My third day ever of teaching was on September 11, 2001.  I was teaching Latin to fifth through eighth grade students at Plato Academy in Niles, Illinois just outside Chicago.  I only taught twice a week; my first day had been the previous Tuesday, the day after Labor Day.  Given my lack of teaching experience, it was going to be a tough day no matter what else happened.  But as we know, all hell broke loose that day.  None of us at the school were sure what to do.  I think we mostly wanted to be at home with loved ones watching the news.  If I recall correctly the social studies teacher might have brought in a TV to watch the news with the students to begin explaining to them what they would undoubtedly face when they went home for the day.  I taught first period that day, so I was in the classroom when news started breaking.  I decided to teach my classes as planned that day, in part because the alternative wasn’t immediately clear.  I didn’t want to alarm my students any further than they might be once news started to trickle out, and Latin seemed a safe refuge for a few hours from what was about to overwhelm us.  In the years since then, I have often wondered whether I should have done something different that day.

“Crisis” comes from the Greek krisis, which means ‘decision.’  To find something we need to make a decision about, we need only to look to our immediate circumstances and Covid-19 which managed to push off the front page emergencies like economic inequality and climate change, and if the latter is an abstraction to you, look up the effect of sea level increases at the U.S. naval station in Norfolk, Virginia.  To coronavirus and climate change could be added the rise of authoritarianism and humanitarian crises and conflicts in any number of countries.  Of course, all of these are related and to talk about one is to talk about them all, but they are also distinct existential threats, if not to the planet, then to our health, stability, and freedom. 

The danger of course is that we are simply overreacting to current events.  This danger is real.  Social media and the ubiquity of traditional media keep us in a constant state of frenzy.  Not only is it hard to think clearly in such a space, but it is hard not to respond with anger, rage, and a sense of utmost urgency.  How many of us have thought that if our party loses the next election the country is doomed?  History clarifies these matters for us, but how do we know in the present that these changes in political power do not represent a mortal threat to our democracy? 

The only ones more naïve than those who are always claiming the sky is falling are those who claim the sky is never falling.  History, recent and ancient, readily provides examples of the sky falling.  The lasting achievements of civilization, peace, and stability should always fill us with more wonder than their destruction and disruption.

So where does a teacher stand in all this.  Politics and current events are often a challenge for teachers.  There is a temptation to pretend we work in an apolitical space, but apolitical spaces are generally spaces that simply perpetuate the status quo, and the status quo is unjust for many, if not downright unlivable.  There is also a desire to maintain neutrality and remain fair, but there are times in the life of a person or a country when maintaining neutrality is the act of a coward.  There are not always good people on both sides making good decisions.  Often the call to remain neutral or hear both sides of a debate is merely censorship by noise; the reality of evolution or climate change is drowned out by all those calling for more studies.  It is a dismal age when scientific knowledge and expertise are in such demand at the same time that their value has been so widely brought into question.

If we do believe there is a crisis, when do we react?  Do I keep my students translating their Cicero when the waters are up to our ankles?  Do I wait till it reaches our knees?  Should I have stopped us when the water first began wetting the soles of our feet?  How many deaths until we drop our books and pick up our needles to sew N95 masks?  The question could be put to any profession I suppose. Perhaps, like Beethoven, who continued to compose and perform while Napoleon’s armies ravaged Vienna and central Europe, we should stand at our particular station and strive to create as much beauty and hope as we can in our community.  Let the composer compose, the teacher teach, and the freedom fighter fight for freedom.  But are there not times when we need to make an actual defense of our community?

I have great uncertainty about these things and where I should place myself in this moment.  I wonder whether there are times when reflection and dialogue cease.  I sometimes find articles and books written by European scholars during World War II, pedantic and learned, and I ponder how it could be that there were academics during the holocaust.  How many coronavirus cases will we need before the professor of Greek philology puts down their Homer and volunteers to drive shifts for the ambulance?  Don’t we all become first responders at some point?  This is the crisis before me these days.  I will need to decide who I will be.

Resources

Beethoven, Symphonies 5,6, and 9. 

Cicero.  On Duties (De Officiis). 

For censorship through noise, see McKay Coppins, “The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President: How New Technologies and Techniques Pioneered by Dictators Will Shape the 2020 Election,” The Atlantic, February 10, 2020.

See also  Peter Pomerantsev, This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality, PublicAffairs, 2020.

Nota Bene: The feature image is the rostra, the speakers’ platform in the Roman Forum, where Cicero’s head was nailed after his assassination for speaking out against Mark Antony. Photo by Thomas Strunk.