On 09/11, my middle school hid the news from the students. I heard information about what was going on through gossip from other students. It was incredibly surreal because students were getting pulled out of class left and right by their parents. Walking by the teachers lounge, I peaked in to see the teachers staring at the TV and crying, but the principal was steadfast about not telling the students.
I honestly had no idea what was really going on and it wasn’t until I got home from school by the bus where I was surprised to see my Dad already home from work just glued to the TV. That’s when I finally learned about what really happened and saw the footage for the first time…at 4pm in the afternoon…
I was also in middle school, one of the history teachers for my grade put it on the TV before the principal decided to try to not let the middle and elementary schoolers (it was a K-12 school) watch, so we all kind of knew what was going on, and in hindsight my teachers seem to have disagreed with the choice to keep us out of the loop. After lunch several of us were in the classroom before the teacher so we turned on her radio and listened to the news, that's how I first learned about the second plane.
My elementary school didn't hide the Challenger shuttle disaster with us, but for some reason they wouldn't let us watch it happen live. Which, I guess, saved us from being as traumatized as we could have been. I remember the teacher coming into the lunch room and telling us and the big gasp. That mission was a big deal to kids because a school teacher would be on board, the first civilian astronaut.
