As a child all of us were in the school, elementary library watching this live. We were, some of us, in the "young astronauts" program and were following this with great anticipation. Particularly, the teacher Laurie McAuliffe, was something we were all very proud of and excited about. It was a terrible moment in US history.
I was only 3, so I missed it, but I remember watching in the library for the next launch in 1988. I didn't have a good grasp of why the adults thought it was so important to watch, but it seemed significant even as a six year old. It's a shame that there's nothing so important scientifically anymore that school could be stopped just to observe it. Can you imagine these days dropping everything to watch whatever the equivalent of a space shuttle launch is in today's world? I can't. Then again, they also interrupted school to watch the OJ verdict live, so maybe in the 80s and 90s we were just more collectively focused on the big events, regardless of what they were.