Tuesday, August 20, 2002
Making Excuses for September 11th: It's Not Just the NEA
Alfie Kohn is better known as a fervid opponent of all standardized tests. But his thinking as to the proper way to teach all students about the terrorist attack on America ("Teaching About September 11th") sure looks pretty standard for our public school system, run as it is by the "Blame America First" crowd:
But while the particulars seem unfathomable, the attack itself had a context and perhaps a motive that are perfectly comprehensible - and especially important for educators to grasp.
The historical record suggests that the United States has no problem with terrorism as long as its victims don’t live here or look like most of us. In the last couple of decades alone, we have bombed Libya, invaded Grenada, attacked Panama, and shelled Lebanon - killing civilians in each instance. We created and funded an army of terrorists to overthrow the elected government of Nicaragua and when the World Court ruled that we must stop, we simply rejected the court’s authority. We engineered coups in Iran, Zaire, Guatemala, and Chile (the last of which coincidentally also took place on Sept. 11).
Kohn recommends a web site Teaching for Change. It's worth a look, but not for the reason he thinks.
|posted by Jim on 1:55 AM|
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