WASHINGTON, 14 September 2003 — According to some of the crisp, shiny textbooks distributed recently, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are history — and that does not sit well with some historians, who say it’s too soon.
For the first time since hijackers flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing thousands, many students can read about it in new textbooks that include special sections or chapters devoted to terrorism on US shores. Some school systems revamped social studies curricula to include the new texts; others simply received the updated editions when they placed orders for the school year.
But some historians say that two years after the event is too early to place it in any historical context, and some teachers are concerned that the language used to describe the aftermath of Sept. 11 is suffused with more patriotism than fact.
“I was quite stunned that publishers are rushing to include this coverage,’’ said Jerold Starr, director of the Pittsburgh-based Center for Social Studies Education. “They didn’t used to. It took them many years to include Vietnam.’’
A study in 1983, he said, concluded that the average US history textbook devoted six paragraphs to the Vietnam War a decade after it ended. But publishers say students learn better if they can relate recent events to historic ones.
In early September 2001, editors at McDougal Littell, a division of Houghton Mifflin, were about to send their line of history and government textbooks to press. Then the terrorists struck.
“It was literally one of those ‘stop the presses’-type moments,’’ said Collin Earnst, a spokesman for Houghton Mifflin. “The editorial staff sat down and began discussing how they would cover this. What made it tricky was that you are writing a history textbook in real time.’’
The publisher’s solution was to insert a 14-page supplement into many of its textbooks, of which one popular high school title is “The Americans.’’
The latest edition of the book now includes a chapter titled “History in the Making: The War on Terrorism.’’ It includes maps of the world and graphics about removing debris. Earnst said editors decided to focus on the “heroism of this time period. There’s a focus on the firefighters, the police workers, so there’s a focus on patriotism.’’
In Prince William County, Va., social studies departments received “The Americans,’’ along with “The American Vision,’’ published by Glencoe, a division of McGraw-Hill.
In a seven-page section, “The American Vision’’ describes the country’s mood after the attacks. “Everywhere across the nation, Americans put up flags to show their unity and resolve. ... Cheerleaders in Virginia organized car washes to raise money for the Red Cross. ... If the terrorists had hoped the attacks would divide Americans, they were wrong.’’
Teachers in Prince William County are encouraged to use textbooks as only one of many tools to teach, said Ken Bassett, the county’s social studies supervisor.
“Any textbook is going to have biases,’’ he said. “A good teacher is going to work to provide balanced instruction and to teach students the skills of being able to analyze resources and to think critically about the sources of information, and that includes their textbook.’’ Some teachers say they often introduce materials from newspapers or the Internet to balance the tone of textbooks and provide other viewpoints.
“If you look at textbooks, we have seen a lot more patriotism, nationalism with the last few years,’’ said Dan Kent, a high school history and government teacher in Ashburn, Va., a Washington suburb. “That’s a reaction to what’s going on in the world. Can you ever go wrong by waving the flag?’’
In his classes today, Kent said, he relies on more than a textbook. “We’ll be pulling materials from ‘The Americans,’ some online materials,’’ he said. “... It takes about 10 years to sort an event out.’’