There was a moment when thoughtful people thought that the 9/11 attacks would lead to a new seriousness in politics—that in the aftermath of this attack, we might be able to transcend the petty culture wars that occupied so much space in our public life in the late 1990s.
If you hadn't noticed, that moment has passed. Over the weekend, the New York Times described a debate that has erupted between groups roughly of the left (the major teachers' union and several mental health groups), which want a psychobabbly, America-is-to-blame-because-of-its-own-racism approach to teaching 9/11, and conservatives like William Bennett and Lynne Cheney, who demand a moralizing, absolutist approach that emphasizes America's virtue above all else.
There's a certain unreality to this depiction. After all, many schools will be marking the anniversary of the attacks without falling into either caricature. They'll opt for low-key commemorations, some counseling, and in some cases just business as usual. But the two competing approaches to teaching 9/11, seemingly polar opposites, turn out to have one important thing in common: the widely accepted notion that schools exist to teach kids what to think. And that notion happens to be dead wrong.
Schools should teach kids not what to think but how to be: how to conduct themselves in social roles, how to make decisions in a political context, how to ask questions when precedent and analogy fail us, as they did on 9/11. If all we want from schools is to transmit facts, there are fine encyclopedias on the market. If all we want them to do is pass down ideology, teachers should assign students The O'Reilly Factor for homework.
People who, in response to 9/11, offer mainly homilies of cultural sensitivity or blasts of American jingoism, who want to fill their students' heads with empathy for boys named Osama or pride in Ronald Reagan's greatest speeches—both examples from the Times piece—are people who, at a certain level, don't trust kids. They take an empty-vessel, blank-slate view of what a student's mind is. Indeed, they are motivated by fear of what that mind might become if the wrong kind of content should color it first.
We ought to take a different view of today's students, one that regards them as moral beings in progress, apprentices in public life, people capable of seeing themselves grow (or shrink). This generation turns out to be pretty savvy about marketing and propaganda. They know that we know that they know that little is authentic in an age of entertainment, and they'll more willingly revisit their assumptions when they're tested in action rather than sermon.
That means taking a different view of what teaching is for. Sept. 11, though it diminishes the day to call it this, is a teachable moment. But how we teach about 9/11 matters perhaps more than what we teach. Instead of prescriptive lesson plans of either the self-hating or self-loving sort, and instead of mere explorations of how kids are feeling—likely the dominant classroom theme next week—what we should encourage are more simulations and enactments of current dilemmas, more Socratic questioning and fewer prepared answers, more creation and less indoctrination.
Let students calibrate their own scales of justice when one of them has to play the attorney general and another a major journalist and another an unnamed detainee in a "Model U.S." exercise. Let them imagine how our reaction to 9/11 would have differed had it happened before the advent of 24-hour visual media, before the icons could have been so highly buffed by the modern machinery of memory. Let them act out how other societies, free and otherwise, would have reacted to such an attack. Let them, in weighing questions of causality, recount times in everyday life when parents or pastors made them see the difference between "root causes" and excuses.
Civics is a moribund subject in many schools, but 9/11 can give us a new, more participatory kind of civics. Consider one program, "Facing History and Ourselves," which was developed by a Massachusetts nonprofit as a cross-disciplinary way for children to understand the Holocaust. "Facing History" approaches the subject from multiple angles of entry—music, art, essays, film—and each entryway leads students to ask how they would have conducted themselves as the Holocaust unfolded. It leads students to understand what it means to choose to participate in good or evil—without preaching about what good or evil is.
Or look at "Microsociety," found in several schools around the country, which teaches students how to operate in the world by creating a miniature in-school community of courts, small businesses, media outlets, and other institutions. The elaborate role-playing of this program, in which actions have consequences and social benefits also have costs, does more than many "social studies" textbooks to teach kids about life in America.
So let's stipulate: The right is right that schools should do more than provide emotional comfort. The discomfort of 9/11 should be the grist for hard teaching, not merely the impetus for counseling. The left is right that "the patriotism part" of the curriculum, as Chester Finn calls it, rings hollow if it fails to acknowledge the gap between our transcendent ideals and our all-too-human history—and that, anyway, patriotism can't be conveyed by fiat.
