It started like another normal day.
I stopped at 8:30 for a regular coffee break.
As I was leaving the cafeteria, I saw the deputy principal standing in the hallway;
His face was grayer than the suit he was wearing.
If someone like him, who served in the U.S. Army, walks around with such a facial expression, a sign that something bad has happened.
I approached him and asked him if he was okay;
He only replied, "Come to my office. The television is on. Osama bin Laden has attacked the city."
It sounds illogical to me, but I did as he requested.
There I saw the plane crash into the building.
Then, through the TV screen, the waitress' cries of grief were heard: "Oh my God, the second building is collapsing!"
I thought I was watching a rerun, but then I realized: I actually saw the real happening, which happened live before my eyes.
I remember suddenly feeling extremely cold, even though it was a perfect autumn day.
My teeth also started pounding, and I couldn’t stop them.
The teaching staff was told to return to classrooms and continue teaching until new instructions were given, and not to share with students what had happened, because in our school children are taught to parents who travel every day to work in New York City, and many of the parents are police officers and firefighters.
We feared that if we released the children to their homes, they might return to an empty house.
It was the longest day of my life.
At the end it was over, and I listened to the radio on the way home.
As I walked into my house and sat in the kitchen, the phone rang.
On the line was Sarah, my best friend from Israel, who told me: "Throughout the years you have been the one calling me to make sure we are okay after terrorist attacks; I never thought I would be the one to call you to see if you were okay."
After she said that, all my emotional dams were breached.
My legs collapsed.
I sat on the kitchen floor and cried at traffic signs.
The next day I went back to school.
I placed a sheet of paper and an envelope on each student's desk.
"You are witnessing history," I told them, "and therefore all your feelings and memories should be preserved."
I told them that all they had to do in class was write and write, and keep the envelope in a safe place in their home, so that in time future generations would read it.
There was complete silence throughout the day, in every class I went to. That was the task in all my classes that day. Even the "problematic" children did not interfere and followed my instructions to sit and write. At the end of the day everyone got up and left in silence. The only thing they heard in class was a random cry. It was the most important lesson plan I ever taught.