Teaching Lessons of History as They Unfold [incl. William Watson]

Growing up on 90th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue in New York City, William Watson watched the Twin Towers grow taller from his window as they were being built.

But as they crumbled on Sept. 11, 2001, he was in Chester County, teaching a classroom full of students at Immaculata University about ancient Assyria.

“When I got (to Immaculata), I heard it on the radio, and one of the professors down the hall had a television in his office,” Watson said. “I thought, well, we’re not going to discuss the ancient Assyrians today — we’re going to discuss what’s happening right now.”

Watson, chairman of Immaculata’s history department and adviser of the Middle East studies program, said that just as the course of United States history was dramatically altered, 9/11 had a profound impact on university curriculums, particularly in the topics of history, foreign policy, criminal justice and information security.

“9/11 was a transformative moment — but that precision is important,” Watson said. “You’ve got to know what happened in order to prevent it from happening again in the future. As historians, that’s our goal: To weave a proper, accurate tapestry of facts rather than one that’s sanitized.”

Watson said that he’s been teaching a world civics course that has been teaching modern Middle East material since before 9/11, covering topics such as al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden’s role. Since 2001, the course material has been extended to include the events of Sept. 11, explaining not only factors that led up to it but how it has since affected international relations.

“I think what they get in high school is so watered down, it doesn’t even resemble history,” Watson said. “I like to think that we’re preparing them for global citizenship in a more appropriate manor. I think they feel invulnerable, and you know, when they get to college, they should be a little more realistic what the world is like.”

Lawrence Davidson, a professor of history at West Chester University, said there has been a noticeable increase in student interest in Middle East history and politics since 9/11. But when students enter his class, he said, they’re often not aware of the entire picture.

“What I have to do, as a professor, is explain to them that there’s a whole world of activity out there that they’re not aware of,” Davidson said. “9/11 didn’t just happen. It was part of a history, and the United States through its policies have been involved in shaping that history.”

In a course titled the United States in the Middle East, Davidson teaches students about American foreign and economic policy in the Middle East since the end of World War II.

“9/11 creates a new end point for this course,” Davidson said. “Part of my job becomes to explain how (al-Qaida) justified doing this. It fits into a process, and what Americans have done in the Middle East is part of that process.”

Davidson said one of the biggest misconceptions students come into the course with is that 9/11 was motivated largely by religion.

“Quite frankly, it isn’t primarily religious,” Davidson said. “If you think about suicide bombing, 9/11 is a variant of that — thinking that God wants you to do it makes it easier to do it. However, that’s not why you’re doing it. They actually (crashed into the Twin Towers) as an act of revenge.”

Peter Loedel, the chair of the political science department at West Chester, said the events of 9/11 had a “direct and immediate impact” on how he teaches his courses.

“Whether we’re talking about George W. Bush and his War on Terror, his policies and strategies, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, we talk about war powers — does the president have the power to conduct a war with congressional approval?” Loedel said. “That was something that was left over from the Vietnam era, and students hadn’t really cared about a lot of that stuff, but (since 9/11), they have a new context, a new president, and it certainly makes for a very interesting discussion.”

One of the most common questions Loedel said he gets asked by students — yet one of the most difficult for him to answer — is simply why al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden attacked the U.S.

“They have no real sense of that, other than there’s these kind of crazy guys in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan who hate us,” Loedel said. “That’s part of the answer, but it’s more complex than that.”

Loedel said one of the most significant academic changes outside of politics and history at West Chester post-9/11 is the addition of the Information Security Center, a program in the computer science department that offers courses that have been certified by the National Security Agency to meet national training standards for information systems security professionals.

He said a majority of the courses that have cropped up post-9/11, have focused on terrorism, cyber crimes and criminal justice, constitutional law and civil liberties.

“The bottom line is 9/11 had a profound impact on the U.S. It fundamentally altered our role in the wolrld,” Loedel said. “We have yet to come to grips 10 years later with the full effect of the implication of that new role. As educators, we want to make sure we’re providing students with the kind of knowledge and skills that give them a better idea of the world they’re living in.”

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