Friday, January 28, 2011

25th Anniversary of Challenger Disaster

You know how there are some HUGE events that affect the entire nation and you can remember where you were either when the events occurred or when you first heard about them?  Obviously, most recently most USA citizens can remember where they were when September 11th, 2001 occurred.  My mom's generation remembers where they were when they heard about JFK's assassination.

For me, as a child, I remember where I was then the Challenger space shuttle exploded.

I was in second grade.  Several other classrooms squeezed into my classroom to watch the LIVE transmission of  the launch of the Challenger.  We were so young and so excited.  Then... we were so very confused!!!  What just happened?  We saw lots of smoke and fire and there didn't appear to be a shuttle anymore.  The television was quickly shut off and we were left bewildered and forced to move on to our next math lesson -- much to our dismay!

Seriously, what just happened?

Sharon Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher to fly in space. Selected from among more than 11,000 applicants from the education profession for entrance into the astronaut ranks!  Or Ronald McNair, only the second African American to ever participate in a NASA mission...

Seven brave men and women tragically died on that gorgeous, sunny morning on January 28, 1986.







4 comments:

Jessica Anne said...

I didn't realize today was the anniversary. I remember it too. I was in 6th grade. One of my teacher's was one of the finalists to go up. I remember how emotional the teachers were. The finalist left the room sobbing. We didn't quite understand what we had just seen.

Kristy @Loveandblasphemy said...

I remember it clearly too. I was in fifth grade and we were watching it on TV. I remember being confused by it and not really understanding what had happened. At school, they just kind of turned the TV off and didn't talk about it. I had to wait to ask my parents about it to really know what was going on.

Annie said...

Isn't it crazy that our teachers and educators didn't explain to us what had happened? I remember my teacher literally just hustling us along in the rest of the day. I was so confused!

Nikki said...

I was in 5th grade, and for some reason they thought it was a good idea to let us watch the news coverage after seeing the explosion on live TV. Really? It's a good idea to let a bunch of traumatized 10-year-olds repeatedly watch the one thing that traumatized them in the first place? Brilliant move, right?