How - and whether - we teach the younger generations about 9/11 | Hour 1

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:29] So a couple of topics that I did not get to last Friday on the 25th anniversary of 9-11. I did not get into the curriculum and how we are educating. We talked a little bit about like how, you know, a third of the American population was not alive on 9-11. So they have no memory of the event.

[00:00:59] And so how do we communicate, you know, the scale, the impact, right? The stories of 9-11. How do we convey this? And then, you know, at what ages do you start teaching about it? And what do you cover about it? And all of the questions surrounding the curriculum.

[00:01:17] And there were a couple of different stories. One from the Associated Press, one from the New York Post that took a look at the education of the, you know, the young people and the future generations.

[00:01:33] And this from the AP, teaching about 9-11 in schools is more important than ever now that one third of Americans were born after Al Qaeda hijackers crashed planes and killed nearly 3,000 people in New York at the Pentagon and rural Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

[00:01:55] A growing majority of states, at least 40, expect or suggest that public schools address 9-11 in some way. But the provisions vary widely in scope, specificity, and framing. You can imagine how some states and some school districts and some teachers may be teaching 9-11.

[00:02:25] So state education standards range from detailed course content to broad concepts. As a result, some do not specify what to teach about September 11. A decade after the attacks, about 60% of states did not explicitly mention 9-11 in their education standards.

[00:02:47] Okay, so 15 years ago, more than half of the states did not have any specific mention of 9-11 in any of the education standards. But there has now been more movement toward teaching it as time passed and the attacks were seen as a, quote, settled event, said University of Wisconsin education professor Jeremy Stoddard.

[00:03:12] He and his colleagues have researched 9-11 education for a decade along with Diana Hess, another one of the colleagues there. 25 states have laws or education standards that require or expect public schools to provide instruction specifically on the September 11 attacks. Okay, so 25 states have laws or standards.

[00:03:38] Another 13 have optional mentions of 9-11. Several other states have laws requiring or recommending school observances, bringing the number of states with some policy to at least 40. But not all. Not every state has something about 9-11 either suggested or required.

[00:04:05] In states without specific laws or standards, schools and teachers also may choose on their own to discuss the attacks. And they could choose to not talk about them too. I mean, I could see, you know, if you're in like a math class or something, maybe you don't need to talk about 9-11 on 9-11. But, I mean, you could because those are digits.

[00:04:32] So you could actually probably do some math with the 9 and the 11. But I could understand that subject, avoiding 9-11 as a topic. But, you know, if you're social studies, history, whatever, like, I kind of feel like you should be talking about it. And maybe the vast majority, maybe every single teacher does. I don't know.

[00:04:53] Now, Texas has taught 9-11 and the surrounding events as an example of, quote, radical Islamic terrorism and a key piece of modern history overall. Yeah. Yeah. We're in a post-9-11 world. Correct. It has shaped the course of human history. So we are living in that time now. Everything that we have ordered our society around.

[00:05:23] I covered this on Friday as well. Like, everything. Everything changed. Like, people don't, if you were not alive before 9-11, you don't understand. And it's not a criticism, but you cannot understand how everything shifted. Because it reordered society.

[00:05:46] Colorado suggests high school students might analyze the aftermath of 9-11, including Middle Eastern discrimination. New Mexico envisions discussions that could include not only post-9-11 wars and legislation, but also the U.S. detention of suspected enemy combatants at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba and the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. So you got to make sure we do the both sides here.

[00:06:14] So use 9-11 to talk about Islamophobia and to talk about Abu Ghraib. Right? Talk, you got to talk about how America is bad on 9-11. Got to weave that into the classrooms there in New Mexico and in Colorado. About 60% of young adults say they first learned about the attacks through school.

[00:06:42] That's according to a recent Pew Research Center poll that included about 250 adults born after the year 2000. And the piece, the AP includes at the end of this piece, a conversation between a child and his parents at the 9-11 Memorial Plaza. And this kid is nine years old named Desmond Killian.

[00:07:10] And he asks his parents, why did they want to crash into us? And the dad, Eric, says, it's some tough things to talk about. And Desmond said, well, which country? And dad says, it wasn't so much a country. The questions kept coming from the fourth grader who said he had heard the term 9-11 from friends but had not been taught about it yet in his California school.

[00:07:37] The state recommends that all public schools hold a moment of silence. And it suggests that high schools discuss the attack's impact on U.S. policy and world affairs. So why is this difficult? Why is this a difficult question from the child? It's just stated like the dad's just like, oh, you know, it's tough to talk about this stuff. Well, why is it tough?

