This teaching guide is available for free as a PDF download from Rethinking Schools.
Teaching About the Wars breaks the curricular silence on the U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Even though the United States has been at war continuously since just after 9/11, sometimes it seems that our schools have forgotten.
Although the articles in Teaching About the Wars grow out of the “war on terrorism” following the September 11 attacks, the war in Afghanistan, and then the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the teaching strategies, the history, and many of the resources highlighted in the volume are still relevant today.
For example, lesson suggestions encourage students to read and evaluate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “A Revolution of Values,” in which he denounces the “giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism.”
A lesson, “Whose Terrorism?” asks students to define “terrorism,” and then to apply their definitions to world events. Their conclusions about their own government are often startling.
“The U.S. and Iraq: Choices and Predictions” looks at U.S. policy toward Iraq going back to the 1980s — a history that also sheds light on today’s relations with Iran.
Teaching About the Wars is divided into five chapters: Introduction: Breaking the Silence on War; The Road to War; The Human Face of War; Military Recruitment; Anti-War Resistance.
Contributing authors include Bill Bigelow, Ann Pelo, Margot Pepper, Bob Peterson, Özlem Sensoy, and Howard Zinn.
ISBN: 9781937730475 | Rethinking Schools
This teaching guide is available for free as a PDF download from Rethinking Schools.
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Classroom Story
Teaching About the Wars is an imperative resource when teaching about U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan and the Middle East. I use the articles to help my 12th grade students understand contemporary events and issues.
The “War on Terror” is often shoved to the end of the senior year and forgotten, which is something I did not want to see happen (especially given how relevant it is today and the fact that many of my students who join the military are still likely to end up in the Middle East). The resource is well laid out, and I tend to follow it through the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “A Revolution of Values.” Terrorism becomes a more divisive topic, and we talk about how American revolutionaries were considered terrorists to the British and how different conflicts today struggle to define who meets that definition and who does not. The “Whose Terrorism?” lesson has students define “terrorism,” and helps to break down the reality of war.
Teaching this unit is about more than giving students a critical lens by which to evaluate their own governments. It is about acknowledging that as a nation, as people who are global citizens, we are responsible for more than just our day to day activities. Actions have consequences. Life is not black and white. We can use the tools of social and political change in a world that often forgets there are others struggling to survive.
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