A “Teachable Moment?”
The impact of September 11 can be seen from airport security to the war in Afghanistan. But 10 years after terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the attacks have had little effect on U.S. schools or instruction. In fact, fewer than half the states explicitly identify the 9/11 attacks in their high school standards for social studies, according to a forthcoming study detailed in Education Week. (8/31)
Even schools in New York City, suburban Washington, D.C., and southeastern Pennsylvania–areas most directly affected by the events of September 11–devote scant attention to one of the biggest defining moments in local or national history.
For teachers who wish to explore 9/11 with students, there’s no shortage of resources. And social studies content standards may not provide an accurate gauge of how classrooms are incorporating terrorism’s “teachable moments” in different ways. The number of public-school pupils studying Arabic tripled between 2004 to 2008, for instance, and two universities–Boston University and Michigan State–are launching teacher certification programs for Arabic instruction at the secondary level. Engineering lessons learned from 9/11 seem a natural fit for STEM classrooms, but the events of 10 years ago are unlikely to show up in science or math standards.
Filed under: K-12 Education News
Tags: 9/11, Curriculum, instruction, September 11, social studies, terrorism
