Abstract
In a time of societal upheaval, there is an urgent educational question: How do teachers teach during crises? What do they prioritize and why? In this article, I use a sociocultural perspective to analyze what Israeli teachers prioritized at the beginning of the Israel–Hamas war and how they oriented themselves with respect to mandated curricula. Using a snowball sample, I interviewed 41 teachers in Israel in the three weeks after the start of the Israel–Hamas war and the 7 October 2023 terrorist attack. The interviews reveal that, during this time of crisis, the majority of teachers prioritized students’ well-being over meeting learning goals. However, how teachers understand what constitutes students’ well-being varies widely, particularly with regard to whether and how to teach the curriculum. Interestingly, the data reveal that those teachers who followed the curriculum did so on the basis of promoting student care. This research offers rare insights into how teachers in Israel conceived of their work in the days and weeks after the 7 October 2023 terrorist attack and, through their words, argues for a deeper consideration of the importance of an ethics of care in teaching. The current conception of learning that underpins claims about learning loss during times of crisis is too narrow, missing the important choices teachers make regarding student care.