I was in my second week as a high school physics teacher at W.T. Woodson HS. A typical suburban American HS in Virginia, 15 miles from the Pentagon. I had finished my lecture and the students were quietly working on their homework problems.
It was approximately 10 am and the crackling of the classroom loudspeaker startled us from our work. It was the voice of our Principal, asking for everyone’s attention for a very important announcement. “Due to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Towers and on the Pentagon….”
I don’t remember what he said after that but my state of numbness was jarred back to the moment when he finished by saying, “Teachers, if any students in your classroom have parents that work at the Pentagon, please send them to the office.” Two students got up to leave.
That’s when it hit me. There’s no teacher training for moments like this. Use your best instincts; keep moving, finish the lesson plan. It was nearing the end of class and by now the murmurs amongst the students began. They convinced me to turn on the TV in the classroom. We all watched and listened to CNN together. Reports of a 4th plane crashing caused stirring. Then, with television cameras focused on the burning twin towers, the first tower began to fall. Imploding like a sand castle on the seashore. Me, with a class full of 16 and 17 year olds, no one moving, nobody talking, just watching history unfold in disbelief. The bell rang to end the period and the students quietly filed out.
School throughout the Northern Virginia area was cancelled for the next couple of days. When classes resumed, surprisingly there wasn’t much talk or discussion about the events of the world that had just unfolded before our eyes. Maybe there just wasn’t time. There were lost lesson plans to be made up. Or, perhaps it just hadn’t sunk in yet.
Later in the year we came across a word problem in our textbook-- a very typical physics word problem having to do with the acceleration due to gravity that caught everyone’s attention. “If you drop a penny off the top of the World Trade Tower, how fast is it going when it reaches the ground?” There was a long pause as that question sunk in. After several moments of silence a student suggested, “let’s use the Empire State Building instead.” Good idea. We did. And we moved on.
