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. 

 

How Teachers are Teaching about 9/11: 10 Essentials We Now Know

For about the past year, my team and I have been surveying and interviewing US public middle and high-school teachers nationwide about their experiences teaching 9/11. How have they approached teaching today’s students about one of the most painful, important and arguably divisive events in US history? Here’s what they had to say.

1. Most teachers (including history teachers) don’t see teaching about 9/11 as part of their curriculum. According to my survey 84% of teachers who don’t address it give this as their reasoning.

2. When 9/11 is addressed in the classroom, this appears to be only on the anniversary of the attacks. 65% of teachers report addressing 9/11 once a year (on 9/11 itself). Only 10% report addressing 9/11 once a quarter, and 7% once a month.

3. Teachers who have developed units on 9/11 place a priority on critical thinking! According to the interviews my team and I conducted, teachers are involving students in hearing and gathering oral histories, conducting online research, presenting in front of the class, and debating issues that have emerged since 9/11 (like the use of torture, the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the prison Guantanamo Bay). Teachers, especially our government and history teachers, design lessons to help students understand 9/11 in historical context, providing information about the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the Cold War, for example. They also use teaching about 9/11 as a way into teaching about war powers, the Constitution and the branches of government.

4. Teachers find themselves often working to correct misconceptions and stereotypes about Muslims, as well as rampant internet rumors about who was “really” behind the events of 9/11.

5. Even over a decade later, over 20% of teachers report that addressing 9/11 in the classroom remains too painful. They need and deserve school-based support.

6. We have an abundance of curriculum on teaching 9/11, but most teachers are not using it. Only 45% of teachers report using curriculum such as from PBS, the New York Times or similar curriculum sources.

7. The teachers I interviewed expressed that they believe passing on the knowledge and memory of the events of 9/11 is a patriotic duty.

8. While teachers overwhelmingly do “feel academically safe” teaching about 9/11, most express real caution when it comes to addressing the controversial political issues that have faced us since 9/11. They fear being perceived as biased or even unprofessional.

9. Only 6% of teachers view their students’ knowledge of what occurred and why on 9/11 as “excellent” or “very good”.

10. About a quarter of teachers responding to my survey express that a “lack of time in the curriculum” is a real barrier to teaching 9/11 the way they’d like. About ¾ of the teachers I interviewed more at length specified that a bureaucratic culture of standardized testing and centralized curriculum was a major barrier. In such a culture, how can teachers foster democratic, empowered and engaged citizens? How can we reclaim the classroom for teachers as public intellectuals?

Boston, New York and DC: a tale of two attacks

At times a horrific circumstance will provide an excellent social laboratory for the study of peace and conflict. On mid-day of April 15, 2013, two bombs went off in Copley Square, one of the most major commercial and residential areas of Boston. This area also happens to be known to much of my family as home. All Americans felt the pain and outrage of 9/11, but this one was even more personal for me. My mother, sister, brother-in-law, step dad and four year-old niece were walking near Copley Square (about two blocks away) home from the Red Sox game they’d just enjoyed. Within an hour, one could see the national habits and myths, both admirable and dangerous, manifest as echoes of 9/11. This was perhaps best put on display by some of the major cable US media (specifically CNN and Fox News) in their failure to accurately report what turned out to be the non-arrest of two suspects reportedly caught on camera. For an afternoon, major cable news networks inaccurately “broke” the news that a suspect/s had been arrested and that an FBI press conference was imminent. It fell to the FBI themselves to correct the story. A couple of days after this, the Bureau did indeed release photos of two suspects, and by the end of the week, one suspect was dead in a shoot out with local law enforcement and the other was in custody.

The particular nature of the media failures here were not just revealing, they were dangerous. One reporter, CNN’s John King, felt the need to repeat numerous times in his banter with Wolf Blitzer that the arrest was of a “dark-skinned male”. Given that there had not even yet been an arrest, this information could not have been verified via the traditional three separate sources, yet it was repeated. While King and Blitzer did state that they did not have complete certainty, they also clearly reported that a “dark-skinned male” was in fact in custody. King stated, “I was told by law enforcement officials that a dark-skinned male was in custody”. The damage resurfaced from the darkest parts of collective American psyche and history, and was a clear reminder of the racist nature of our media even today. In a social and political culture where teenaged Trayvon Martin can be killed simply walking home with a hoodie, such mistakes by the media are not just embarrassing. They are perilous. Less than twelve hours after the bombing, a Saudi man, hospitalized with his wounds from the attack, had his apartment searched. Shortly after, a Palestinian woman in Boston was assaulted. Another young man, Sunil Tripathi, also misidentified as a suspect by social media, has since committee suicide.

The subtext of the errors was clear: the perpetrators of the Boston bombings were likely black, Hispanic or Middle Eastern. To incorrectly “confirm” this was to confirm what far too many were already primed to believe and to reproduce white privilege and the social oppression of black and brown people. This is important to understanding the collective narratives of 9/11 in the following way. Part of the national myth of American exceptionalism holds that the United States is a uniquely blessed nation, meant by God to represent freedom, human dignity and progress. Thus attacks on US civilians are not merely seen as outrageous crimes, and human rights violations (which they surely are), they are framed almost instantly as attacks on the values of freedom and democracy, even on civilization itself. In moving speeches at the Memorial shortly after the bombing, Gov. Duval Patrick and President Obama both invoked this narrative. Obama even specifically referred to America’s “state of grace”. And Boston itself of course (like Washington and New York) is rich with American history and symbolism. Corollary to this national myth is the view of other peoples as at least somewhat less godly, free, modern or brave. This casts ready suspicion on all who might be defined as less or not American. It hardly needs to be said from here that foreigners, immigrants, and those who are not white and Christian have historically been locked into this category. The consequences were lethal. While it is still too early to judge how we will respond to the Boston Bombing, one can already clearly see the ghosts of 9/11 haunting how we talk about and understand what occurred.