Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 09:45:58 -0800
From: Wendell Ricketts 
To: tednellen 
Subject: Re: a request 

Ted,

Well, I realize why you don't want this material circulated!

I read whatever was up on your site at the time I went to it - lesson plan
and essays - tho I see that you're updating it even as I write. My first
concern is for the safety of the writers and their school, so I hope you
won't put their contact information on your website or into materials you
distribute at the conference.

Second, I'm not sure what your talk is about or how you intend to frame the
material, so I'm at a bit of a loss in that way.

That said, I find many of the essays pretty shocking. I'm not shocked at the
sentiments, but I'm having some trouble wrapping my mind around the notion
that the kind of violence and racial hatred advocated in some of these
papers is being encouraged out of students in the calm setting of a
classroom. But then I wonder what came next: Were these prompts for a lesson
on tolerance? On getting your facts right? On not believing conspiracy
theories? Still, I find some of the teacher's comments odd ("well
supported," e.g.). I don't quite get how this writing helps students "cope
with their emotions." But that may be a minor point.

Perhaps one lesson here is that Pakistani xenophobia isn't any different
from American xenophobia. And yet. I'm quite sure that teachers across
America are having their students write similar essays, and that a good many
of them are just as full of race hatred and wrong facts. In my class two
days ago, a student advocated bombing "every single Arab corner market"
because "they" are the ones somehow responsible for the attacks.

If I got essays like this, however, -- let's say on some other topic, such
as "black people are responsible for most of the crime in America" or
"abortion doctors should be shot dead" -- I'd feel the need to provide some
corrective information. I wonder if the teachers in Pakistan will do that. I
wonder if teachers in America will do that....
 
I couldn't help but be struck by the fact that so many writers mentioned the
idea that all Jewish employees mysteriously stayed home from the WTC on the
day of the attacks. That one seems easily derailed, but then you get to the
same place I get with my students: How do I, Wendell, know that it's false
that every Jew stayed home? Because I read it in the newspaper. But what if
all the newspapers are lying? In other words, if your distrust of media runs
that deep, then you're essentially free to cobble together whatever version
of events you like -- that is to say, a personal fable, in which facts stop
being facts and become symbols and metaphors.

Naturally, of course, even the conspiracy folks and the "all the Jews stayed
home" theorists have one thing in common: They believe *some* media or
they'd have no information at all -- so what they chose to believe and what
they chose to reject says everything about them and little about "reality."
What I've said over and over in the past weeks is that each of us, unless we
were actually there and saw something personally, is always responding to
second-hand (and, often, tenth-hand) information. So how do we sort that
out?

In any event.... One can hardly dispute the points made in several of the
essays: the media manipulation of American sentiment, the need to view the
9/11 attacks in the context of America's foreign policy and history of
"interfering" in the affairs of other countries, America's double standards
for "friends" and "enemies," and so on.

What I think is good about the material is the idea of putting what happened
on 9/11 in a global context. It wasn't an American event, it was a global
event. Even if the attacks themselves were somehow "only" American, what has
happened since makes clear the global issue. I went to a presentation last
night about the need for teachers to take not just a social justice
perspective in their classrooms (vs. the traditional "neutral" approach) but
one based in globalization.

I'm good at the first; the second is newer to me. I mean, I understand the
concept.... But it seems hard enough to try to make a way through the
diversities of opinion and culture and impact just within this country. I'm
daunted by the idea of trying also to see the whole world.

What's exciting to me is the thought that maybe there could be some exchange
among school children -- if a class in the U.S. wrote their own essays and
then exchanged them with The International School.... We don't get enough
"raw" perspective from outside the U.S. -- the images and information we see
have the feel of being manipulated and filtered. I've been struck recently
by the number of news stories about al-Jazeera. As in: "How can a news
network actually present so many different perspectives?" As in: When was it
that American media forgot how to do that?

Especially given what I know about your (physical and emotional) proximity
to the attacks in NYC, I can't help but remark on your willingness to take a
project like this on. You grapple on the edge.... Be careful. I think
there's no underestimating the ferociousness of American defensiveness in
response both to the attacks and to criticism. Not a reason not to do what
you plan, but it's not cowardly to protect yourself a little.

And, finally, after the conference, could I use any of these essays?

Thanks for letting me look at this. On re-reading, the above seems pretty
free-form and not very useful. The first thing was my emotional response,
which requires some working through; that will probably be true for the
teachers at the conference as well.

Take care,

Wendell