"Life In The 21st Century"

Four years ago I decided to look for a new teaching position. I had been commuting to and from Queens to Manhattan everyday for 3 years and at the time, my children were 8 months and 3 years old. It was truly difficult but I learned a lot about being a working mother while sitting in traffic and listening to ABBA on a daily basis both to and from school. (They love ABBA, as do I) In retrospect, it could have been worse...I guess. I was fortunate enough to be driving to work. Many parents I passed on those cold mornings were standing on bus lines with carriages and babies in tow.

Anyway, September 2001 marked many changes for me. I started a new teaching position and spent the first three days of school having my new history and geography students writing time capsule entries in an effort to predict their year ahead. My 7th and 8th graders sealed their capsules on September 10th, 2001. Not knowing that this would be the very last day of how they viewed the world. Most of the entries were very innocent. We opened the time capsules in June of 2002 and BOY were we off the mark. No one even came close to predicting 9-11. Now, my former 8th graders will be graduating from high school in June. I can't believe how time "waits for no one." What happened on September 11th, 2001 was etched in my mind as the change of life time with those tragic moments which continue to live and breathe in our souls.

Now we fast forward to the present, and enter the new school year with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina raining down on what was also to be "a fresh start." So while the nation remembers 9-11-01, my heart and prayers are with all the families who have suffered during 9-11 and Katrina. NO words will ever match your sorrows; but hopefully our thoughts can help ease some of the burden.