Teaching Osama Bin Laden's Death In The Classroom

Teaching Osama Bin Laden’s Death In The Classroom

Friday, May 6th, 2011

When Christine Yarzabek, a first-grade teacher in Hershey, Pa., heard that Osama bin Laden had been shot and killed, she was at a loss.

“9/11 happened before my students were even born,” she said. “It makes it hard to truly tell them in an appropriate way what is going on.”

Yarzabek teaches 22 six-year-olds from various backgrounds. Her class includes English language learners, including Spanish-speaker Alejandro, who told Yarzabek that bin Laden should have been imprisoned, rather than killed. It also included Adwaith, of India, who understood exactly what was going on.

How was she supposed to handle the situation?

As pundits, national security experts and news outlets try to analyze the ramifications of bin Laden’s death, teachers across the country face the challenge of teaching a dramatic event in real time. Under pressure of Advanced Placement exams and state tests, they are curtailing their curricula to address the news of the day — a story they simply couldn’t ignore.

This set of circumstances puts the teacher in a critical role, said Margaret Berci, an expert in K-12 Social Studies who works in the education department at the College of Staten Island. “One of the major challenges is to make sure we do not indoctrinate,” she said.

Yarzabek said she wanted to wait a day before discussing the news in class. She wanted to give parents time to present it to their children in their own way, and to give herself time to process it. “More of my kids will come in tomorrow with questions,” she said. “They’re not just babies — they’re curious about everything.”

She remembered being ushered from her high school psychology class into a prayer service held by her Catholic school when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

“I think about the intense emotion I felt then,” she said. “I not only want to teach the event, but tap into their emotions.”

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