Oral histories, peace education and teaching 9/11

Based on the research I've been gathering for the past year, presented in my new book, oral history emerged as the most prominent and popular, as well as arguably the most effective, way teachers engaged their students in learning about 9/11.  Several aspects made this a good fit for teachers wanting to engage their students beyond surface, inadequate or in fact nonexistent explanations of the events of 9/11 in most textbooks. 

First oral histories are a strong fit for the goals of peace education in general.  As I note in my new book, the use of oral histories helps students imagine themselves as participants and agents in the unfolding drama of history, not just readers or students.  From the stand point of a peace educator’s commitment towards social justice, this is key.  Otherwise students are less able to imagine themselves as powerful actors capable of bringing about change.  Too often students understand history as something they are removed from that is either irrelevant to today or which they don’t really have access to.  Howard Zinn seminally warned against this elite top-down approach to history, calling attention to the dangers of such an approach for the health of a democracy. 

Oral history is a much more engaging approach for students than the average history textbook as well.  By asking students to gather oral histories of 9/11 from parents, other relatives or neighbors, students connected with the obviously painful emotional content of the material.  Oral histories thus allowed students to view history something as directly relevant to themselves, addressing a constant concern of history teachers. 

Pragmatically speaking, oral histories also meet state and local curriculum requirements for writing, research, critical thinking and oral presentation. In an era (at least in the US) of standardization and “objective” testing, teachers are typically required to demonstrate a direct connection between what they do and a particular state objective.  9/11 is not “on the test” in many cases so teachers wishing to address it must be creative and sometimes even subversive when addressing it, especially if doing so in a perceived non-orthodox manner. 

Oral histories also helped address some challenges specifically regarding teaching 9/11, according to my qualitative data.  Because the 9/11 era remains such a controversial and politicized topic, teachers needed way to allow students to access multiple historical views and narratives of what occurred.  Oral histories provided for this multi-vocality as students were bound to encounter a variety of views in their interviews.  

Oral history in the classroom can also be thought of as a collective methodology.  Students learned in community with the family members or others that they interviewed.  They also strengthened/built community in the classroom as most teachers using this lesson asked students to present what they had found in their interviews.  Oral history also helped students understand the gravity and emotional power of 9/11, its massive significance to US history, since it allows students to access primary sources (i.e. the people they are interviewing).   Hearing the memories of the terror and shock of that day directly from people who experienced it in the course of gathering oral histories also allowed students to access what educators call the “affective domain”, that is, the realm of emotion rather than mere intellect.  This is a much more powerful and long-lasting type of knowledge.  For these reasons, asking students to gather oral histories regarding the experiences of older friends and family on 9/11/2001 proved to be one of the most popular lessons by those few teachers who did decide to implement a full lesson or unit on the 9/11 era. 

Dangerous Memories and Teaching 9/11

Author's note:  the below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book, Teaching Terror:  9/11 and Collective Memory in American Classrooms.  It will be available from Routledge early Aug. 




One other important intersection between the literature on historical memory and the literature on peace education is Zembylas’s concept of critical emotional praxis (Zembylas 2008, Beckerman and Zembylas 2012).   In his words, critical emotional praxis “creates openings for different affective relations with others”.  The point here “is to explore the conditions under which trauma impacts educators’ and students’ lives, to destabilize and denaturalize that regime of thought that perpetuates a conflicting ethos with those who are deemed responsible for ‘our’ trauma, and to invent new practices of relating to others”.  For this to be achieved, what he calls “dangerous memories” (2008, p 133-157) must be allowed to come to the fore.  Trauma obviously creates pain and suffering, around which we as humans naturally desire to create meaning. We also desire to restore physical, mental, emotional and even I would argue cultural security.  In seeking to achieve both of these goals, we often harden the boundaries between “us” and “them”, them being of course the groups we have identified as the perpetrators.  For teachers, this means being aware of the spaces of inclusion and exclusion in our classrooms.  Trauma narratives often privilege the narrative of those positioned as the victim, and marginalize and silence those seen as the perpetrators.  

