While the World Fractured, the Bell Still Rang

I’ve been wondering what it has felt like, across history, to teach during moments of unrest. What has it meant for teachers to show up for children when the world beyond the classroom felt unsafe or morally unsettled?

I’m writing this as a teacher in Minnesota, in a moment when uncertainty has found its way into classrooms in visible and invisible ways.

What was it like to teach during World War II, when classrooms in places like London continued even as air raid sirens sounded and families were separated by war? Some schools closed, while others reopened quickly because children still needed routine and care. What did it take to offer calm while listening for danger themselves?

What was it like to teach in Germany in the 1930s and 40s, as schools were transformed into tools of state ideology and Jewish students and teachers were systematically pushed out? Early policies sharply limited Jewish access to public education, and later measures excluded Jewish children entirely. What did it feel like inside a classroom as classmates were removed by law, as desks became empty because children were barred from returning? Did teachers worry about students who disappeared from their classrooms, not knowing where they had gone or whether they were safe? Were they afraid for their students and afraid for themselves at the same time? What did silence cost them?

There was no single experience. Some educators were complicit. Others taught inside systems they did not control, carrying the weight of what they saw and what they could not say.

What was it like to keep showing up as a Black educator during school desegregation in the United States, even as many were pushed out of their classrooms? As schools integrated, tens of thousands of Black teachers and principals lost their jobs. Children entered newly integrated classrooms while trusted adults disappeared from them. Did those teachers worry about the children they were no longer allowed to stand beside? Did they fear what would happen to students once the steady presence of familiar, affirming adults was removed?

Schools continued, but the relationships that had helped hold children steady were often severed.

Again and again, history shows that teachers’ steadiness matters deeply to children, and that it is far more fragile than we like to admit.

Across time and place, when the world has felt unstable, classrooms have often become places where adults tried to hold something steady for children. Teachers became the familiar presence, noticing when a child was quieter than usual, when tempers flared, when fear showed up.

Public schools cannot fix what is happening beyond their doors. But inside them, teachers have often been the connective tissue, helping children remain anchored to learning, to safety, and to each other when much else feels uncertain.

That work has never been simple. History suggests it has always mattered deeply.