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Monday, September 2, 2002
00:01a.m.
NEA 9/11 lesson plans - disappeared?
While I was
no great fan of the plans in the first place, I'm now puzzled on a couple of counts.
First, the
NY Times says the NEA
"came under so much fire for a suggested lesson plan on tolerance that it has removed the material from its Web site."
Now, in their
most recent press release (dated August 27) on the site, there's no mention of any material having been withdrawn. Scarcely conclusive - but if they had withdrawn material, they might have wished to explain it away.
And, going to the site, there is
one page which links to a
PBS lesson plan on tolerance which fits exactly the gravamen of the 'moral relativism'-type charges laid against the NEA: it deals with such things as the internment of the West Coast Japanese and World War 2 posters.
So, what, exactly, has been removed from the NEA site?
(Of course, the Times never get its facts wrong. Except
when it does).
Second, why, in any case, would the NEA withdraw any of its material? What sort of a message would it send to the youth of America that it refuses (if it has) to stand by its opinion that the materials in question should be made available to teachers? (There's no obligation on its members, let alone others, to teach from the stuff, after all.)
It seems bizarre to the onlooker that, in a country that has the highest level of legal protection of free speech anywhere in the world (envy of less happier lands), there should not be a vigorous debate on this and other 9/11-related matters. It's almost as if the Japanese notion of the
'protruding nail' has been imported into the US with all those cars and stereos.
Other organisations with 'relativising' lesson plans seem to be defending them, according to the Times article. The aim seems to be to avoid debate on the substantive issues, not only in the public fora, but in the classroom, too.
Which contrasts markedly with what happened in Britain during World War 2 - when both the conduct of the war, and planning for the aftermath of an eventual peace, were hotly debated even as the bombs rained down on London and the British Merchant Navy was slowly disappearing underneath the Atlantic waves.
And that, in the heyday of the stiff upper lip!
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