Maya

I teach 8th grade. Tomorrow morning a room full of thirteen year olds is going to ask me whether we just sabotaged our allies' planes, and I do not have a good answer.

Whatever this is, it is going to be in a textbook. Please think about which paragraph.

"They were not elected. I was."

I teach civics. That sentence is the argument every strongman in the textbook makes, word for word, in every language, and my students are going to hear it tonight from their own president.

I have to teach the chapter on checks and balances on Thursday. I do not know how.

I did not say coup. I said the sentence is the argument.

And you are right that he has the power. That is the actual problem and it is the thing I have to explain on Thursday: that a lot of what holds a country together is not a law, it is five people deciding not to sign something, and that it turns out you can just fire the five people.

A student asked me today if we are the bad guys now.

Thirteen years old, hand up, whole room quiet, completely sincere. Not being smart. Actually asking.

I said history is complicated and people will argue about this for a long time. He looked at me like he knew I had dodged it. He was right. I dodged it. I have thought about nothing else since 2pm.

School is open today. I checked at five in the morning because I did not know if that was still automatic.

Thirty children are going to walk into my classroom in two hours and I am going to teach them about the Louisiana Purchase.

We had a minute's silence in homeroom this morning. Thirty-two seconds, one for each. A kid suggested it, not me.

Then we did fractions. That is the strangest part of all of this. The fractions still have to happen.