Bridging Troubled Waters: Principles for teaching in times of crisis

First, an important point of order and clarity: September 11th didn't change everything; nor did the landfall of Hurricane Katrina and subsequent breach of the levee that held Lake Pontchartrain back from the city of New Orleans; nor did the Tsunamis that engulfed coastal communities along the Indian Ocean; nor does the ongoing genocide of black Africans in the Darfur region of Sudan, nor do the ongoing demonstrations to extend basic civil and human rights to this nation's most recent influx of immigrants. What these events do to the extent that we bear witness to them is render obvious to more people than in the past the depths of challenges facing this nation and world. These challenges include: global and local poverty; local and global versions of racism and nationalism; local, national, and transnational versions of governmental incompetence; various manifestations of hatred; and the overall fragility of human life not just of individuals, but of entire communities. In other words, we are surrounded by countless human crises that are ongoing and normally hidden, but that have in recent years become more difficult to ignore. These crises make plain the amount of work to be done to realize a world worthy of our children's best selves.