Remembering 9/11

I was a brand new Exchange Teacher in a foreign land (FOB or Fresh off the Boat, so to speak!), having arrived in July that year. I thought I was prepared for anything, with about 11 years teaching experience behind me, teaching high school and college biology back home in the Philippines. Not to mention all that training in the USAID/GOLD project on Technology of Participation or ToP, SWS polling in the Bohol Polls, research methodology in various research projects. After two weeks intensive training in teaching science at theEast Side Union High School District, I was ready. And started teaching on August 28 at the East Side Cadet Academy, an alternative school of ESUHSD, housed at the Cathedral of Faith in Canoas Garden. I was the Science teacher to about 100 cadets, teaching with Marx Advincula, the Math Teacher, Luis Rodriguez, English Teacher, Rob Suhr, Social Studies teacher, two (2) California National Guards: Sgt. Haislip and Sgt. Hunter who were the military/leadership instructors, Jennie Lopez (+) of the California Youth Outreach, Ms. Sherrie LeBeau the secretary, and 3 administrators: Jackie Guevara, Dot Westerhoff and Mr. Rick Esparza. The schoolyear started with a big bang.

Then 9/11. I was totally unprepared for it! I guess none of us were. It was a crazy day, which started with one of the students, Jonathan Santacruz, telling us at the bus stop what he saw on CNN. At ESCA, there was panic among the cadets who we gathered together, with students fainting when there was a big crash on the roof of the Cathedral of Faith. All the networks carried the news and footages of the World Trade Center. We spent the whole day watching as the story unfold.

Everything changed after that. The California National Guards were pulled out to be ready for deployment to Afghanistan. We had to maintain stability in a school where many of the students were coping with keeping their credits up and coping with the emotions brought about by 9/11. The teachers took turns in handling the classes of the military, when daily military instructors cannot come. The male teachers handled the PE classes while I took care of the homeroom classes, Mr. Robert Suhr creating the basketball team. I myself was coping with the desire to be an effective and efficient teacher in a foreign land, while missing home and family and maintaining an aura of self-confidence.

Questions came to mind at that time - about staying, or packing my bags and going home, safe to my family and friends. The rest is history after all of that! And I look back with pride at all the Cadets who have graduated with us and all the People of ESCA that I have worked with and with whom I said with pride and conviction: "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."