Dave Ellison: Outlaw the teaching of "untruths" about terrorism?
What is the purpose of teaching history in American schools? For some, history ought to instill patriotism — or, at least, a brand of it Noam Chomsky referred to as "secular theology." This is the notion I dutifully learned in grade school, that the United States is God's chosen, the bastion of goodness and democracy on Earth. Indeed, Charlie, my best seventh-grade friend, and I used to pray fervently that, when we graduated high school, we could join the Army and — "Please, God, oh please!" — be killed in a righteous war somewhere, because the nuns had assured us we'd go straight to heaven. It's a notion manifest more recently by President Bush's blithe explanation for the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001: "They hate us because of our freedoms."
Nothing is more harmful to our freedoms than such drivel.
Which is why Assembly Bill 137 by Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, and Michael Duvall, R-Anaheim, is so frightening. It would, among other disturbing things, empower local school boards to fire educators who teach "untruths" about terrorism. DeVore elaborated that such "untruths" would include propaganda used by terrorists to justify killings.
Well, I'd be among his first targets. You see, after Sept. 11, my seventh-grade students, being the naive souls that they were ("Only fools and children speak the truth") wanted to know why anyone would do such a thing. I recognized a teachable moment when I saw one. And so, as an addendum to my state-mandated unit on Islam, I added a mini-lesson about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.
Working in teams, the students went back 4,000 years to the time of Abraham, when Jews believe God gave them their "Promised Land." Then to A.D. 70, when the Romans kicked them out, allowing the Palestinians to move in. Then to post-World War II when the United Nations gave the land back to the Jews, displacing the Palestinians.
"So, who has the better claim to the land," I asked, sparking an animated discussion and reintroducing the kids to the messiness of history, past and present.
Next, we examined the United States' dilemma at that time: Remain neutral and allow Israel's Muslim neighbors to destroy the nascent nation (this after Hitler had attempted to exterminate the Jews)? Or support Israel, but thus earn the ire of virtually every Muslim nation on Earth? Ah, more messiness.
Finally, we looked at the famous photograph of the Palestinian boy who brazenly threw a rock at an Israeli tank. The boy who, unlike me in seventh grade, had no army to join one day, no means of defending himself, his family, or his homeland. The boy who would learn the United States had paid for that tank.
"Now, when that boy grows up," I queried, "might he be tempted to resort to terrorism? Might he even hate America?"
Notice I didn't condone terrorism. I did, however, enable my students to understand it, and so to begin to comprehend a very complicated world. It's a subtle distinction, though, one I fear might be lost on DeVore and Duvall, and on school boards intent on implementing AB 137.
I'd lose my job, my career....