In describing how her coJJeagues at the University of Wyoming responded to Shepard's death, Loffieda records her own frustration at hearing teachers speak of their own ··uselessness" and "irrelevance"...

In describing how her coJJeagues at the University of Wyoming responded to Shepard's death, Loffieda records her own frustration at hearing teachers speak of their own ··uselessness" and "irrelevance" in the face of such a tragedy. Such remarks struck Loffi-eda as "an appalling luxury, an indulgence in a kind of intellectual self-pity at a m.oment when the basic skills of education-c1itical thinking, articulation, self-reflection-could be so concretely valuable. I wondered about that, and I wondered, coo, when we'd stop talking about how we felt and begin talking about what to do." What is it that teachers can or should do at such times? What role should secular institutions play in trying to shape the way their students see and understand the world?