Educators Choose Different Approaches to War in Iraq
April 10, 2003
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
Recently Gun Week printed a brief report about teachers in a Maine school district who were disturbing the children of National Guard members and military reservists with their vituperative opposition to the War in Iraq and to the “evil” people—meaning the parents of the kids—who would serve their country in that war.
Now a March 24 report by Fredreka Schouten of Gannett News Services’ Washington Bureau pursues the subject of how classrooms having become battlegrounds over war, and peace.
“Every day, teacher James McGrath Morris opens his government classes at West Springfield High School (VA) with a quick question-and-answer session on Iraq,” Schouten begins.
“He and his students at this school in the Virginia suburbs of Washington tackle issues such as military movements through the Middle East, international opposition to the war to disarm Saddam Hussein and the relevancy of the United Nations.
“ ‘I try to impress on students that this stuff matters,’ Morris said. ‘This is not a fireworks show on CNN.’
“With the outbreak of war in Iraq, educators around the country are seizing on the conflict to engage students in current events. Some also are struggling to keep their own opinions in check,” Schouten noted.
“In the last week, two teachers and one school counselor in Albuquerque, NM, have been placed on paid administrative leave for refusing to remove anti-war posters from their classrooms. In Maine, Education Commissioner J. Duke Albanese recently urged teachers to maintain a neutral stance on the war, citing complaints from state National Guard officials about teachers’ comments to students.
New Policies
“And the war has forced school districts to establish new policies,” Schouten continues.
“In Michigan, officials at the Plymouth-Canton school district north of Detroit have barred live television coverage of the war in classrooms. After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, ‘parents felt it was too much television and too graphic in nature,’ said district spokesman Frank Ruggirello.
“But those attacks on US soil have helped spark student interest in the war in a way not seen since the 1960s, some teachers say.
“ ‘It gave us a heightened sense of the importance of current events. We are acutely aware of how vulnerable we are,’ said Michele Forman, a world history teacher at Middlebury Union High School in Middlebury, VT. ‘My job as a teacher is to help them understand that this is a complex world,’ said Forman, who was named national Teacher of the Year in 2001. ‘These are not problems that came into being last week or last month. They are rooted in history.’
“When her students pressure Forman to share her views on the war, she said she demurs and instead uses it as a teaching opportunity.
“ ‘What’s relevant is your opinion and how you got it,’ Forman tells students. ‘What are you basing your decision on?’ ”
Schouten continues by reporting that Susan Graseck, a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University (RI), applauds that approach.
“ ‘When you go into a classroom, the idea is not to drive the students in any one direction, but to look at different perspectives,’ Graseck said. ‘The idea is to help students find their voice in this.’
“Graseck and her staff have developed a curriculum that prods students to ask probing questions about the crisis. She said about 5,000 teachers have downloaded the lesson plans, available at: www.choices.edu.
Tough Questions
“At Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Maryland, some seniors were asking some tough questions of their own on March 21.
“The day before, about 150 students walked out of classes to protest the war. Only a handful of teachers joined them, and students in an early morning ‘peace studies’ class were questioning whether educators should remain neutral.
“Doug Walters, 18, argued that teachers reveal biases all the time. ‘We live in an incredibly liberal area,’ he said. ‘I’ve never had a teacher argue anything conservative.’
“The peace studies class is taught by a volunteer, Colman McCarthy, director and founder of the Center for Teaching Peace. The center, based in Washington, DC, advocates teaching nonviolence in schools.
“Emilie Romero, a 17-year-old senior, said McCarthy’s course is the first one to give her ‘the other side of history.’
“A recent field trip included a visit to a Washington soup kitchen to meet a man who spent 14 years on Florida’s death row before he was exonerated and released,” Schouten reported. However, she did not question the link between teaching peace and the death penalty issue.
She does quote McCarthy in a way that reflects his and his center’s political and philosophical position, which seems to be that nonviolence will solve all social ills.
“Without classes that challenge the status quo and teach teens about nonviolence, ‘we are processing students as though they were cheese,’ McCarthy said. ‘They haven’t been educated. They have been tamed,’ ” she quotes him, and then provides more of the same.
“Other teachers agree it’s hard to keep their views out of classroom discussions,” Schouten continues.
Schouten cites others in her report, noting that in Dearborn, MI, parent Brigette Anouti, who opposes the war, said her views clashed with those of her daughter’s teacher. The debate has confused her 9-year-old, she said.
“At home, Anouti said, ‘we said the war was not right.’ At school, her daughter heard: ‘We have to support the president. He’s our commander-in-chief.’
“After Anouti talked with the teacher, the war talk stopped,” Schouten reported.
“ ‘Politics, like religion, should be taught at home,’ said Anouti, who works for the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services.
“At Lowell Smith Elementary School on Davis-Monthan Air Force Base near Tucson, AZ, the war strikes close to home. Of the school’s 270 students, about 200 have parents who have been deployed in the last year, said Principal Ruth Ottley.
“In Denise Murphy’s first-grade class, students track their parents’ progress around the world on a large map and exchange e-mail with them on the classroom computer.
“We give them lots of love and lots of attention and lots of chances to talk,” Ottley said.
Varied Assignments
Back in Virginia, Morris has found unique ways to engage his students. Last month, students participated in a mock congressional hearing to debate the merits of the war. With the start of the war, Morris has assigned groups of students to develop areas of expertise on the conflict and brief their fellow students.
“One group will track the military action. Others will study the war’s effect on homeland security. Another group will monitor international relations in the wake of the attack.
“ ‘In the halls, kids are actually talking about this on their own,’ ” said Morris.
The way Morris handles things in Virginia sounds more in tune with traditional approaches. But this whole issue has highlighted how America has changed since I was in school. Morris’ approach sounds more realistic than turning the classroom into an ideological battleground.
However, teachers at schools and colleges have been molding students for years, and the ones they have molded since the 1960s and ’70s are now frequently our political, professional and managerial leaders in the US, as well as teachers and reporters. This is the subject of a very useful article in the April issue of The American Legion magazine.
Maybe that’s why I thought it strange when CNN’s Campbell Brown, at a recent press conference with White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, was so worried about the fact that President Bush hadn’t been watching the war in Iraq on television. Perhaps her teachers might have told her that Americans knew more about history, geography and current events before TV became such an all-pervasive media. And students in school used to know something about “civics,” history and geography as well as how to form opinions.
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