After a rash of parent complaints, a principal at Swanson Middle School in Arlington cancelled a debate assignment where students were asked to take the Taliban point of view during a mock UN Security Council session. Principal Chrystal Forrester and 2 other teachers, presumably the ones who made the assignment, have said the assignment was “clearly a bad choice for a debate topic.”
An email was sent out to the parents of the Swanson 8th graders with the following message, according to the Washington Post:
Recognizing the pain that has touched many of our families and neighbors due to the terrorist attacks on the United States and acknowledging the sensitive nature of the conflict in Afghanistan involving many of our dedicated members of the U.S. armed forces, we have eliminated this topic as part of the U.N. unit of study effective immediately,”
Parent Chris Wilson whose daughter was one of those who had been assigned the Taliban point of view said he was glad the decision was made to get rid of the Taliban assignment:
He found it morally questionable to ask students to represent the Taliban’s views about the United States and was uncomfortable about the idea of his 14-year-old daughter trolling the Web for pro-Taliban sites and information.
The Afghanistan conflict is one of 9 conflicts the 8th graders were asked to research before debating a mock security council. Other conflicts involved China/Taiwan, India/Pakistan, North Korea/western powers, Russia/Chechnya, Columbia/Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC). Some countries assigned for debate are not members of the UN.
Other parents were disappointed in the change. They felt their children were being deprived of the chance to see both sides of a conflict. Julia Stradling, a Swanson parent and Fairfax County educator volunteered the following in the WaPo:
She said students would miss out on a chance to understand more than one side of a crucial world conflict that affects them.
“It seems that you could not defend their actions but understand their motivations,” she said.
Her daughter, Anna Mendelson, has been assigned to represent FARC, an insurgent group responsible for kidnappings and drug trafficking in Colombia. “These conflicts are inherently distressing,” she said. “That is precisely why they should be debated and discussed.”
Jeremy Stoddard, an assistant history professor at William and Mary cautioned about putting students in the position of having to defend groups with known human rights abuses. He said having to do so could cause extreme discomfort. He stressed the importance of understanding multiple perspectives.
How many parents complained? Does 1 or 2 squeaking wheels always get the oil? Why couldn’t the kids volunteer for the odious group they wanted? What part of the 8th grade social studies curriculum does this current events fit in to? I thought 8th graders studied ancient history to the middle ages and then 9th graders brought them on up to modern times, Are 8th graders too young to do in-depth studies about heinous groups or evil empires? Do we want our kids visiting some of these websites? Should we fear the FBI swat team at the front door accusing our kid of being part of a sleeper cell?
I don’t know about this debate – but I’ll say one thing – I wouldn’t have wanted to have been picked to take the Taliban side in this debate! What would you even say to defend them?
Supposedly after the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, the country was overrun with marauding gangs etc. The Taliban got rid of them and protected the women. Of course the fact that they subjugated them and treat them like chattel is not mentioned.
Actually I agree. Hard to come up with something good about some of the others also. N Korea comes to mind.
I am pleased to see this debate was canceled. Whatever the merits of such a debate, middle school aged children don’t have enough experience or knowledge of history to debate the issue properly. Few high school students do, but at least there’s a chance of a real debate at a high school or undergraduate level.
The problem with so many of these debates is that they degenerate into a tirade against everything American has done instead of an honest examination of what the Taliban supports and opposes. Any honest debate would show the supremacist agenda of the Taliban (in regards to religion, sex and even a good amount of racism) and any free person should recoil in horror. It is difficult to make a justification for a legal system in which a woman who has been raped can be executed for infidelity while the rapist goes unpunished. (This is because there were insufficient male witnesses to the rape, and the raped woman’s testimony has less legal standing. However, the raped woman admitted that she had sex with the man (even though it was rape) therefore she is by definition guilty of infidelity.)
There is no shortage of people who opposed the war in Afghanistan who admit that the world is a better place with the Taliban out of power. Personally, I’d take marauding gangs and drug warlords over the Taliban.
