Is the Universe a Friendly Place?

“Is the universe a friendly place?”

Some people say Einstein asked this. Some say he didn’t. Either way, it was good question for me.

When I came up against a daunting class of middle schoolers or inmates or the highly gifted, my first instinct was to keep myself alive. Convinced the class was full of students out to get me, I’d build my defenses and scan for trouble.

Sullen faces, knowing looks, shuttered eyes, closed books—I noticed all this and expected the worst.  

My clenched gut was a clear answer to Einstein: The universe was not a friendly place.

But in an unfriendly place I couldn’t teach, not really. There was no curiosity, no marvel, no weaving of magic. And no learning, not real learning.

To truly teach, I had to foster love and forge peace. I had to look for the right, not the wrong.

Each time I switched to this focus, something happened. I began to notice small, everyday miracles—the lifted chin of an adolescent on the first day back after his mother’s funeral, the suspiciously bright eyes of an inmate as he asked what teenagers need from a father, the catch in the throat of a science geek who told me she had just discovered her life calling, to study black holes

To be sure, trouble still bubbled up. The lives of many students are messy and filled with pressure and pain. But when trouble came, I learned to first assume the best, not the worst. And even in the worst, to assume there was more to know. And this sucked the power out of trouble.

As I learned all this, my answer to Einstein began to change. The universe was a friendly place.

At least some of the time.