In the case of the historical trauma of 9/11, dangerous memories might include memories of Muslim students, immigrants, or other similarly marginalized students in the wake of 9/11.  The 1953 CIA coup in Tehran is another appropriate example, as are US military bases in Saudi Arabia and the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine.  Memories of FDNY firefighters who did not have working radio equipment should not be censored.  Stories of Afghan civilians struggling to survive the Soviet invasion, the Taliban regime and the US invasion after 9/11 must be given air.  Surfacing and creating space in the classroom for such dangerous memories is essential for students “to understand how trauma operates through affective connections and articulates its differences from other places around the world” (Zembylas, 2008, p. 5).  Such pedagogy “develops capacities for critical emotional praxis” which can inspire and strengthen the skills needed for peace building.  Zembylas refers to this as the “pedagogy of dangerous memories” (Zembylas with Beckerman, 2008, pg. 133-156).  As we will see in Chs. 3-5, many classroom teachers find it difficult enough simply to find time to address 9/11 at all, given the demands of state centralized curriculum.  Thus it is hard to imagine critical emotional praxis or discussions around ‘dangerous memories’ taking place on any regular enough basis to disrupt harmful orthodox national narratives about 9/11.  Rather dramatic changes in school structure and policy would be necessary.  That said, as we will see more in Ch. 4, there are teachers finding subversive and creative ways to at least complicate the narrative of 9/11 somewhat and to humanize the Other. 

 

5 Culturally Violent Cliches You Can Ditch Tomorrow

1.  “Boys will be boys”.  Much has been written about this one, but times have not changed enough.  Often deployed as a defense against poor male behavior, what a shame that we still hear it as a defense against harassment (as in the case of Schwarzenegger) or even alleged violent rape (as in the case of former IMF head Strauss Kahn).  So it becomes clear how dangerous this one is for women.  After all, if this is just the behavior driven by biology, how can we expect any more?  The result?  Girls and women at risk.  


Yet we also shouldn’t over look the damage this one does to men and boys (most of whom do in fact typically get through their day without raping or hitting someone). Call it, in the former President’s words, the soft bigotry of low expectations. Biology, as the classic feminist insight goes, is not destiny. It’s not destiny for women; it’s not destiny for men either. The problem is not that so many men commit these crimes, it’s that we have a culture of excuses and impunity for the ones who do (who of course go on to continue).

2.  “Men can’t change.”  This one is obviously closely related to the one above.  I’ve heard it used by friends (more women than men oddly) and associates to justify all sorts of things—cheating, “date rape”, street harassment, not taking half the responsibility for the housework.  There are of course plenty of problems with this.  First, it burdens women with having to do all of the accommodation.  In this respect it is a poorly disguised argument for a male-centered culture and maintaining the status quo.   Second, it condescends to men.  If I were a man, I think I’d find it incredibly offensive, in fact.  To change (learn, grow) is to be human.  It’s as essential as breathing as we go through the stages of our lives. 


3.  “Get a job.”  The more heated the debates about the U.S.’s economic direction becomes, and the longer the unemployment rate hangs around 6 or 7%, the more we’re going to hear this one.  Dig beneath this weed, and you’ll find the roots of a cultural belief that those who are poor are so because they have failed to be productive enough, smart enough, fast enough, strong enough.  Yet given unemployment claims that rise, working poor with two or three jobs, foreclosures that have occurred as a result of unemployment and calls for job (re)training, it’s clear that the trouble isn’t that people don’t want to work.  The trouble is systemic—a failure of both the public and private sectors to create jobs, effectively regulate the financial and housing sectors and to help students into job training programs. 


4.  “Kids these days!”  Here we have another argument, conservative to its core, whose job is to maintain the status quo.  It’s a social change and social movement truism that youth are progressive.  Whether it’s Sean Hannity fretting about Spring Break shenanigans, or Susan Patton admonishing women to marry young (while you still have some hope!), this culturally violent cliché works to prevent young people from finding their voice and being agents of change.


5.  “Sticks and stones” remains the oldest defense of bullying in the book.  It willfully ignores the power of language to shape, not just describe, reality.  It also defines the victim of the bullying as weak and therefore possibly to blame, since this way of thinking often reasons that weakness will invite being treated as a target.  Notice how we misplace responsibility here.  It’s not on the victim to “not be a victim”; it’s on the bully not to be a bully any longer.  The old “sticks and stones” illusion also overlooks the role of language in dehumanizing, and legitimizing violence against, target groups. 

