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Michele’s interactive question today was, “What event in history that occurred during your lifetime do you most vividly remember?”

Michele’s questions are always thought-provoking, but for some reason this question has sent me hurling back through time as surely as if she had send Mr. Peabody and Sherman here, with the Way-Back machine.

(Not the ‘hurling’ that refers to vomit. Open a thesaurus, people!)

My answers were: The Challenger, and the World Trade Center.

My school was excited beyond all measure about the Challenger. A TEACHER was going into space, and this was unheard of. The students were thrilled to think of the possibility that perhaps some day, mean old Mrs. HagTeacher might be launched out into the vastness of space, never to give a pop math quiz again.

A teacher was someone they were familiar with. That a teacher might also be an astronaut, of sorts, was a brand new concept. If a teacher could go into space, then maybe a student might someday go into space. Maybe even someone from our school. My school took this enthusiasm and ran with it.

The principal rented a big screen TV. Remember, this was back in the days when most schools, especially tiny ones like mine, did not have vast technological or media resources. We rented a big-screen tv, and scheduled a big convocation. The whole student population was going to watch a teacher go into space.

We had essay contests about it. Trivia contests about it. We sent home newsletters with at-home things that parents could do with their children, about it. It was the biggest deal of the semester.

I had hall duty that day, and couldn’t go with the students to the gym, to watch the teacher go into space. But as I sat there, and watched the children file past, in twos and threes, to the gym, I was filled with awe that they were going to see something never seen before: a shuttle launch with a teacher aboard. An ordinary person was going into space. A teacher. For the rest of their lives, they would realize that all things are connected, even outer space, to what we learn from a teacher in a classroom. And that teachers have courage, and are willing to do things most people will never be able to do.

I sat there in the hall and watched them go into the gym, giggly and happy and full of anticipation. Each child had a blank sheet of paper in his/her hand, and a pencil, to draw what they saw. There was going to be a big contest.

Only a few minutes later, I sat there in the hall and watched these same students file back into their classrooms. They were quiet, and their eyes were big. Nothing had changed for me; I was still sitting there in the hall, but for those children, a lot had changed.

I don’t even remember what we did in my classroom for the rest of that afternoon. I know that I did not envy the elementary teachers. What could they possibly be telling the small children about what they had seen? I just do not know. My own children were down there in the lower grades; they didn’t have much to say when we got home. Zappa was affected the most, I think; he had always been obsessed with loud things that went “boom,” but this was a loud “boom” that occurred before his very eyes, and he was old enough to realize what it meant.

Later in the afternoon, I looked out my classroom windows and saw the men loading the rented big-screen TV into a truck. It drove away.

A few parents were upset that their children had been shown the explosion in school, but they were completely out of line, and I think even they knew it. But upset people are often illogical.

The media played up the ‘teacher’ part of this tragedy. My children knew all about teachers; both their parents were teachers. Teachers were no big deal to them. My children, small as they were, wondered why none of the other people on board that shuttle were mentioned much, on tv or in the papers. I wondered that, myself.

September 11th was something else entirely.

I was teaching 8th grade sentence diagramming. The secretary came on loudspeaker, and told all teachers to check our email.

The message was simple and stark. And underneath all this information, was the announcement that the superintendent had so decreed that not one single word of this tragedy was to be imparted to the students. They were to be kept completely in the dark until they got home, where their own parents would be the ones to tell them about it.

You can imagine what kind of day our poor students had. Clusters of teachers in the halls, tear-streaked faces, frantic tones of voice. And yet, whenever a child asked what was going on, the answer was, you will find out when you go home. What a horrible thing to put a child through!

Kids who went home for lunch and watched tv, came back to school with information, most of it wrong, filtered through the imagination and vocabulary of a child. The atmosphere got worse and worse. Students cried, and did not know why. The superintendent stood firm: no teacher was to inform any child of anything. Why? We never did know.

The students in computer lab knew. The MSN screen that popped up when they turned on their machines told them. They were instructed to keep quiet and not to share any information. You can imagine how a twelve-year -old would deal with THAT kind of order.

At the very, very end of the school day, I had sixth graders in my classroom. They were white-faced, and wayyy too silent. They went through the motions like zombies. My chattery little sweethearts were quiet little broken-hearts, and they didn’t even understand why.

About ten minutes before the buses arrived, a little girl raised her hand and said, “Please, is it true that all our parents are dead and our houses are gone?”

That was it.

I gathered them close and told them, in very simple terms, that all their parents were safe and all their houses were fine. I explained to them what had happened, and that it was far away and they were all safe. I told them not to be afraid to get on the bus and go home.

They all cried. Not the crying of fear and dread and hurt, but the crying of being relieved of dread and worry far beyond what a child should be expected to carry.

I got about three dozen letters from parents thanking me for telling their children the truth in terms they could understand.

The administration wrote me up for not following orders.

They can kiss my wide white ass.

Putting a child through fear like that is inexcusable. A child can handle the truth. A child can not handle intense suspense, and innuendo, and fear that his/her own family has been harmed.

Those children knew that something terrible had happened. They deserved to be told. Not in graphic detail, but to be told the simple truth.

I am so glad to be rid of that school system. An administration that stupid, in that case and in others. . . .

Ohhh, especially others.

I hope this post is not “offensive” to anyone. I hope it hasn’t upset anybody’s applecart, or forced anyone to hotly defend any issues.

As I mentioned above, upset people are often illogical. I stand by that statement. Details on request.