But the quarrel over curriculum is in the end a quarrel over fault. It seeks judgment about who's really to blame for terror, so it treats teaching as an exercise in persuasion—which is why it misses the point. An education shouldn't just prepare kids to be swayed by your talking points or mine. It should prepare them to live as citizens, to know how to act as voters, leaders, neighbors. And the best way to do that, after something like 9/11, is not to rehearse the emoting and posing of the culture wars but to give children practice facing, and making, the world that 9/11 gave us.
Notes From The Fray Editor:
Most posters, like Jay below, wanted teachers to stick to "the facts" and avoid interpretation, but they disagreed roundly as to which facts those were. FrankFrank took this disagreement as a warrant for homeschooling.
Assuming the kids stay in public schools, what should teachers look to be doing? Pollymath thought they should be doing roughly what Liu suggested, and thought that was probably happening anyway. Kassandra thought all this nurturing talk was too squishy.
Finally, John-Christopher Ward defended the NEA while Zathras attacked Liu's Clintonian triangulation. Both posts are long, but worth the read.
Remarks From The Fray:
I believe that 9/11 should be taught in schools by the facts. In my opinion students are fully capable of making their own conclusions about why it happened, or what we should learn from it. All to often teachers lace their instruction with their own personal, religious, and moral beliefs. It is our right as American citizens to believe what we want and form our own opinions. No one should be taught what to think, instead they should be given the facts, tools if you will, to form these intelligent opinions.
I also believe that students should be encouraged to calmly voice their opinions in response to this tragedy in the classroom.
Teach our kids the facts, let parents teach our kids morality.
-- Jay
(To reply, click here.)
My kids were not born to be the political football of either the left or the right. There are so many posts here espousing the teaching of "the truth" and "the facts" about 9/11, each diametrically opposed to the other, that it makes me wonder if some of them aren't put here as parodies. One group wants my kids starting the day out pledging allegiance to a scrap of cloth and praying to a non-existent god. The other group wants my kids saddled with the guilt of everything every greedy white male has ever done. The teaching profession! What a joke! The average American can read at about an 8th grade level, but won't unless you put a bullet through the tv set. They're also capable, if given enough time, of solving long division problems. That's about it. That's what our teaching professionals have given us, at least the ones in our public schools. We can't even give our kids a decent education in the basics of literature, mathematics and science and yet we'd like to throw political and religious indoctrination into the mix? I'll never subject my kids to the lunacy that is the educational system in America today.
-- FrankFrank
(To reply, click here.)
Teaching has always been about socializing students into functioning citizens. To pretend that there won't be some sort of spin on the material, no matter how it is presented, is a farce. The fact that concerned citizens think about the meaning of 9/11 means that schools have to address the issue.
The author has defined the debate as being between two extremes ("it was really our fault" on one side and "they were evil and hated us for our virtues" on the other). I'm not convinced that this is really where the discussion is going. If it is, it would be nice if the debate could be between more nuanced interpretations, but there were always going to be interpretations. That is what schools do.
However, this year is no big deal. Any kids old enough to be taught about 9/11 in a serious way are old enough to remember last year. The real issues will arise in later years, when we have to teach 9/11 to kids who don't remember what happened.
-- Pollymath
(To reply, click here.)
"We ought to take a different view of today's students, one that regards them as moral beings in progress, apprentices in public life, people capable of seeing themselves grow (or shrink)."
Someone mentioned psychobabble? Eh? We're supposed to assume in advance that all "today's students" are capable of seeing themselves grow (whatever that means)? Even before they've learned anything? At, say, age five? Why should we assume *anything* ahead of time? Isn't that kind of a dogmatic approach? I'm not making a case for indoctrination here, just suggesting being a little bit realistic. Young children do tend to be rather ignorant, that's one reason they go to school (not the main one of course: the main one is to keep them off their parents' hands during work hours), and it's not an insult to offer to teach them something.
