President Continues to Read to Class When Informed About the Towers
Florida Students Witnessed the Moment Bush-league Learned of 9/eleven Terror Attacks
Former second graders recall when the president came to read to their classroom.
Sept. 8, 2011— -- Sept. 11, 2001 started out as a morning time of innocence and excitement for the boys and girls of Sandra Kay Daniel'southward second grade class at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla.
"There was and then much buzz going around," Daniels said.
"Everyone had their hair done and new bows and everything," recalled Natalia Jones-Pinkney, i of Daniels' sometime students.
The president of the United States, George Due west. Bush, was coming to visit.
PHOTOS: Moment President Bush Learned of Attacks
"The kids had worked so hard," Daniels said. "He was coming to congratulate them for the success and achievements they had fabricated in their reading."
"Everything was then relaxed," co-ordinate to Ann Compton, the ABC News White House correspondent traveling with the president that twenty-four hours. "This was not a big pressure result. The kids were kind of bewildered past it all, the fuss around them. But they were sitting in their chairs, looking forward and were kind of giggling and glad to see the president."
The day's lesson focused effectually the story, "The Pet Goat." But while the teacher took her students through reading drills, few in the room knew what the president knew -- that a plane had apparently crashed in New York.
"I had been notified that a aeroplane had striking the World Trade Center," President Bush told National Geographic. "My reaction was, man, either the weather was bad or something boggling happened to the pilot."
Remebering 9/11: Share Your Memories HERE
While the kids were picking upwardly their books to brainstorm reading, "The Pet Goat," Andrew Card, the president'due south chief of staff, entered the room, walked to the president, and whispered in his ear.
"I made the conclusion I would pass on ii facts, make one editorial comment and do nothing to invite a annotate," Bill of fare later told ABC News.
"The minute that I saw Andy Card walk into that classroom, lean over and whisper to the president, I knew something was direly incorrect," Compton said. "Nobody interrupts the president. Not even in front end of a classroom of 2nd graders."
The students, now seniors in high school but but 7 years former at the time, knew and then that something had happened. They could meet it in the president's confront.
"He looked disconcerted, anxious," recalled Lazaro Dubrocq, another old educatee. "He was looking at the cameras, the walls."
"I call up him being all happy and joyful," said Mariah Williams. "And so his expression changing to very serious. And concerned."
Daniels, the teacher, was besides aware of a change in the room. "He left the room. Mentally he was gone."
Simply what had Carte whispered in the president's ear?
"A second aeroplane striking the second tower. America is under assault."
For approximately seven minutes the president stayed in the classroom while the students proudly read "The Pet Goat" to him. He was subsequently criticized for not leaving immediately, only to the young people in that classroom, he made the right decision.
"I remember if he would accept panicked that was the tone he was setting for the whole country," said Chantal Guerrero. "If he wanted the state to stay calm, he needed to show that he was calm."
Subsequently the president left the room to be briefed and accost the nation, Daniels was informed by a member of the Secret Service of the attacks on the World Trade Middle. And so she had to explain it to her young students.
"I told them something terrible had happened and President Bush needs to go," she said. "Remember they were in second class. They were but vii years old and so I wasn't going to requite them every piece of information."
Reflecting on 9/11: Valuable Lessons
Daniels also had to teach them some unexpected lessons. "I had to teach them actually early about terrorists and about mean people in the world. And so I would tell them choose skilful over evil. Do right when it'due south in your hand and in your power to do and so."
Those lessons and that infamous day accept left a lasting impact on the students. "It opened my eyes really fast," Guerrero said. "I wanted to know what was going on and and then I guess it kind of matured all of usa a picayune scrap faster."
Although he felt proud to be in the classroom that twenty-four hours, Lazaro Dubrocq likewise felt sad. "Yous feel sorrow for the thousands of families who were destroyed that twenty-four hours," he said.
Now a decade later, the teacher and students from that second course classroom go along to share a special bond from being together on 9/xi in such a public way.
"What happened to u.s. fabricated us part of history," Daniels said. "And no thing where they get in life they volition always be my babies."
And it's as well an feel they shared with the president of the United States, as he wrote in a letter to former student Natalia Jones-Pinkney.
"You and I will never forget Sept. eleven, '01," the president wrote. "But remember out of the evil done to America will come good."
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/US/September_11/florida-students-witnessed-moment-bush-learned-911-terror/story?id=14474518
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