Project Hail Mary Spoiler Alert.

I give Project Hail Mary – 👎👎👎👎.

If you don’t get this reference, you are not ready to read this article.

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Today I watched one of the most powerful movies I have seen in a long time, and I cannot stop thinking about it. Project Hail Mary.

One thing I share with the protagonist, Dr. Grace, is that I am an educator. At the core of who we are, we teach, we guide, we help others make sense of the world around them. That calling does not go away when circumstances change. If anything, it becomes more important.

Like the world portrayed in Project Hail Mary, we too are living in an age where something is threatening to steal our light. It may not look the same. It may not be visible in the sky or measurable in a lab. But it is there. It shows up in fear, in division, in uncertainty about the future, and in the quiet erosion of hope that we sometimes see in our students and in ourselves.

And like Dr. Grace, many of us have found ourselves pulled into the middle of the story whether we volunteered or not. We signed up to be educators. We chose to teach, to support, to guide students toward their future. But somewhere along the way, the role has expanded. Now we are being asked to do more than educate. We are being asked to steady, to protect, to help our students make sense of a world that feels uncertain. That is the part we did not consciously volunteer for. And yet, there is a growing sense that something bigger is happening, and that our role in it matters. We are being called, in ways both large and small, to help preserve what is good, what is true, and what is worth holding onto.

The second thing I have in common with Dr. Grace is that I am not brave. I do not really want to volunteer for this new mission. I would much rather stay in the familiar rhythms of teaching, supporting students, and building something steady and predictable. But like him, I am beginning to realize that not choosing is still a choice. And if there is work to be done to protect the future, then I have some responsibility to step into it.

So maybe I do not get to opt out. Maybe none of us do.

And maybe the mission is not about grand heroic acts, but about doing our part, wherever we are, with whatever influence we have. Showing up for students. Speaking with integrity. Choosing compassion when it would be easier not to. Holding onto light when others are letting it dim.

And like Dr. Grace, we may discover that we cannot do this work alone, and more than that, we cannot do it only with people who are like us. In the story, the one who ultimately helps save everything is not someone from his world at all, but Rocky. Someone different. Someone unfamiliar. Someone who requires patience, humility, and a willingness to learn an entirely new way of communicating and understanding. What begins as confusion becomes partnership. What feels foreign becomes essential.

We may be asked to do the same. To work alongside people who see the world differently. To build trust where it does not come easily. To listen more than we speak. To stretch beyond the ways we have always taught and the students we thought we understood. Because the truth is, we do not get to choose a mission that only includes people like us. If we are going to preserve what matters, it will require us to expand who we are willing to stand beside.

And maybe, just maybe, there will come a day when things feel normal again. When the urgency fades. When the world steadies itself. And we can return, fully, to the work we love most.

Teaching our students. Whoever they may be.