Even if some weren’t born yet, all of America knows what happened on September 11th, 2001.
The following events changed America forever from 8:19 a.m. when American Airlines Flight 11 was hijacked to 8:46 a.m. when Flight 11 came crashing into the World Trade Center’s north Twin Tower. People didn’t have to be in New York when the planes hit. Everyone alive at the time still felt the impact of that day’s terrible and horrifying events.
Just under 3,000 people died. Some were firefighters trying to help, and others were trapped in the crumbling buildings that came crashing down.
Since none of the students in high school were born when 9/11 occurred, a teacher had explained how it was for her instead. Mrs. Margaret Haley was about 26-27 years old when 9/11 occurred.
At the time, she was teaching 10th-grade English in Hershey when the assistant principal was making a frantic attempt to get all of the teacher’s attention. He told Mrs. Haley to turn on the TV, but instead, Mrs. Haley went to another teacher’s room between classes, and had to watch the petrifying scene of the second plane hitting the South Twin tower, and continued to watch them fall.
“Nobody knew it was an attack at the time. Like, we all thought it was an accident and didn’t know what was happening,” explained Mrs. Haley. Once she went back to her classroom for her next class, no other teachers were teaching, so she decided to tell the kids what was happening.
“They didn’t understand where it was so I drew a whole map, and they still didn’t understand what it was or why it happened.” Mrs. Haley mentioned there were lots of questions like “Why would they hit the World Trade Center?” and “Why is that important?”
While the kids did care because they saw how scared the teachers were, they couldn’t fully understand the significance of the situation. Even the teachers were confused as to what was happening.
It’s not every day, or even once in a lifetime, that people have terrorist attacks, and it shouldn’t be. Several teachers had mentioned throughout the day that the emotional grief was overwhelming. Teaching kids what was happening while the teachers just had what could’ve been the biggest shock of their lives is a difficult thing to do.
Mrs. Haley went to a museum a few years later in New York that showed all of the lives lost on 9/11. “It was weird to look back and remember what it was like in the moment,” she said. She had mentioned how a distant family member had died on 9/11 because he worked in those buildings.
She also told how a pregnant lady had died on 9/11 and her unborn baby, who hadn’t even gotten to see the world yet, was listed as dead.
The events that occurred on September 11th, 2001 were traumatizing; however, one magical thing happened out of all the grief and terror that day caused. Later that night, Mrs. Haley had been informed that her best friend found out she was pregnant.
This is important because even after the events of 9/11 occurred, good things happened, and the world kept revolving around the sun. Around 85% of teachers across the world went through 9/11.
The amount of teachers at Boyertown specifically who went through 9/11 is unknown. However, Boyertown is doing amazing considering the fact that a lot of teachers went through 9/11. No matter what happens to the students and faculty, Boyertown will continue to thrive.