The Taliban and Al-Queda are not the same.
We may have to bite our national lip and work with the Taliban – tribal
warlords that have controlled parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan for
centuries, but to not seek out the crazed mass murderers of Al-Queda is
for us to surrender to suicide – we have no choice but to find, fight
and kill them – before they strike us again.
The Taliban and Al-Qaeda are separate, but the Taliban are hardly indigenous to Afghanistan and you’ll never eliminate Al-Qaeda without eliminating the Taliban. A large component of their leadership is made up of Arabs that came in to fight the Soviet invasion and then stayed to establish their Wahhabi government, which became the Taliban. The ideological and religious bonds between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are too strong for us to break.
On general policy though, I think I agree with you. I’ve got no problem dealing with warlords and agree that we should be propping up local chieftains and warlords who support our interests. In fact, our Afghanistan strategy should be based on the ‘strongest tribe’ approach. It’s dirty and leaves Afgahnistan a mess but that’s not our problem. I don’t subscribe to the ‘Pottery Barn’ doctrine. I’d be perfectly happy with a narco-state in Afghanistan as long as the warlords in power knew they owed their position and wealth to us and that it was all contingent on not supporting Al-Qaeda.
My middle school daughter was disturbed after seeing movies about the WWII concentration camps. I don’t think she could handle studying more recent horrors and then be asked to defend those who perpetrated the crimes. Her sense of social justice and innate empathy would be more than just insulted.
I think 8th grade is a little young for that kind of study. Most just aren’t that mature.
M-H, many 8th graders are more mature than we think. Remember,
within five years, some of them may be fighting in Afghanistan.
Information should be presented with their age in mind, but
it can be a dangerous world out there and we do them no favors
by hiding it.
Oh I agree they are mature but define maturity. I wouldn’t want to have to justify the taliban or North Korea. I don’t want to hide it. I just don’t want to force them to defend these clowns.
It isn’t “defending clowns”, it is sharing factual information.
Young adults (sorry, but that is what they are) can handle a great
deal if we are honest and candid. Plus, be sure to encourage
their feelings and thoughts. Many of them are very smart
and should be treated as such.
No, 13 year olds aren’t young adults. 13 yeaar olds are still children. Some are very smart and should be given challenging material. If they were all comfortable with all aspects of life, this issue would have never been challenged.
18 year olds are young adults.
My friend’s daughter was at Swanson Middle School two years ago. She’s at Yorktown now. I remember when they did this exercise. My friend’s team was to represent a Kurdish group in Iraq. I’ve known this girl for 10 years, and this was only the 2nd time she’d ask me to help her with anything from school. She was taking it very seriously.
It was a good project because it got the kids to research a little more deeply to see world situations from different points of view and to put into practice some of what they learned. I don’t know if there was a team representing the Taliban back then or if that’s a new addition.
I have participated as a judge in this type of activity with 8th graders, and they do take it very seriously. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to research the other point of view. Perhaps if more people took the time to understand the others’ point of view, there would be less conflicts and more willingness to compromise, less demonizing of others. There are certainly “demons” in this world, but the cliche is true that we are doomed to repeat history if we don’t understand it.
I read the article in the Post, and I actually could understand both sides.
The point of view I don’t understand is that of conservatives who broadcast that there is some dark, evil plot to take over health care for nefarious reasons. But that’s another topic.
I see both sides also. I would hope that students would not be forced to ‘defend’ groups who made them uncomfortable. Certainly some students would have easier work to do than others.
Unfortunately these articles don’t always tell the whole story. If this has been an on-going project for years, it seems easier to move the kid to another group than to throw out the entire project.
It has been going on awhile. I believe they are just throwing out that particular topic, rather than the entire event.
I am not sure that I see the Taliban as any worse than some of the other rogues. On the other hand, if kids were uncomfortable….then either let them choose their own people or put in other rogues not quite as onerous.
