Alumni Perspective

"Now Is the Time to Teach _______?" Mary Lou Teel '74, Producer, CBS "Sunday Morning" Teel September 11 has changed the landscape of the American psyche, and should change the landscape of American journalism and education. Now is the time to teach history, languages, geography, international politics, religion. There is so much we don't know, and our survival-as a nation, and as a world-desperately depends on understanding, and finding answers to questions that heretofore we have been unwilling to take up. For the last several decades-for most of my career at CBS, actually-we as a nation have been focused on business, on celebrities, on ourselves. That a few huge businesses own most of the news media outlets hasn't helped the endeavor. The net result, however, was that while the great tectonic plates of the world were shifting, we were watching the stock ticker and the ratings, consuming our consumer goods, gloating about our wealth and power, and spending lots of time talking about fitness and health. It all seems kind of silly now-the era of Monica and Gary Condit-and quaint. And maybe even desirable, compared to thinking about large intractable problems, ancient hatreds and punishing poverty. But it is energizing, too. May you live in interesting times, the saying goes. A Chinese curse, I believe. Or a blessing. Take your pick.

Kim

Ron Kim: I think the biggest question is whether this is the beginning of a new period, the end of one, or are we somewhere in the middle? But for me, what has happened affirms what I try to do in my 20th Century World History course, where I spend the latter part of the year on the aftermath of world imperialism-the struggles new nation-states undergo and the crises that occur in the wake of colonialism. What strikes me most is that the students' questions start in the most basic place: Where is Afghanistan? What's this Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India about? Why do we need Pakistan to help us?

Students learn over time how to ask important questions. Right now they are asking very important ones: Who's doing this? Why did they feel like they had to? It's one of the most valuable lessons they get at Exeter and far more important than answers about what we are going to do. You go so much farther with good questions.

Diane Ravitch, a former assistant U.S. secretary of education, wrote an essay for Education Week called "Now Is the Time to Teach Democracy." If you were writing a commentary, how would you fill in the following blank: "Now is the time to teach ________"?

Herney

Jamie Hamilton: I think we live by narratives whether we are awaare of them or not. These narratives can be anything from sacred texts to what's on television to school stories to what our parents tell us. What happened on September 11 is going to be an important story for all of us. How will we live by it? I think it's time to attend to answering this question, which is why I wanted my class to explore their ideas for a September 11 memorial. For me, now is the time to teach the power story has for us and to ask, "What is the narrative of this story?"

Jack Herney, History: It's not only what we teach, but the way we teach. Before this, we didn't focus so much on the Alien and Seditions Acts. We will always teach American history, but the emphasis on what we teach may shift. We always try to make what we were doing in the 18th century relevant to today because it is relevant.

Among other things that seem newly relevant is the notion that this is a society that has separated church and state. We often just blow right past that. Certain elements of the American story will rise in importance as a result of these events, and that's one of them. It's extraordinary that that separation happened in this country. It saved us a lot of headaches that other countries have not been spared.

Christine Robinson: The English teacher in me is encouraging students to look at the use of language in the media, to think about those words and deconstruct them. To realize that what is happening is being shaped by headlines or slogans, which are shaping our attitudes about what we should be doing and why. I think these events have highlighted our need to pay attention to public discourse.

Tom Ramsey: Maybe because I misread the question at first-I read it as "Now is the time to teach," period-my response is: "Yeah! Now is the time to teach."

It would seem natural to talk about the morality of war here, but I'm not sure it fits. That's part of my hesitation. All I'm trying to do is ask students, does it fit? Does what is going on now fit the conventional models? Can we use just war theory or conventions of moral warfare? So it makes me think, well, if the ethics of war doesn't quite fit, and yet I'm using it, maybe anybody could use anything. Now is the time to teach whatever you're teaching, but to open it in a way that students can talk about the war.

—Andrea Jarrell is a writer and editor who lives in Camden, ME.

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