NEA to Teachers: We Must Not Blame Any Group for WTC Attack

[ibrodsky]

The National Education Association has won the praise of the Council on American Islamic Relations, a group that offers endless excuses for Islamist terrorism, for telling teachers not to blame any one group for 9/11/01.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020819-34549100.htm

I couldn't find this material on the NEA Web site and, interestingly, a search of "9/11" brings one find but when you click on it you are sent back to the Home page rather than the article. Perhaps NEA has hurriedly removed the material?

Still, a quick tour of the NEA Web site yields a cornucopia of "PC" thought about the UN, free enterprise, and the dismal performance of public schools (the news about which reminds me of the old Soviet Union's reports on ever-increasing agricultural production).

[Mediocrates]

It gets worse - from the article cited above - -

But another of the suggested NEA lesson plans — compiled together under the title "Remember September 11" and appearing on the teachers union health information network Web site — takes a decidedly blame-America approach, urging educators to "discuss historical instances of American intolerance," so that the American public avoids "repeating terrible mistakes."

I wonder what I should tell children who I know who lost family members that day when they learn it's our fault. I wonder what harm that engenders. All the time in pro Palestinian news reporting like today's report that Abu Nidal is dead, we hear all about the self justified lifelong rage he nursed while he killed and injured over 900 people in 25 years. I wonder what kind of HATE the NEA wants to create when it says that "It's your own damn fault as Americans when you get crushed to death going to work."

(I would guess that the actual curricula are hid from public view and accessible only to member teachers which is why they can't be found on the general website).

[ibrodsky]

Originally posted by Mediocrates
It gets worse - from the article cited above - -

It's interesting how "not blaming any one group" segues into blaming America...

(I would guess that the actual curricula are hid from public view and accessible only to member teachers which is why they can't be found on the general website).

The search pointed to a specific article. But when I clicked on it I was taken back to the Home page. The NEA has fought to protect public schools from competition. Since their members work for US taxpayers, they should feel obligated to tell those same taxpayers what they advocate re: public school curricula.

[cerulean]

http://www.neahin.org/programs/schoo...er11/index.htm

It looks like anyone can submit a Remember September 11 lesson plan. I don't know who is responsible for approving them, however. Anyone who is interested in doing this?

[cerulean]

You can get some of the NEA lesson plans by snail-mail from this site:

http://neahin.org/programs/schoolsaf...lessonhome.htm

I'm not sure these are the same curricula referred to in ibrodsky's first post, however. Johnson & Johnson is sponsoring them. When I clicked on the link for one of the lessons, I got a link to a Red Cross page to get it by snail-mail -- it appears the lesson was developed by the Red Cross.

[ibrodsky]

Actually, I see that you can get at this material via the NEA's Home page link to "lesson plans."

Here is an excerpt:

During coverage of the terrorist attacks, many news organizations showed video footage of Palestinians celebrating the terrorist attacks. Sentiment against the Palestinians--and Arab people more generally--increased as a result of this reporting, though at the time it was unclear who was responsible for the attacks, or how widespread such celebrations were in the Middle East.

Ask students to brainstorm a list of descriptors that come to mind when they hear the word "terrorist." Ask students to share their ideas (verbally, or anonymously by collecting papers and reading aloud). Note how many times "Arab," "Middle East," or "Muslim" get mentioned. Ask students if they think this characterization is fair. How does it compare to the characterization of Japanese-Americans and German-Americans during World War II?

The assumption is that most children are incapable of distinguishing between the ideas that most terrorists are Arabs/Muslims (true) and most Arabs/Muslims are terrorists (false). So, instead of acknowledging reality there is a concerted effort to teach that there is no correlation between terrorists and the PA or Islamism.

[cerulean]

Michael Medved's take on the NEA's lesson plans:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=28657
Commemorating 9-11: Blaming America, exonerating Islam
Posted: August 19, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern

[ibrodsky]

I know his father and brother -- both live in Jerusalem.

[NewsGuy]

Looks like the NEA's policy is basically a gag order on teachers to prevent American schoolchildren from learning the facts. The part about blaming the American victims for Arab and Islamic terrorism, is just plain offensive.

IMO, these policies are a continuation of the misguided radical American Left wing, which legislated racial disinformation, and made reverse discrimination law.

