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What Are We Teaching Children Through Our Response to Terrorism?

What Does "Nail the Bastards" Teach Children?

By Eric Rofes (c)

In the aftermath of this week's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the effects on children have never been far from people's minds. We all ponder how this deep grief at voluminous death, terrible destruction, and the loss of our individual and collective sense of secuirty is experienced by children. We've seen photographs of children who died on airplanes traveling home from family vacations. We've pondered the ways in which this catastrophe might transform forever young people who have lived their entire lives under an assumption of safety. And we've grappled with the proper responses of parents and teachers to the anxious questions of young children.

But what are we teaching our children through our response to terrorism?

The rush to retaliation--whether one finds such a response appropriate or inappropriate, and whether retaliatory efforts in the long run are effective at restoring security to the nation or are not--encourages children to adopt and "eye for an eye" strategy when dealing with conflict. A nation, under powerful assault, unifies behind a president vowing to wage war against the enemy. At least for the few days following the terrorism on the East Coast, words like "revenge," "retribution," and "vengeance" shifted in our national vocabulary and became word of pride, power, and glory.

I recently observed a third-grade teacher talking with a student who'd responded to a playground bully by fighting back. The boy sat in his chair as recess was ending, arms folded tightly, lips locked, as the teacher tried a variety of tactics to convince him that one punch did not deserve another. The teacher, having exhausted all of her arguments, asked the boy which of the alternatives that she had presented he would choose next time. The boy, arms still clenched, looked up at the teacher and replied, "None--my dad told me that, if anyone punches me, I have every right to punch him back."

As a nation, we've spent the past five years, trying to make sense of young people who--after experiencing years of ostracism and persecution by classmates--bring weapons to school. They aim guns at both persecutors and others who joined in, quietly snickered, or simply stood silently by, while they suffered at the hands of their peers. The treat the bully and those who harbored him equally. These boys felt anger, it simmered into rage, then erupted into a vengeful act of retaliation. They strike out, not irrationally as many would like to believe, but, strategically, and under the influence of a cold fury, that blinds them to the realization that their enemies have succeeded in transforming them into a monster that is a mirror image of themselves.

This is the ultimate mission of both the bully and the terrorist: to undermine our sense of civility and reverse our long-held values. They declare victory, not only when they wreak havoc on our lives and our security, but also when they force us to remake ourselves in their own image.

If the nation is committed to rooting out terrorism in the world and is prepared to wage war to do so, it is best articulated to children as neither retaliation nor as a way of proving ourselves. We should be cautious of tying national identity--and manhood--to who wins in the boxing ring. If our nation must move to war, let us be clear about the reasons: because we believe that, will we be able to "rid the world of evil" only by the use of violence, But let us take neither glee nor pride in such grim actions.

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Eric Rofes is a professor of education at Humboldt State University in Arcata, CA and a former sixth-grade teacher.