Teaching in Truth When the Ground Feels Unstable

There was a moment during the recent Teaching in Truth masterclass when the room went quiet. It wasn't because people had nothing to say, but due to the weight of what was being shared landed hard.

Beth, an immigration attorney, asked a question that many educators have been holding silently:

What do we tell families who are afraid to send their children to school? 

Her clients, parents without documentation, were keeping children home out of fear. In some cases, teenagers were being pulled out of school entirely and sent to work instead. Not because their families didn’t value education, but because safety suddenly felt uncertain.

That moment clarified something we had already been circling all evening: this is not a technical problem. It’s a human one.   

When schools no longer feel safe

Across the country, educators are navigating an increasingly volatile landscape. We all see what's going on with new legislation, censorship, immigration enforcement fears, and rising emotional distress among students. For many communities, especially immigrant families and students of color, school no longer feels like a guaranteed place of protection.

Beth’s story echoed what many teachers in the room had already named:

students not showing up, families disengaging out of fear, and educators unsure how to respond without overstepping or risking their own safety.

What made this exchange powerful wasn’t that there was a perfect answer. There wasn’t.

What mattered was that the question was asked in community, and the response was collective, grounded, and honest.   

Teaching in truth means naming the system

Throughout the masterclass, Lorena returned to a necessary truth:

educational inequities are not accidental and they are not evenly distributed.

From the criminalization of literacy for enslaved Africans, to English-only policies targeting multilingual learners, to the weaponization of the “model minority” myth, schooling in the United States has always been shaped by race and power.   

For educators committed to culturally sustaining practices, this matters deeply.

You cannot meaningfully support students without understanding:

• why some families distrust institutions,

• why certain students feel unseen or unsafe,

• and why neutrality often reinforces harm.

Teaching in truth means holding both realities at once:

We believe in education—and we recognize how schooling has failed many communities. 

Community is not optional—it’s survival

One of the clearest throughlines of the session was this:

educators are not meant to do this alone.

Again and again, participants shared how isolation, not workload, was what pushed them closest to leaving the profession. And just as consistently, they described how community changed everything: providing language, perspective, accountability, and the courage to stay.

This distinction came up powerfully:

• being around people is not the same as being in community.

• venting is not the same as growing.

• affirmation without challenge is not support.

What educators are craving right now is a space to think clearly together, especially when the stakes feel high.   

What do we do when there are no easy answers?

Beth’s question never resolved neatly and that’s exactly the point.

In moments like these, teaching in truth doesn’t mean having the perfect script. It means:

• listening deeply,

• building trust with families,

• communicating proactively,

• understanding legal and ethical boundaries,

• and making decisions rooted in care, not fear.

It also means having people you can turn to and ask:

“What would you do here?” 

“What am I missing?” 

“How do I stay human in this moment?” 

That kind of reflection doesn’t happen in isolation—and it doesn’t happen in one-off workshops. 

Where educators go to keep growing

Near the end of the masterclass, the conversation turned not to solutions but to sustainability. How do educators continue showing up with integrity in moments like this?

The answer wasn’t a program or a product. It was community with structure. Spaces where educators can:

• workshop real scenarios,

• deepen culturally sustaining pedagogy,

• build shared language around antiracist teaching,

• and be held with both care and accountability.

That’s the spirit behind My Classroom Gold—not as a fix, but as a place to keep asking better questions, together.

If you left the masterclass feeling affirmed and unsettled—

If you’re holding tensions you don’t want to carry alone—

If you’re committed to multicultural education but unsure how to move forward in this climate, you’re not behind. You’re paying attention. And you don’t have to figure it out by yourself.

Some educators from the session have chosen to stay connected through My Classroom Gold not because they had everything figured out, but because they wanted a place to keep thinking, learning, and showing up with intention.

If that sounds like something you need right now, the door is open. No pressure. Just people who believe that teaching in truth is better when we do it together.