-- Kassandra
(To reply, click here.)
Mr Liu's idiotic statement that the NEA wishes to deal with 9/11 with psycho-babble shows only he did not visit the NEA website, but chose to believe what Ellen Sorokin wrote. She lied and misquoted. And Mr Liu should be ashamed to repeat that lie, or any other. This is an extract from her story in the Washington Times, courtsey of dailyhowler.com:
NEA delivers history lesson/Tells teachers not to cast 9/11 blame
PGH 1: The National Education Association is suggesting to teachers that they be careful on the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks not to "suggest any group is responsible" for the terrorist hijackings that killed more than 3,000 people.
Clearly, Sorokin's article suggests that the NEA is pushing a very strange ideathe notion that we just don't know who was behind the 9/11 attacks.
How hard will our public liars work to spread hate through the land? Sorokin ignores the speeches by President Bush; ignores the links to the CIA and Homeland; ignores the content of the lessons themselves; and finds her way to one obscure link in one part of the NEA site. (You have to work damn hard to find it.) From that single linked essay written by professor Brian Lippincott Sorokin cadges a couple of quotes, which she yanks from their plentiful context. She uses those "quotes" to give the impression that the NEA has some crackpot ideas. No group is to blame, the NEA has said. We should just blame America first.
All of Sorokin's troubling "quotes" come from that single linked essay. But what does Lippincott actually say in his piece? His presentation is poorly written. But what does Lippincott mean when he says: "Do not suggest any group is responsible?" Duh. In the same paragraph from which Sorokin cadged her "quotes," his meaning is abundantly clear:
LIPPINCOTT:
4. Address the issue of blame factually. Explore who and what may be to blame for this event. Use non-speculative terms. Do not suggest any group is responsible. Blaming is especially difficult in terrorist situations because someone is at fault. However, explain that all Arab-Americans are not guilty by association or racial membership. Help kids resist the tendency to want to "pin the blame" on someone close by.
According to Lippincott, what "group" should we avoid blaming? He makes his meaning perfectly clear. According to Lippincott, teachers should avoid suggesting that all Arab-Americans are to blame for September 11. It is perfectly clear, all through his essay, that this is the "group" to which he refers. (Read Lippincott's first five numbered statements, and see if you have any doubt what he's saying.) But Sorokin wants you to think something else, and so she yanks Lippincott's "quote" from its plentiful context, pretending that he meant al Qaeda. Truly, there must be a special circle in hell for "journalists" who spread hate in this way.
-- John-Christopher Ward
(To reply, click here.)
Regarding children as "moral beings in progress" is an appropriate thing for a church to do. For a school to do its job, though, the transmission of facts that Mr. Liu thinks is so unworthy must be accomplished first.
Liberals have no problem with this idea when the subject is something like sex education. History and current events are something else. Children can, of course, learn about these through encyclopedias, books, and lurking in the Fray. Most of them will not do this, however -- this is why schooling is compulsory in the first place. Presuming to teach children how to think about subjects they know nothing about is productive only of confusion.
Neither the left or the right want children to be taught nothing about history. Each have different ideas about what should be taught, but there is one other rather important difference between the two. The left -- better to say the far left -- is represented by the teachers' unions that dominate the public schools. The right is represented by William Bennett and various other public figures whose visibility on cable television is substantial but whose influence on public school curriculum is minimal. Mr. Liu, a veteran of the Clinton administration's ceaseless campaign to depict itself as occupying the sensible center between two opposite and equal extremes, may genuinely feel that an approach that succeeded so well as a political tactic is equally suitable to other areas of life.
It isn't. It happened in this case that the National Education Association overreached in proposing lesson plans that contained more blame-America-first material than the public could stomach. As a practical matter, though, such indoctrination as takes place in public schools is going to be left wing indoctrination. Which, its triangulation tactics notwithstanding, was what the Clinton administration was comfortable with -- had he suggested otherwise while in office Mr. Liu would have been fired so fast he wouldn't have had time to clear out his desk. If he is really serious about wanting more education and less indoctrination in schools now, he will have do to better than suggesting a "middle way" between left and right that ignores their disagreements. He will have to acknowledge that the left is a much bigger problem than the right.
