going on. He then told me to listen and there was the reporter on 1010 WINS talking about the people jumping out the windows from the high floors of the World Trade Center that was burning.

I had to tell the class that this was not an ordinary accident or attack. That particular student then told me that his dad worked in one of the towers. His dad was fine but we all didn't know who was okay and who was not at the time. I remember we just talked to each other as a kind of support group for the rest of that period. Everything I said was not overly reassuring until I told the class that the people who did this obviously planned out their targets and Jamaica High School was in all likelihood not a priority as their next target. That received some really enthusiastic, if nervous, laughter from the class. When the bell rang to end class, I went over to room 302 to look at the World Trade Center for myself and after seeing the burning towers, it hit home big time how awful this was. A little while later when the low flying military jets flew by outside our windows, we knew our world had changed for good. The next period was just a support group as the parents were already coming to pick up their kids.

As I attempted to just listen and talk to the kids, I was worried about my own brother who was an NYPD Captain who worked downtown at police headquarters and took the subway to the station under the twin towers each morning. I knew my mom would be worried sick at her home and she was trying to call me on my useless cellphone throughout the morning. What about all of those other people? I don't know how any of us made it through classes that morning but we somehow got through a second class. Jamaica's building was quickly emptying. Kids and now staff were heading out trying to figure out how to get home as subway service was down. Everyone understandably wanted to be with their loved ones.

By 12:00 noon it was just teachers, administrators, other staff and a handful of kids who had no place to go left in the building. The teachers were mostly sitting in rooms watching tv's with coat hangers as antennas (no cable at Jamaica). Some were asking their chapter leader (me) when they could leave. The Principal to his credit didn't try to hold anyone back. He knew people wanted to be with their families but that enough of us would remain to make sure the students who stayed behind were safe and he thanked me for not running out. I got a voice message from my mom that somehow came through saying my brother was safe but what about everyone else? I don't think my brother came to his house for days. I left school around regular time and checked on my mom. She was nervous but okay. I was very lucky that all of my family and close friends were safe.

My brother's wife was pregnant at the time with Julia, my niece, who just this fall went off to college. As the years went by, September 11 came to mean less and less to the kids I taught as it was no longer personal to most of them. By 2010, high school students were barely in elementary school on 9-11. Later groups of pupils were in diapers in 2001 and now the high school students were not even born on that day like Julia. I realize that we can no longer commemorate 9-11 in the same way. It doesn't mean the same thing to today's teens.

Since this is a dissident union blog, I gather those reading want to know how it went with the UFT after 9-11. The next Executive Board meeting was a few weeks later and the UFT had a resolution supporting George W Bush's military response to the 9-11 attacks. I said nothing but my colleague Ed Beller rose and opposed the resolution saying we didn't need a military solution but a criminal investigation type of reaction was called for to apprehend the suspects behind the attacks. In the usual spirit of open debate, a Unity hack who was once in the marines took to the microphone and threatened to beat Ed up. That got me boiling. And yes at some point later on Randi Weingarten compared dissidents in the UFT to the terrorists. In the final analysis as we now have our military in Afghanistan for 18 years, Ed had a point.

For anyone thinking about that helpless feeling of that day, follow the link below and go to Soundcloud to listen to Beth Sorrentino's Beautiful Day. Beth's lyrics (printed below) capture the powerless feeling perfectly. If there are any nineties alternative people in the audience, you may know Beth from Suddenly Tammy, one of my favorite bands.


Beautiful Day- Beth Sorrentino

As I sit here playing
I can't hear a word that they're saying
I'm only thinking of you
As I sit here singing
I know my phone is ringing
and I just let it ring through
I will leave it to fate
that this is a day that you're late

Can you feel this way?
It's such a beautiful day

The sky's unusually blue

I try to call your phone is busy
I bet the air makes you dizzy
You don't usually follow the crowd
So leave your work behind
and find your place in line
and run to me uptown
cause I'm still around
leave it to powers above
please get to the ones that we love

Can you feel this way?
It's such a beautiful day

I'd give my line for you

Now I will leave it on
and turn my head and you're gone
through all the red white and blue

And can you feel this way?
And can you feel this way?
And can you feel this way on such a beautiful day?

Can you feel this way on such a beautiful day?





*The UFT wanted a nice corrupt Democrat in Hevesi instead of Michael Bloomberg who was an underdog before 9-11. Later that fall the UFT managed to endorse two more candidates for mayor who both managed to lose for a total of three but that is a story for another day. Do you remember the three: Alan Hevesi, Fernando Ferrer and Mark Green?