Dear Educators:
Something happened to me when I wrote Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story- as happens every time I write a new novel and put it out into the world-- I changed. I grew. I humbled. I learned something.
. . .I learned that while on September 11, 2001, I was able to stand in front of my television, and watch, along with most of the rest of the world, the tragic events occurring right before my eyes — while I was able to wring my hands, weep with both fear and sadness, spend the day trying to get through the over loaded phone lines to reach everybody I knew and loved— while I was able to run to my children and make sure they were safe, gather with my friends in the school parking lot, hug, cry some more, and talk about how the world, our world, was never going to be the same again..while I was able to spend that terrible day any way I needed to….
Teachers and educators all across the country were having a very different experience. . .
Your words, your stories can describe it better than I ever could.
These personal narratives, written by first year teachers, administrators, Hebrew school teachers, public school teachers, from to nursery school to high school tell of a kind of bravery and self-sacrifice that has not been fully recognized or nearly appreciated enough.
Maybe, at some level, we were all still reeling ..still healing, still dealing with a national survivor's guilt.
Since writing this book and speaking at schools around the country, I have learned what that day was like for you, without any preparation, or training for how to deal with the unimaginable, not being able to find out what was happening to your own families, to your own children because you had to take care of my children.
Thank you.
..And please, teachers and educators, librarians and school administrators, if you'd like share your story email it to me, no matter how long or how short, and I will add it below.
I want to hear it. I want to know.
We were in our second week of school in Stamford, CT... read more
It began as any other fall day; that gorgeous blue sky and beautiful temperatures... read more
On September 11, 2001 I was teaching 6th grade language arts at a middle school in Raleigh, North Carolina... read more
On September 11, 2001, I was in my first semester of student teaching in an incredibly rural school district in Western NY... read more
September 11, 2001. I was standing at my classroom door during passing time when I first heard the news... read more
I was at school, but kids had not arrived. A colleague came into my room and said, “Turn the TV on... read more
September 5, 2001: I was on top of the world. After having just recently graduated with my Masters in Education I was starting my first ever teaching job... read more
I live in Sandwich on Cape Cod right next to the Air Force base... read more
“Good morning everyone. The office would like to let you all know that there had been an explosion in New York near the World Trade Center. If you’ve got time, you might want to turn your TVs on. Thanks.”... read more
I remember thinking how vividly blue the sky was that morning as I pulled my minivan out of the driveway of our home that backed up to the Ogonowski Farm in Dracut, Massachusetts... read more
I remember standing outside on my deck before leaving for school on that Tuesday morning gazing over the blue sky and loving northern Virginia... read more
Thank you for the opportunity to remember and write about that day... read more
Pam UruburuI was about 5 weeks pregnant, teaching my period 3 AP seniors, in a high school on Long Island, about 50 miles from NYC... read more
The morning of September 11, I was sitting in my office at the religious school in Hanover, NH, talking on the phone to a rabbi from Manchester... read more