SHAWANO, WI- Some of the best learning takes place in school, but on the morning of September 11, 2001, even teachers had a hard time doing what they do best, teaching.
“I taught almost every single 7th grader in the city. I taught for 36 years.”
At Shawano Middle School that morning, Vanessa Waldburger had her 7th grade class in the room and said she made a phone call that she would never forget.
“I had a kid that was sick and I had to call home to her dad to let him know,” Waldburger recalls. “He was watching TV, and all of the sudden he goes, oh my God, oh my God, and then one more time, Oh my God!
Waldburger said he told her that a plane just hit one of the Twin Towers in New York.”
“I would say I was one of the first in the school to find out.” She said she was the one that started telling everyone.
“The first thing that I did was call up our Principal Dan Labby and I told him what happened.”
One of the students in the classroom at the time was Amanda Jach.
“They brought the TV in and it was just a simple weird silence throughout the classroom and it was just kind of an awe moment.”
“We made it a teaching moment where the whole entire day we had the news on,” Waldburger said.
Jach said she remembers how everyone was just focused on the watching the news and really didn’t even ask too many questions,” she said. “We told the kids that if they wanted to have a moment of silence they could, because we were watching people jump to their deaths and these kids were only 12-years old,” said Waldburger.
“She just kinda say we are going to watch this and I don’t know if she 100 percent knew what to say,” Jach explained.
Waldburger said another moment stands out when she found out that one of her students, Jamie, had a father who was working near the World Trade Center. “Her father owned a sandwich shop close to the towers and they survived and Jamie called her dad to see if he was okay and he started making food and sandwiches for people who needed help out there.”
Waldburger retired from the district six years ago. She said in her mind, school was a good place for those kids to be during that moment.
“Everybody was there to be a sounding board for each other.”
For Jach, she can’t help but realize how much time has gone by, and how the memories stay permanent.
“I have a kindergartner and I don’t even want to think about having to explain something like that to him, it is a little crazy, she said. “You realize that you are part of a significant event as part of your life forever, it is kind of crazy.”
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