Seizing This Teachable Moment

As published in the Fordham Foundation’s Terrorists, Despots, and Democracy: What Our Children Need to Know.

September 11, 2001 was a catastrophic day in our history. But its aftermath became a chapter in the newest lesson about America’s character. As Americans are wont to do, many tried to bring some good out of 9/11. For many teachers, that meant using the first anniversary to teach children lessons that needed to be learned, including some that many adults had forgotten.

A second set of lessons was added when we waged war against aggressive tyranny in Afghanistan and Iraq. War is a terrible thing, but it, too, teaches things about who we are: the way our country conducts itself in war, as well as the reasons why we go to war, are as significant as the ways we carry ourselves in peace.

In the wake of the slaughter that took place two years ago, America was handed a unique opportunity to educate children in this country-and elsewhere-about the meanings and methods of democracy, the very meanings that inspire the wrath of our enemies who hate how we do things as much as our purposes for doing them.

As I write this, children in Iraq are seeing the hand of democracy at work for the first time. We are rebuilding schools and cities, and restoring justice. The pinnacle of reconstruction in Iraq will be the establishment of a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people. But it took our liberation-with military might-to actually begin this process.

Benjamin Franklin wrote something that is in much use by anti-war protestors these days: “There never was a good war or a bad peace.” Franklin was a great man, and instrumental in our nation’s founding. Seven years before he wrote that sentence, he signed one of the most important documents in American history, perhaps in world history: the Declaration of Independence. And we need to remember, and teach, that not only did the Declaration found our nation upon an idea of liberty wedded to equality before the law, it did so-as the signatories well knew-with the risk of war, violence, and death. For the sake of equality and liberty, our nation’s founders, including Franklin, pledged their “Lives . . . . Fortunes and . . . . Sacred Honor.” They knew the risks of war, but they also knew the dangers of a fictitious peace-the kind that would be kept only by submitting to a tyrant. As a result of our War of Independence, the yoke of British tyranny was lifted from our necks and our democracy was born. We, as a young nation, learned that some forms of “peace” are worse than a just war.

War and violence are always regrettable but sometimes necessary. There is no honor in remaining idle, or simply watching, as a family member, or indeed as any human being, has violence done to him. We did not allow King George to continue to reign over us; we declared our independence and took up arms based on the self-evident truths that all humans are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights. In World War II, of the three Axis powers we took arms against, only Japan had first struck at our homeland. But it is beyond debate that our taking up arms to defeat all three enemies of liberty made those countries better. Japan, Germany, and Italy are all now thriving democracies. Their people are better off, we are better off, and the world is better off-not because of their leaders in World War II, but because of ours.

After being attacked two years ago by terrorists who were financed and harbored by terrorist-supporting states, we are engaged in military efforts to end the regimes of those states-and, in the process, ending terror, securing our nation, and improving the conditions of life for those in those states. As we did to the Axis in World War II, we will do to the evil, terror-sponsoring states in this war. And the blessings of liberty will spread.

Children born in America are so accustomed to those blessings that they may not recognize them. The same lessons of democracy that we seek to export for the good of all people must be explicitly taught to American students at home. To fail to do so is to cheat our children, and the immigrants who come to live here, of their birthright.

Children must learn about America. They must learn about the ideals upon which she was founded and toward which she has striven to grow and improve. They ought to learn about the figures, past and present, who led America in times of war and peace. They ought to learn about the good that America has done around the world and the unparalleled freedoms, opportunities, and blessings for those who live here today.

Children must also learn about right and wrong. For too long, so-called sophisticates have said that right and wrong and good and evil are matters of opinion, of personal preference, of one’s own taste.

On September 11, however, we saw the face and felt the hand of evil. Hijacking planes full of innocent citizens and crashing them into buildings filled with more innocent civilians is, plainly and simply, evil. To call it anything else is to trivialize what happened. And in the face of what happened, those who argue that there is no such thing as evil are revealed as what they were all along-fools. Their intellectual dishonesty has done our nation grave harm-but not irreparable harm. Teachers must be willing to say that there are moral absolutes. (I discuss this and the previous topic in my recent book Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism.)

On September 11, heroism and bravery were perfectly illustrated by the firefighters who ascended the Twin Towers while others tried to escape. Those who volunteer for our military, and for the service of protecting their country while liberating others, are heroes and their example needs to be taught as well. Heroism was also taught by those not in traditional uniforms. The passengers on Flight 93 who rose up and prevented a hijacked plane from crashing into Washington were seemingly ordinary businessmen whose uniforms were suits, coats, and ties. The heroes of Flight 93 taught us an invaluable lesson: every American can be called to heroism if he recognizes the moment he lives in, the moment that is thrust upon him.

The second anniversary of the darkest day in our recent history will, of course, be a day of remembrance. That is to the good, for we must never forget what happened that day. Teachers have a unique and important role to play in making sure that children learn the right lessons from it. Those lessons-lessons of courage, duty, heroism, and right action-are timeless. They should not be forgotten, and neither should the history of the country that teaches the world those lessons so well.

William J. Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education, is founder of K12, an Internet-based education company, and chairman of Americans for Victory Over Terrorism.