I have been struggling with what to say to my junior and senior students about the Boston Marathon bombings. I hate that this is the “latest terror attack” – the phrase delivers the twin defeats of acknowledging we now have a history of these and suggests more to come.

But the more I read and watched coverage, the more I saw the truth: we won, again.

The dominant images and accounts I absorbed were those of giving and caring and sacrifice in the face of fear, at the bombing site, amid the death and maiming. Once again, people didn’t just run to save themselves, didn’t all lose their minds to terror. An impressive and inspirational number of these ran into the carnage, into the danger, to help others they didn’t know.

This bombing is a tragedy and our hearts go out to the dead and wounded and their families, but to the terrorists, the message is clear: our humanity defeated your cowardice. Again.