-- Zathras
(To reply, click here.)
(9/3)
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Notes From The Fray Editor:
Most posters, like Jay below, wanted teachers to stick to "the facts" and avoid interpretation, but they disagreed roundly as to which facts those were. FrankFrank took this disagreement as a warrant for homeschooling.
Assuming the kids stay in public schools, what should teachers look to be doing? Pollymath thought they should be doing roughly what Liu suggested, and thought that was probably happening anyway. Kassandra thought all this nurturing talk was too squishy.
Finally, John-Christopher Ward defended the NEA while Zathras attacked Liu's Clintonian triangulation. Both posts are long, but worth the read.
Remarks From The Fray:
I believe that 9/11 should be taught in schools by the facts. In my opinion students are fully capable of making their own conclusions about why it happened, or what we should learn from it. All to often teachers lace their instruction with their own personal, religious, and moral beliefs. It is our right as American citizens to believe what we want and form our own opinions. No one should be taught what to think, instead they should be given the facts, tools if you will, to form these intelligent opinions.
I also believe that students should be encouraged to calmly voice their opinions in response to this tragedy in the classroom.
Teach our kids the facts, let parents teach our kids morality.
-- Jay
(To reply, click here.)
My kids were not born to be the political football of either the left or the right. There are so many posts here espousing the teaching of "the truth" and "the facts" about 9/11, each diametrically opposed to the other, that it makes me wonder if some of them aren't put here as parodies. One group wants my kids starting the day out pledging allegiance to a scrap of cloth and praying to a non-existent god. The other group wants my kids saddled with the guilt of everything every greedy white male has ever done. The teaching profession! What a joke! The average American can read at about an 8th grade level, but won't unless you put a bullet through the tv set. They're also capable, if given enough time, of solving long division problems. That's about it. That's what our teaching professionals have given us, at least the ones in our public schools. We can't even give our kids a decent education in the basics of literature, mathematics and science and yet we'd like to throw political and religious indoctrination into the mix? I'll never subject my kids to the lunacy that is the educational system in America today.
-- FrankFrank
(To reply, click here.)
Teaching has always been about socializing students into functioning citizens. To pretend that there won't be some sort of spin on the material, no matter how it is presented, is a farce. The fact that concerned citizens think about the meaning of 9/11 means that schools have to address the issue.
The author has defined the debate as being between two extremes ("it was really our fault" on one side and "they were evil and hated us for our virtues" on the other). I'm not convinced that this is really where the discussion is going. If it is, it would be nice if the debate could be between more nuanced interpretations, but there were always going to be interpretations. That is what schools do.
However, this year is no big deal. Any kids old enough to be taught about 9/11 in a serious way are old enough to remember last year. The real issues will arise in later years, when we have to teach 9/11 to kids who don't remember what happened.
-- Pollymath
(To reply, click here.)
"We ought to take a different view of today's students, one that regards them as moral beings in progress, apprentices in public life, people capable of seeing themselves grow (or shrink)."
Someone mentioned psychobabble? Eh? We're supposed to assume in advance that all "today's students" are capable of seeing themselves grow (whatever that means)? Even before they've learned anything? At, say, age five? Why should we assume *anything* ahead of time? Isn't that kind of a dogmatic approach? I'm not making a case for indoctrination here, just suggesting being a little bit realistic. Young children do tend to be rather ignorant, that's one reason they go to school (not the main one of course: the main one is to keep them off their parents' hands during work hours), and it's not an insult to offer to teach them something.
-- Kassandra
(To reply, click here.)
