.@dstangelplowe on the alarming lessons schools are teaching students about 9/11: https://t.co/C9mwQjR3oi pic.twitter.com/zDNv8YNSlx
— City Journal (@CityJournal) September 14, 2026
A North American Values Institute (NAVI) review of other materials found a pattern of activist framing of the terrorist attacks that leaves children ignorant of the ideological forces that drove the attackers and steers them toward activism instead of understanding. --Dana Stangel-Plowe
from Dana Stangel-Plowe,
One of the nation’s most elite schools of education—the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education—created “Teaching Beyond 9/11,” a “multimodal curriculum for high school and college educators,” whose title suggests a comprehensive treatment of the events. But its lessons devote only a paragraph to the attacks themselves. It says that the United States merely “accused” Osama bin Laden of masterminding them. It does not explain al-Qaeda’s responsibility or the Taliban’s role in sheltering the group.
Meantime, the curriculum presents over 50 lessons about Islamophobia, racism, American power, and “social justice.” Students are encouraged to adopt political interpretations of the attacks and their aftermath and asked to identify “avenues for solidarity,” imagine “better futures,” and become motivated to act for social change. The curriculum includes a unit on “right-wing extremism” but offers no examination of Islamist extremism—the ideology that motivated the attack on America.
. . .
Terrorism is the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians to achieve a political, ideological, or religious objective. Students should understand the moral difference between those who deliberately target civilians and those acting to defend people from such attacks.
Unfortunately, the Penn curriculum is only one example of curricula that downplay 9/11 history. A North American Values Institute (NAVI) review of other materials found a pattern of activist framing of the terrorist attacks that leaves children ignorant of the ideological forces that drove the attackers and steers them toward activism instead of understanding. One teaching guide, promoted by the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, encourages students to blame U.S. policy for 9/11—for example, by asking “why some people hate the U.S. enough to kill thousands of people.” In a lesson on the American Federation of Teachers’ “Share My Lesson” platform, students read Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America” uncritically and are asked only to summarize his arguments and find reasons for his anti-Semitism: “Why do you think Osama bin Laden hates Jews so much?”