[00:08:07] See, it's only difficult when you ignore the role of Islam. That's what makes it difficult. And there are a lot of people that would prefer to ignore the role of Islam because it's uncomfortable. Because then that raises other questions. And then you get accused of being things. As I was because I did the show on Friday where I pointed out that Islam is incompatible with the U.S. Constitution. And I angered some local Muslims.

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[00:10:27] From the text line, John says, be careful. I'm going to hurt Jabril's feelings. Probably. Probably. So, Seth says, do you think the left are Islamophilia? Islamophilic, maybe. Like, you are with AI, thinking that this will save them when the Islamist overlords take over.

[00:10:57] Or, yeah, so, like, that's, whenever I talk about AI, I always make sure to express my love of AI. And I welcome them as the overlord. And if they need, you know, a human being around to run menial tasks, I'm willing to do that for them. But, yeah, no. So, I don't think that a lot of people on the left, if they are irreligious, let's start there.

[00:11:25] If they are irreligious, they don't have a religion, they don't have, you know, maybe they are sort of nominal Christians or Jews or whatever, other religions. But just in name only, basically, they don't abide by all of the rules and attend service and all of that, right? Or they just are atheist, agnostic, they don't attend church, they don't have a view of religion at all, right?

[00:11:49] So, if that is the dominant sort of moral structure in your political party or on that side of the political spectrum, then you're probably not going to be well-equipped to recognize some people who come in with that, right? And if you have Muslims coming into your party, right, they're bringing that religion with them.

[00:12:19] And they do have that moral certainty, right? They do have the religion, okay? So, you're probably not equipped to recognize it. You don't maybe even understand it, that this is how people actually, when they have faith, Christians are the same way, right? Jews too, right? People who are devout in their faith. It is part of their entire way of life. And so, if you are not like that, then that's probably a foreign concept, right, on the left.

[00:12:50] There are those who are in the red-green alliance, as we call it, that's, you know, Marxists, that just are using the Islamic voters, the Muslim voters, for the power, right, to win elections. They also speak in the same language of oppressor-oppressed, right? You hear this all the time.

[00:13:13] In fact, that's what a lot of this education is, you know, as we're talking about, like, the various curricula around the country, about 9-11. And they talk about Islamophobia. They talk about the discrimination against Muslims, right? Because that's the oppressor-oppressed matrix that Marx pitched and is also prevalent in Islam.

[00:13:37] And despite what some of the people who are very angry with me want to believe, I actually do listen to you. I do listen to Muslims. I've been watching probably at this point now, I'm probably in, like, the 200 to 300 hours worth of debates. So I listen to Muslims. And I hear it. I've talked about this before.

[00:14:06] I hear that there's a similar rhetorical approach with Muslims and with the left. They use the same sort of tactics in their debates. So I think that's part of it also. They're using each other for electoral power.

[00:14:28] In North Carolina, social study standards do not specifically require teaching about 9-11, but supplemental guidance mentions it as possible material for various lessons in second grade, fifth grade, eighth grade, and in high school.

[00:14:47] The high school guidance lists 9-11 as a potential example of multiple themes from episodes of xenophobia and intolerance to power shifts among levels of government and offers a sample class exercise about the Patriot Act. Note the lens. South Carolina's social studies standards call for fifth graders to compare and contrast U.S. global leadership before and after 9-11

[00:15:15] and encourage high school U.S. history students to examine, quote, the relationship between Cold War and post-9-11 eras on the shaping of the American identity. Education Superintendent Ellen Weaver visited the school to commemorate 9-11, and her department said that it's also offering schools new guidance on teaching the historical significance of September 11th

[00:15:42] in an age-appropriate, meaningful way, while also reinforcing broader lessons about courage, service, resilience, and unity. Now, the New York Post had a story. Only two U.S. states legally require 9-11 be taught in public schools. Arizona and Florida. They're mandated to teach 9-11. Everywhere else, apparently, it's, like, suggested.

[00:16:13] The New York Post piece by David Spector said, The void is being filled with twisted lefty lessons blaming America, downplaying Islamic terrorism, and portraying Islamophobia as the real tragedy. The hijacked history of America's darkest day has created a lost generation, he says. Two-thirds of American Middle East studies professors say college kids cannot identify who attacked the U.S. on 9-11.