The theory of the radical Left wing is that if you deny that people of certain ethnic or religious groups are disproportionately responsible for misdeeds, then no one will notice that truth. Better yet, if you shift the blame to the victims, then society will become too entangled in a collective group therapy session to notice that the blame lies squarely with the perpetrators.

I'm not sure if the NEA is a backstabbing anti-American organization or if this is only the case with certain individuals in its leadership. In any event, the terrorists who attacked the U.S. on 9/11 and on previous occasions are Arabs and Muslims. That's the fact any way you slice it. By recognizing and publicizing this fact, we should shift the burden onto the Arab/Muslim community to do its own collective therapy session and figure out the answers.

[Adversary2Arabs]

Originally posted by NewsGuy
Looks like the NEA's policy is basically a gag order on teachers to prevent American schoolchildren from learning the facts. The part about blaming the American victims for Arab and Islamic terrorism, is just plain offensive.

IMO, these policies are a continuation of the misguided radical American Left wing, which legislated racial disinformation, and made reverse discrimination law.

The theory of the radical Left wing is that if you deny that people of certain ethnic or religious groups are disproportionately responsible for misdeeds, then no one will notice that truth. Better yet, if you shift the blame to the victims, then society will become too entangled in a collective group therapy session to notice that the blame lies squarely with the perpetrators.

I'm not sure if the NEA is a backstabbing anti-American organization or if this is only the case with certain individuals in its leadership. In any event, the terrorists who attacked the U.S. on 9/11 and on previous occasions are Arabs and Muslims. That's the fact any way you slice it. By recognizing and publicizing this fact, we should shift the burden onto the Arab/Muslim community to do its own collective therapy session and figure out the answers.

Did you expect any less than this garbage?

[elke]

I think that NEA underestimates the children's intelligence and wisdom. I know my own three wouldn't think of spreading the hatered for the terrorists unto their classmates who happen to be Muslim or Arab. They will, however, lose respect for school if facts are not adhered to.

There are ample alternative information sources available, so it's not like they won't find out who were the individuals responsible. It's silly not to help them analyze the reality of this event in a constructive manner. It doesn't have to spread hatered to an ethnic group, but rather explain the ideology that made this event possible.

[ibrodsky]

Worse, the NEA "underestimates" (there is an understatement!) parents' intelligence. From George Will's latest column:

By George F. Will
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Sunday, August 25, 2002
WASHINGTON -- The National Education Association, the largest teachers union, usually concentrates on convincing legislators, against ample contrary evidence, that increasing the number and pay of teachers is certain to improve schools. But now the NEA has gone into wartime mode and become a sensitivity tutor for parents and teachers. The result makes one wish the NEA would stick to misleading legislators.

It has furrowed its brow and thought really, really hard about what parents and teachers should do with children on Sept. 11. The results, on the NEA's Web site (www.neahin.org), illustrate three things that make the public education establishment a national menace.

One is distrust of parents, whom the NEA obviously considers imbeciles. Another is a politically correct obsession with "diversity" and America's sins. Third, and most repellant, is a therapeutic rather than an educational focus -- an emphasis not on learning but on feelings, not on good thinking but on feeling good.

Jerald Newberry, an NEA functionary who helped develop the material for Sept. 11, says the attacks were "so horrific parents did not know where to start conversations." Beginning with this presumption of parental incompetence, the NEA asked a psychologist, Brian Lippincott of John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, Calif., to provide "tips for parents and teachers," such as: "Use language that is developmentally appropriate for children." Actually, parents are pretty good at doing that even without exhortations or instructions from trade unions or academic psychologists.

One measure of how America has changed in 60 years is Lippincott's and the NEA's emphasis on the need "to comfort each other" and "help those most in need" of emotional bucking-up. On Dec. 7, 1942, there were not armies of people calling themselves members of "the caring professions" and operating on the assumption that Americans were emotional cripples, obsessed with their own feelings....

[Blodhemn]

i bet that in islamic schools they preach:

"on sept 11 there were 4 coinsidental plane accidents, all of which were blamed on the poor islamic community!"

[cerulean]

Originally posted by Blodhemn
i bet that in islamic schools they preach:

"on sept 11 there were 4 coinsidental plane accidents, all of which were blamed on the poor islamic community!"

Unfortunately, they don't teach they were accidents, but that they were a Zionist conspiracy.