Why Teachers Need to Keep Going Even When It’s Hard

The Cellist of the Schoolyard

In 1992, thirty-seven-year-old Vedran Smailovic wasprincipal cellist of the Sarajevo Opera. Because of the fighting, Sarajevo was being called “the capital of hell.”On May 27, a long line waited in front of one of the last bakeries in town. Parents wanted to buy bread to feed their families.A mortar landed among them, exploding and killing twenty-two people in line.

Something inside Vedran Smailovic’s heart broke.

The carnage lay in the streetoutside his window....