I think part of the problem was that this was in Arlington, site of the Pentagon bombing, and they felt there was more sensitivity to the fact that there may have been connections to victims.
I think being able to debate is a skill that will empower these kids throughout their life however 8th grade a little young to pick that strong of a topic when we have smoking in restaurant bans, gun control, texting while driving, medical mary jane, or healthcare, etc. that are more suitable for that age group. High schoolers may have been able to handle it.
It was hard for me to picture my usually argumentative 8th grader defending how it was ok to sell a 9 yr to an 50 yr old man for a wife or stoning a 15 yr old in a soccer field because she fell in love and was intimate with a boy that was not her husband.
And then to think that 8th grader could be debating someone whose parent was actually killed at the Pentagon 8 years ago because of some religious zealot who had training connections to the Taliban. That is a little heavy for 8th grade. It would be as bad as trying to defend Hitler to the child of a holocaust victim.
The school did the right thing. I can’t imagine there is a shortage of topics for 8th graders to argue about that don’t involve the killing of people who may have lived next door to you.
Anon, after your post, I will have to say I totally agree. You brought up some issues I had not thought of.
Has anyone here been in a mock UN exercise? If you had been in one, you’d be outraged at how this whole thing was caricatured, and disappointed in the school’s decision to cave in.
In my day, the brightest kids participated in Mock/Model UN’s, and only the sharpest kids among _that_ group got to represent Russia, China, etc. — and the Taliban are rank amateurs compared to global Communism which has imprisoned, tortured and murdered tens if not hundreds of _millions_. (and BTW, Jewish kids routinely signed on to represent the PLO, Saudi Arabia, etc., and I suspect they still do).
Our parents encouraged us to take these tough assignments because of the intellectual challenge, and everybody knew that you were simply playing a role, and that your own views had nothing to do with the role you were playing. The point was to learn how the rest of the world thinks — a vital lesson, then as now.
As for the school’s decision to cave in to pressure, what’s next? Refusing to teach Evolution because it’s too “controversial” and might hurt some kids’ feelings? What if my son is lousy at logarithms, and his feelngs would be hurt if he had to learn them? Does this entitle me to browbeat his Math teacher into cutting that part of the course?
It’s a dark day when parents who don’t understand the curriculum get to _dictate_ the curriculum.
You bring a different side of this story. We can only go with the ‘facts’ presented.
I have to agree with you:
I do think that the kid who was uncomfortable should have been given the option of switching to another group. Who knows what was in that child’s background that made her uncomfortable with the subject matter.
I do think many 8th graders are a little young to process some of the complexities brought up here. Far too often the ‘smart kids’ get to hold these groups together while those who aren’t serious students don’t do their fair share and sit around and play while others do the work.
Of course, we weren’t told if this assignment was given to the general student population or a select view honors or IB classes. That would make a difference.
Thanks though for your contributions, Choricius.
Hello. I was one of the students who had their topic switched, and i would just like to say that my school was not, in ANY way, trying to enforce the Taliban’s views upon us. The entire debate was an ASSIGNMENT. And we all have to do things that we are not comfortable with sometime in our life. So by cancelling this topic, is my school telling students that if something seems uncomfortable, its okay to just stop, quit, give up? Quite possibly, but i doubt that was the intention.
This is the situation:
Students were put into groups at the beginning of the assignment, and were told which other group of students we were going to debate against. We then chose which topic we would like to debate, and whichever group found the most research on the topic got to decide which side they would like to defend. I do not think that the students complaints were justifiable because if they chose the debate Afghanistan vs. The U.s. , they knew that they had the chance of defending the Taliban.
This whole ordeal just makes me very upset, because I put in about 6 hours of work on this topic, and I know that every other student on this topic put in many hours of work as well. And if a student did not feel comfortable debating the topic, they should have been able to switch groups, instead of having to complain and cancel the entire topic. Now I am debating India vs. Pakistan, and the 6 hours of work that I spent on my previous topic can not be used.
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