Presidential elections. 9/11. The only national moments where American schools intentionally wait for history to pass by. Here, in the midst of midterm cramming and 10am class,  SBS1, one of the largest Korean national news channels, blares in the background. About 50% of students sleeping, 25% talking loudly, 25% alternating between straining to hear the broadcast and shouting at their classmates to shut up so they can listen.

For the first time, North Korean Premier-dictator Kim Jong Un crossed over the border between North and South Korea to attend a historic summit with the South’s president Moon Jae-in. While not all schools are pausing classes—as they did during the South Korea-Japan-hosted World Cup in 2002—many have decided to do so.

In the teacher’s office, almost a dozen instructors, including the principal and vice-principal, gathered around the TV alternating between commentary and clapping as Kim reached across the threshold to shake President Moon’s outstretched hand.

“As I walked over here, I thought, why was it so difficult to get here?” Kim told Moon and the South Korean delegation. “The separating line wasn’t even that high to cross. It was too easy to walk over that line and it took us 11 years to get here.”

Well, a lot has happened. Missile tests. Bombastic threats. ‘Little Rocket Man.’ Countries scrambling to find a new equilibrium, as a tightrope walker on her shaking line. Yet in this moment, clapping for clasping hands. In this moment, the royal “we” uttered by the South includes the North.

“If we’re not at war and are one unified country we’d really like that,” says a student in Cheonju, a small city in the Chungbuk province. From another, dreams of democratization too: “Of course there would be a vote [if we reunified]. Most likely it’d be President Moon [winning], but there would be a vote.”

“Park Geun-hye could not do this. But Moon Jae-in could do this,” says a high school boy in Busan, the second-largest city in the country. “It’s so amazing. It’s such a great opportunity,” chatters another.

The New York Times reported that “After the two leaders posed for photos, they crossed briefly into the North’s territory. They then stepped backed into South Korean territory, holding hands.” But as any live viewer will tell you, it seemed as though Kim Jong Un directed they step over the concrete step to the North’s side, with a firm handshake request.

If anything, the conspiracist in me wishes that Moon Jae-in was fitted with a pressure sensor, so as to tell how tight those handshake grips were. For as every politician knows, a handshake can just as easily be a power grasp as a touch of mutual understanding. And “holding hands”—an American symbol of unity and friendship—could easily have been interpreted here as an international tug of war.

The period ends and the spell breaks; some from slumber, others from the replay of Kim and Moon talking across the table. Back to the life of integrals and grammar, mitochondria and the periodic table. What’s in front of their faces. But I try not to miss this chance to pull them back to the bigger picture. It’s their future they are inheriting, after all.

“Is this meeting a good thing?” I ask the better English-speaking students, repeating the question in Korean to ensure my point gets across. Many nod and simply say “Good,” and others’ eyes trace upwards. “뭐해야돼지? What should I say?”

What should I say. Opinions, as abundant in America as Harvard Square tourists in springtime, are harder to unearth here. Startled, some of them, at being asked this by a teacher. Having to use short, crisp sentences like forceps, prying out nascent ideas bit by bit.

“Inch by inch,” says one second-year I corner in the hall. “Reunification might come.”

“Meeting is good but two leaders…it is hard to control [their] countries,” stutters another.

But the majority I ask seem to be mid-pubescent realists of the moderate American political vein. Let’s wait and see then decide what we think after it happens.

“Reunification is now more likely,” I managed to coax a first year to admit, before he immediately qualified the statement. “But most important is meeting between U.S. and North Korea.”

For others, even more individual-focused. The only thing the students seem to be in consensus on, one of the other English teachers tells me, is the hope that there won’t be any more compulsory military service should the North and South reunite. No, no! There will only be more military service to reunite the country! interjects a science teacher. Maybe secretly, some hope that reunification might come, just after I put in my two years of service and get out.

There is inherent conflict in many minds here, including my own. They (I) are (I am) optimists in their hoping, yet they are (I am) pessimists in our planning, and they are (I am) ignorant of the future.

In some ways, this sword dance mirrors our comparatively inconsequential lives. Goals: mismatching. Opinions: clashing. Personalities: dancing. Half of us with ambitious pride of nuclear proportions; the other half struggling to disarm it.

And so they warily meet in the middle to shake hands under the banner of truce; smiling effusively even as they are at war. The only difference here is the cameras flashing. Yet the only thing for certain is that onward is the only direction there is.

One student sums it succinctly:

“I don’t know what will happen, but there will be change. There will be a lot of change.”