[00:16:43] Two-thirds of students in college studying American Middle East studies do not know who attacked us. New York Post reports,

[00:17:16] This program, This set of standards is called Teaching Beyond September 11th. And you want to know what its focus is? Right-wing extremism and Islamophobia. And the Oval Office. Mm-hmm.

[00:17:44] The curriculum was developed by the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education and includes this passage. Quote,

[00:18:10] Education departments in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Oregon all recommend teaching beyond September 11th in their public schools. The lesson does not provide any reference to the motivation. Appears to equivocate on whether Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks. Maybe not sure. Don't know.

[00:18:38] Other topics include surveillance of Muslims, the Muslim and African ban, and the Muslim youth and resistance chapters. Yeah. The, um, NEA, meanwhile, the National Teachers Union, um, they provide resources for teaching 9-11 that quotes radical anti-Israel professor Edward Said,

[00:19:03] calling the U.S. cruel and inhumane and blaming 9-11 on America's support for the Jewish state. Um, the Voice's ethnic studies curriculum used in Pittsburgh public schools teaches the attacks led to increased experiences with racism and Islamophobia. Uh, they do not mention how many people were killed or by whom.

[00:19:28] A California ethnic studies curriculum reportedly stated that 9-11 served as a catalyst to bring about more blatant discrimination and refers to America as a colonizer. The Council on American Islamic relations or CARE, unindicted co-conspirator in the, uh, Holy Land, uh, trial. Yeah. That group.

[00:19:54] They push their 9-11 curriculum that accuses the U.S. of state-sanctioned Islamophobia. It's, it's always the same, right? This term, Islamophobia, this, this sprung up after 9-11 as people said, why would, why would 19 hijackers do this? And we find out they're part of, uh, uh, Al-Qaeda. What's Al-Qaeda? Oh, it's a,

[00:20:23] it's a jihadist group. What's jihad? Uh, that, that means to wage holy war. Or, if you're trying to appeal to, you know, nice Westerners, you say it's just inner struggle. It just means struggle. Right? But the, the, uh, the scholars, the body of work over 1,400 years is pretty clear that it's not just an inner struggle. It's also an outward struggle. Uh, teaching beyond September 11th,

[00:20:52] released in 2020. You remember what was going on in 2020? I do. You woke 1.0 was crazy, right? It was developed for high school and early college students and focuses on Islamophobia, xenophobia, civil liberties, long lasting wars, media, and representation. The lessons do not include the enduring legacy of the attacks on the families of the victims,

[00:21:21] nor of the nearly 10,000 first responders and civilians who have since died from illnesses caused by ground zero toxins. The goal of the curriculum is to quote, relate anti-Muslim racism slash violence with other forms of racism and violence. It's in other words, to fold it into, or dare I say, to have it intersect.

[00:21:47] There's like an intersectionality going on here. Remember, this was 2020 when they published this. And so they're, they're folding it into the BLM, uh, movement. One of the lead developers of the curriculum was Deepa Ayer, who runs the social justice nonprofit named Solidarity Is.

[00:22:12] That is part of the Soros funded building movement project. Other academics who develop the coursework come from organizations like CARE. This curriculum erases, this is by the way, um, Dr. Mika Hackner, director of research for the North American Values Institute, referring to the teaching beyond September 11th curriculum. Um, she says that, uh, this erases the victims of nine 11.

[00:22:41] It erases the causes of nine 11 and instead uses the terrorist attack and its aftermath as a convenient vehicle to push a political agenda and activism onto the children. Dr. Amina Ghafar Kuchar. Uh, she's the project lead for teaching beyond September 11th.

[00:23:03] She says the curriculum was designed to focus on what came after the attacks and is intended as a supplement to nine 11 coursework. See, a New York city department of education spokesperson said that this curriculum was just one of some 40 different options presented to teachers. Um, and so they can, you know, pick and choose. And so the tactic here is obviously the, you'll let, you know, lay out the options,

[00:23:29] rely on radical teachers to pick the correct one. Which of course, this also is your pipeline back to the teaching colleges. That's why I'm critical of the teaching schools because this is who they're like. They're teaching all of this stuff through the education schools. And so when the teachers get deployed into the classrooms, right, they have a particular pedagogy or mindset.

