Granted that this is like shooting fish in a barrel, but it is
really too good to pass up. So let us assume that the New York
Times quoted Jerald Newberry, director of the Health
Information Network for the National Education Association, the
nation’s largest teachers’ union, correctly. Defending the lesson
plans that school districts across the country have drawn up for
use on September 11, he said:
“If you boil down the concerns of the opposition, what I would
call the far right, ultimately it boils down to: ‘I am not
comfortable with my child being in school with someone who’s
different. I want to keep my child surrounded by people who are
identical to me. The world is getting too diverse, and I’m
scared.’”
Mr. Newberry’s priceless quote appeared in a page-one story
about the argument over whether to use the anniversary of the
attack on the World Trade Center to immerse the kids in diversity,
tolerance and touchy-feely stuff, or whether to give them a class
in American history or civics. The teachers’ union favors the
diversity, tolerance and touchy-feely approach, but the opposition
does not. In Mr. Newberry’s reckoning that means the opposition is
far right. It may be unfair to be picking on him this way — maybe
the Times really did misquote him — but Mr. Newberry
seems like the quintessential, post-9/11 liberal. Disagree with
their cherished assumptions, and you are not merely right, you are
far right.
Meanwhile, the teachers’ union and other organizations that have
drawn up lesson plans for September 11 say they have done so at the
request of teachers and parents who insists that children still
suffer emotionally from the attacks. But children have always been
remarkably resilient, and whether a great many of them are still
suffering emotionally is questionable. Indeed most of the thinking
and virtually all of the public statements about the plight of the
children seems to be coming from therapists, grief counselors and
social workers. They have a vested interest, of course; dealing
with emotional stress, real or imagined, is how they make their
livings.
Certainly September 11 left in its wake bereaved and torn
children — the sons and daughters and nephews and nieces of the
people who died. They need all the love and affection and help they
can get. It may also be argued, even if not compellingly, that
post-9/11 trauma among children may have something to do with where
they lived. That is, the closer they were to Ground Zero the more
they were upset. Thus the school children in New York City would
have suffered most, and therefore they may benefit from the help of
mental-health professionals.
So assume now that new York is special, and that the children
there need help. But note that the same story in the Times
that quoted Mr. Newberry also quoted one Rona Novick, the clinical
director of the School Mental Health Alliance. Ms. Novick helped
write the lesson plans for the New York City schools, and she told
the Times about her problems. As she said:
“How do you teach people that racism and killing people based on
their outsides is evil, and not face the history of evil in this
country, where African-Americans were routinely mistreated,
belittled and hung? Where do you draw the line?”
But this is left-wing politics, and the connection with mental
health is doubtful. Ms. Novick is an apostle of moral equivalence,
and for all we know deep in her heart she may believe that a racist
America brought September 11 on itself. She may also think, as Mr.
Newberry has suggested, that only the far right thinks otherwise.
Meanwhile, I imagine that on September 11 most sensible parents
will ignore the mental-health professionals. They are more likely
to give their kids a hug, and tell them they are lucky to be living
in America.
