A new 9/11 Curriculum?

The Associated Press is reporting that there is a new curriculum debuting in 7 states this year with the goal of teaching middle-school and high-school students about the September 11th, 2001 attacks. Developed by the September 11th Education Trust, the curriculum will focus on 7 areas "designed to help students reflect on the impact and legacy of September 11, 2001". Sample units include:

  • Understanding 9/11 as history
  • Debating the government's role during disasters
  • Discussing the nature of heroism
  • Evaluating foreign policy vis-à-vis national security
The Associated Press quotes former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani:
"This is one of the critical subjects on which young people should develop some ideas and thoughts. They're going to have to live with this for quite some time," he said. "It gives young people a framework in which to think about Sept. 11, all that it meant and all that it means to the present."
I'm not quite sure what he means when he says that "They're going to have to live with this for quite some time." Does he mean the threat of terrorism? Does he mean the consequences of our reaction to 9/11?

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An alternative to paranoia regarding the safety of your children: Free Range Kids

Remember the woman who was criticized for allowing her highly competent 9-year old boy find his way home on the Manhattan subway? Her name is Lenore Skenazy. She's a syndicated columnist and she's not retreating a single inch. She has created a website called Free Range Kids. In April, 2009, she published a book called Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry. Here's how she sums up the widespread American problem:

Somehow, a whole lot of parents are just convinced that nothing outside the home is safe. At the same time, they’re also convinced that their children are helpless to fend for themselves. While most of these parents walked to school as kids, or hiked the woods — or even took public transportation — they can’t imagine their own offspring doing the same thing. They have lost confidence in everything: Their neighborhood. Their kids. And their own ability to teach their children how to get by in the world.

Lenore reminds us to consider our own "dangerous" childhoods when thinking of extending your own child's leash--and she has drawn hundreds of lively comments. What is general solution?

We do NOT believe that every time school age children go outside, they need a security detail. Most of us grew up Free Range and lived to tell the tale. Our kids deserve no less. This site dedicated to sane parenting . . .

I started this site for anyone who thinks that kids need a little more freedom and would like to connect to people who feel the same way. We are not daredevils. We believe in life jackets and bike helmets and air bags. But we also believe in independence. Children, like chickens, deserve a life outside the cage. The overprotected life is stunting and stifling, not to mention boring for all concerned. So here’s to Free Range Kids, raised by Free Range Parents willing to take some heat. I hope this web site encourages us all to think outside the house.

This is a well-considered site with lots of ideas for tempering our paranoia about child abductions and sexual predators. Here are a few additional Free Range Children stories that I recommend from Lenore's site:

The end of the Super-Mom Era.

How cell phones can stunt your children's emotional growth.

Here's another article detailing the subway adventure. And here's Lenore's three-minute video describing her approach.

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Buchanan To The Defense…of Hitler

Some people seem to dissolve into their worst attributes over time. There is a seige mentality that develops, it seems, and from within the bastions and barricades the fever dreams of the misunderstood and disillusioned take root and grow into horrible, twisted things. I don't care much for people who are constantly running around trying to scare the rest of us with apocalyptic prognostications. The sky is falling, yes it is, and there's nothing we can do about it. Who can hold up the sky or keep the stars from falling? Not me and it would appear a waste of what life might be left to spend my time fretting over it and ruining other people's day telling them to not enjoy themselves because the impending catastrophe is of such significance that to ignore it in any way is to cheapen all human history. Having a good time in the face of Doom is being, somehow, rude to the awesome relevance of said Doom. Everyone needs a hobby. Conspiracy theorists have found the X-Box of their desires within the serpentine confines of a world delimited by the constant back-stabbing one-up-manship of imagined black ops, coups, assassinations, and creeping ideological subversion. I wish them good times playing with their toys. But occasionally they decide to rewrite history to justify their paranoia and depending on what it is they're trying to sell by doing so, I get a bit less tolerant.

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