At times like these, the crucial role of the teacher is never clearer. Yes, as always, there are plans to be followed, exam topics to prepare for, curriculum essentials to be got through - but sometimes the true value of a teacher is shown when they face off-the-cuff questions.
There have been a lot of those in the past two days. In a piece for Tes, Scottish secondary teacher Michael Shanks echoed the experience of countless other teachers who have been asked if a third world war was upon us and whether bombs are about to rain down on us all.
In a situation like this, Shanks was clear: teachers have a duty to set aside their plans and engage in discussion with their students. As he put it, “there is a curriculum and you can’t throw your teaching plan out of the window completely” - but on the other hand, “I’ve just woken up to the news that there is an invasion underway in Europe”.
There is a very careful balancing act to be performed. The BBC’s Newsround programme - whose Twitter profile says it has been “helping children make sense of the world since 1972” -has been praised by teachers on social media today for the adroit way in which it has pulled this off.
One Newsround presenter, in a radio interview this morning, underlined that you can’t hide children from all the harsh realities of the crisis in Ukraine. We adults should be truthful, he advised: confirm for example that, yes, they heard right, there are children in Ukraine hiding out in underground stations rather than learning in classrooms - but there is no need, he said, to show them the more horrific footage circulating on social media.
As my Tes colleague Helen Amass wrote today, teachers need to be trusted to find the right balance. “They will be just getting on with the sorts of conversations that will happen today - they know how to do it and always have done,” she said.
There are, of course, competing forces as young people attempt to make sense of it all. Social media algorithms will be relentlessly driving context-free (and quite possibly fake) content towards young eyes and ears - Shanks had to field concerns about a video supposedly showing Russian fighter jets flying over Scotland. The measured, contextualised and expert insight a teacher can provide is essential in the effort to disseminate truth amid escalating chaos and confusion.
There was a grim irony yesterday in that the news of the Russian invasion emerged on the same day that Covid restrictions were coming to an end in England: as an apparent staging post in the emergence from one global crisis was reached, another one was just beginning.
But there is some solace to be taken from the whole fraught two years of the pandemic: time and again, we have seen the remarkable lengths that teachers and other education professionals will go to in helping pupils navigate an epochal crisis. They find the reserves of stamina and determination to do this - often while going through huge challenges in their own personal lives - because, as I wrote last year, “teaching is an idealistic, altruistic profession, driven by a burning desire to help give the best start to young lives - and, ultimately, to make the world a better place”.
Crisis is upon us once again - but teachers will not waver in their commitment to help children through it.
Henry Hepburn is Scotland editor at Tes. He tweets @Henry_Hepburn
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