Mr Liu's idiotic statement that the NEA wishes to deal with 9/11 with psycho-babble shows only he did not visit the NEA website, but chose to believe what Ellen Sorokin wrote. She lied and misquoted. And Mr Liu should be ashamed to repeat that lie, or any other. This is an extract from her story in the Washington Times, courtsey of dailyhowler.com:
NEA delivers history lesson/Tells teachers not to cast 9/11 blame
PGH 1: The National Education Association is suggesting to teachers that they be careful on the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks not to "suggest any group is responsible" for the terrorist hijackings that killed more than 3,000 people.
Clearly, Sorokin's article suggests that the NEA is pushing a very strange ideathe notion that we just don't know who was behind the 9/11 attacks.
How hard will our public liars work to spread hate through the land? Sorokin ignores the speeches by President Bush; ignores the links to the CIA and Homeland; ignores the content of the lessons themselves; and finds her way to one obscure link in one part of the NEA site. (You have to work damn hard to find it.) From that single linked essay written by professor Brian Lippincott Sorokin cadges a couple of quotes, which she yanks from their plentiful context. She uses those "quotes" to give the impression that the NEA has some crackpot ideas. No group is to blame, the NEA has said. We should just blame America first.
All of Sorokin's troubling "quotes" come from that single linked essay. But what does Lippincott actually say in his piece? His presentation is poorly written. But what does Lippincott mean when he says: "Do not suggest any group is responsible?" Duh. In the same paragraph from which Sorokin cadged her "quotes," his meaning is abundantly clear:
LIPPINCOTT:
4. Address the issue of blame factually. Explore who and what may be to blame for this event. Use non-speculative terms. Do not suggest any group is responsible. Blaming is especially difficult in terrorist situations because someone is at fault. However, explain that all Arab-Americans are not guilty by association or racial membership. Help kids resist the tendency to want to "pin the blame" on someone close by.
According to Lippincott, what "group" should we avoid blaming? He makes his meaning perfectly clear. According to Lippincott, teachers should avoid suggesting that all Arab-Americans are to blame for September 11. It is perfectly clear, all through his essay, that this is the "group" to which he refers. (Read Lippincott's first five numbered statements, and see if you have any doubt what he's saying.) But Sorokin wants you to think something else, and so she yanks Lippincott's "quote" from its plentiful context, pretending that he meant al Qaeda. Truly, there must be a special circle in hell for "journalists" who spread hate in this way.
-- John-Christopher Ward
(To reply, click here.)
Regarding children as "moral beings in progress" is an appropriate thing for a church to do. For a school to do its job, though, the transmission of facts that Mr. Liu thinks is so unworthy must be accomplished first.
Liberals have no problem with this idea when the subject is something like sex education. History and current events are something else. Children can, of course, learn about these through encyclopedias, books, and lurking in the Fray. Most of them will not do this, however -- this is why schooling is compulsory in the first place. Presuming to teach children how to think about subjects they know nothing about is productive only of confusion.
Neither the left or the right want children to be taught nothing about history. Each have different ideas about what should be taught, but there is one other rather important difference between the two. The left -- better to say the far left -- is represented by the teachers' unions that dominate the public schools. The right is represented by William Bennett and various other public figures whose visibility on cable television is substantial but whose influence on public school curriculum is minimal. Mr. Liu, a veteran of the Clinton administration's ceaseless campaign to depict itself as occupying the sensible center between two opposite and equal extremes, may genuinely feel that an approach that succeeded so well as a political tactic is equally suitable to other areas of life.
It isn't. It happened in this case that the National Education Association overreached in proposing lesson plans that contained more blame-America-first material than the public could stomach. As a practical matter, though, such indoctrination as takes place in public schools is going to be left wing indoctrination. Which, its triangulation tactics notwithstanding, was what the Clinton administration was comfortable with -- had he suggested otherwise while in office Mr. Liu would have been fired so fast he wouldn't have had time to clear out his desk. If he is really serious about wanting more education and less indoctrination in schools now, he will have do to better than suggesting a "middle way" between left and right that ignores their disagreements. He will have to acknowledge that the left is a much bigger problem than the right.
-- Zathras
(To reply, click here.)
(9/3)