 

Fear of a Bully-free Nation?

Do we live in fear of a bully free nation?

I know this may sound odd.  Surely we want fewer bullies?  Surely we all, as parents, educators, counselors, ministers and so on, have been working on this for a long time?  It goes without saying (doesn’t it?) that fewer bullies is a good thing.

Yet when we think about the reality of backlash against peace education (called by some teaching tolerance or multicultural education), I have to ask:  do we actually fear a bully free nation?  It’s a big country of course and no observation about Americans will fit us all.  But the more I listen to concerns expressed about what older white men especially seem to view as the “wussification” of America, the more I wonder.  Note this is a bi-partisan concern.  Exhibit A might be the following from Bret Humes, lamenting the feminization of America.

Let’s call this next one Exhibit B—from former PA Gov. Ed Rendell.

And Exhibit C, in which a former a Vice Presidential candidate chides the President for his “mom jeans”, a clear linking of feminine qualities to weakness and thus an inability to lead.

For a more shocking and late-breaking example, here's a series of rightist commentators praising Vladimir Putin's invasion and annexation of Crimea.  (You read that right.)  Why would any American do something so unpatriotic?  They want President Mom Jeans to be more of a man and be tough--as if the mere projection of an image of toughness is a substitute for geopolitical strategy.

Without diving too deep into the weeds of critical feminist theory, we need to connect the dots here between the US hegemonic role in the world, with its implied responsibility for global security, and this evident fear of a bully free nation.  This logic goes that a feminist or feminine culture cannot provide for security.  Only masculine or even militarist values can do this.  For a great read on this, you can’t do much better than Brock Utne’s “Feminist Perspectives on Peace and Security”.  Susan Faludi’s recent The Terror Dream looks at these same ideas in the post 9-11 era.

This way of thinking tends to define bullying as a natural part of childhood and complaints as just an inability to take a joke or stand up for one self.  We just have to be tougher, the Humes and Palins lament.  How will we defend ourselves if we're soft?  What if we raise soft kids?

As a peace educator, of course, I know this insistence that only militarist values can keep us secure could not be more mistaken.  The best way to have security is to have community!

That’s worth repeating.  The best way to have security is to have community.  So the sorts of relationship building, community development, international education, intercultural work, peer mediation and anti-bullying curriculum that we peace educators develop are essential to local but also national security.  This is not a standard way of thinking about security, I acknowledge.  But intractable problems need creativity and new solutions. We won’t have great answers until we are asking the right questions.  To resolve the backlash on peace education, we must confront the fear of a bully-free nation.

Does it need to change their life? Towards a better understanding of “transformative” learning in field based courses

Does it need to change their life? Towards a better understanding of “transformative” learning in field based courses

I recently had the pleasure of being at a workshop at my alma mater, George Mason.   The organizers brought together a group of us focused on field-based experiential courses.  I was asked to share about my own leadership of my program’s field based peace building course to Morocco.  My colleagues there significantly improved my thinking especially as regards to the idea of “being transformed” by these courses, something we as faculty and students involved in field-based courses often talk about.  What does it mean to be transformed?  Is this a reasonable expectation for a 10-16 week course, with perhaps 2-3 weeks in the field?  Is "transformation" necessary pedagogically for such courses to be worthwhile learning and professional development? Why do we assume they as students require “transforming”? 

 

Walkway in Fes Medina

I was inspired to sharpen my own thinking on what it means to “be transformed” by these sorts of courses.  Here are a few specifications.  I hope the field immersion component (FIC) in my field-based, experiential peace building courses will cause the student to

1.      Think about the host country differently, especially with respect to destabilizing simplistic, sometimes even neocolonialist perceptions of the host country

2.      Think differently about him or herself, especially with respect to that classic unpacking of one’s privilege

3.      Think differently about the field of peace building,

a.       to have their view of the field broadened beyond negotiation and mediation 

b.     to question much more rigorously and deeply what ethical practice in the field really means.

Is this transformative?  Will it alter the course of a student’s life?  There is scant data out there to say—but if a field-based course of mine can accomplish the three learning goals above, I will certainly call that a good day at (or nowhere near) the office. 

Mosque in Fes