9-11 and Peter Jennings

Not one teacher at Diamond Middle School in the fall of 2001 would have traded places with me. Not only was I teaching in a small trailer parked outside the high school building by the gymnasium, but it was a two-classroom trailer and I had the smaller (much smaller) classroom.
But I had one thing on Sept. 11, 2001, that the other teachers at DMS did not have...a television that actually worked. The televisions in the main section of the school were passable for showing videos, but they could barely pick up a broadcasting signal. My television, for some odd reason, had a good picture.
So when Sue Macy, the principal's secretary, told me that the World Trade Center had been attacked, my television went on and it went straight to KODE and the ABC News coverage with Peter Jennings.
I would like to say that was because I knew he would provide a calm, intelligent perspective on something that defied description. Truthfully, it was because Channel 12 was the only station that TV picked up.
At the time, I was teaching current issues, a writing-intensive class, so the broadcast fit right into my curriculum. For the next several hours, my classes sat transfixed by the carnage on the television screen, the horror that someone had actually come into our country and did this to our people. Somehow, Peter Jennings was able to keep my classes...and the nation...reassured throughout the horrible day.
At Diamond, all of the schools, high school, middle school, and elementary school, are on the same campus. Even though the word spread quickly not to allow Diamond Elementary students to watch the coverage, the word did not reach the other occupant of the trailer, fifth grade teacher Chris Rakestraw, who brought his class across the trailer to watch.
All throughout the day, KODE kept breaking away for about five minutes every half hour or so to bring a local perspective on events. It was an admirable thing to do, but there simply wasn't enough substance to coverage so far from New York and Washington, D. C. When the station would break away from Peter Jennings and ABC''s coverage, the students groaned, but that turned out to be a perfect time, to turn down the volume on the set and discuss the situation. My students asked some good questions, but so did Chris Rakestraw's fifth graders. Part of the reason they were able to ask such intelligent questions was due to the way the ABC anchors and reporters thoroughly explained what at first glance seemed to be unexplainable.
Peter Jennings, who died Sunday at age 67 from lung cancer, helped guide America through many critical news events. That's the one I will remember.