I was in the 5th grade. I'm not sure why we didn't watch the launch live, but we had just come in from recess. Our 5th grade teacher told us to sit down he had some bad news to tell us. We had just had a field trip rescheduled, so I said, don't tell me the field trip is canceled again. He got this stern look on his face and told me to sit down. I felt like shit when he told us what happened. We were then taken to the library to watch the news coverage of what happened. It was a really sad day. We had been following the coverage of the first teacher in space for a while and for it to end up in tragedy, was difficult to comprehend. The teacher's talked to us about how they would never forget where they were when Kennedy was assassinated. They told us we will never forget this day either. They were correct. We didn't have class the rest of the day we just watched news and discussed what happened. Of course there were some kids cracking jokes about it. I didn't understand how they could make jokes about it, and how they came up with them so fast. However joking about tragedy is a copping mechanism for some. So in my life I won't forget this day, 911, and the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.