[00:23:59] And they will look at the list and they will find this one teaching beyond September 11th. And they're going to have all the right buzzwords, all the phobias, all of the isms, the oppressor repressed matrix. And that's what they're going to go with because that's familiar to them because they just came out of the teaching colleges where they were inundated with all of that stuff too. On the text line, Jordan,

[00:24:28] Sean says, Jordan Peterson has a real problem with the attachment of phobia. When you disagree with a group, mainly because the word, the word is clinical. It's used to describe a diagnosable condition. And I have to agree. Words have meanings. Yes, that is correct. I went over this on Friday as well. that's, it's not, phobia is an irrational fear.

[00:24:57] And criticizing Islam is not an irrational fear. But this is what they say to you in order to make you stop criticizing Islam, which they don't like you doing. They don't like you challenging it. They don't like you questioning it, being critical of it, none of it. Do you, do you, good afternoon. This is from Wally. Here,

[00:25:24] your opinion on how George Soros continues to be able to fund all of the anti-American activities. Yeah, I, yeah, I mean, this is, this is what Marxists and, colonizing Islam, this, this, they use our freedoms against us. They spelled it out. With regard, Al Qaeda did. They spelled it out. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, right, talked about this, like, well, we're going to use your freedoms,

[00:25:54] your openness, your freedom of religion, all of this. You know, there's a reason why they, they, they move into these societies is because we invite them in. We invite them in and then they get all the same protections and then they use those in order to undermine the host society. Um, two, two, Ian says, Malcolm X stopped being a racist when he went on the Hajj and saw blonde haired,

[00:26:24] blue eyed, Eastern European Muslims. Mohammedans screaming racist when they hear any anti-Islamic rhetoric, therefore makes zero sense. Um, so here along those lines. Uh, so on Friday I talked how the, I talked about how, um, uh, Islam is not compatible with the U S constitution. And, um, there's a long time listener of WBT, um, and, um, uh, quoted in the media frequently.

[00:26:52] He texts in to, um, to various shows and stuff. He hasn't, he hasn't contacted me recently. Uh, but I did see me, he turned up out at the, um, at the blood drive last week, Jabril Huff. And I thought this was interesting. He posted this up onto his Facebook page and he, he, he put a, uh, a link of that episode, um, from Friday. And he says,

[00:27:17] if we are wondering where those crazy Islamophobes in Mooresville get some of their influences, one needs to look no further than the Pete calendar show on WBT radio. Uh, I, I have no idea if anybody that was opposed to the mosque in Mooresville is a listener to the show. We didn't hear from any of them, but, um, but I'm sure, I'm sure there's probably at least one. Um, but also,

[00:27:44] I was curious to see why, like you put my name in your Facebook post, Jabril, but you obviously deleted, the, the tag, right? Cause normally if you type somebody's name into Facebook, right? It pops their name up and then you hit enter. And then their name is, is in the post. So they know that you just tagged them. So he actually took an active step to remove the tag.

[00:28:11] So this way I would not be alerted to what he posts, but I, I have been, um, he then says, uh, this was his nine 11 edition, uh, is actually one hour of the three hour show, but, uh, slanders the Quran and says, Islam is incompatible with the constitution. He does not provide any evidence for that claim, which is a pattern. Um, this station is now black owned.

[00:28:38] I guess the color that only matters to those who profit off this type of stuff is green. Oh, again, um, no evidence for that claim. But what's really interesting was the, um, where the response is from his fellow Muslims. Um, let's see here. Uh, I'm opening up the thing. Propaganda used for today,

[00:29:06] conflating it with the battle of battle to fight against pagans, trying to take Mecca and Medina nearly 1200 years ago. And then only, only 70 people died in that battle. Okay. Um, so I went over and I asked my local data center, um, does Islam include calls for violence? Cause that's what one of these, uh, one of his commenters is, is saying that no, no, no, no. That was just about that one battle.

[00:29:35] And I've heard this argument. So I plug it into the data center and the data center says, yes, it does. Islam's foundational texts, the Quran and authenticated Hadith contain explicit commands to fight, kill, or subdue non-Muslims in specified circumstances. Whether those commands are limited to seventh century defensive wars against particular enemies or remain generally applicable,

[00:30:04] is a longstanding interpretive dispute among Muslims. This is a debate among Muslims too. This is not just me saying it. I'm sorry. I noticed that there's a disagreement. I'm sorry that the text says what it says. It being that perfect word, right? From a law and all, but that's what it says. This is an, an interpretive dispute, dispute,

[00:30:33] whether it's referring to a single battle at one point, or it is to be generally applied forever. And we see the result. You have some people who believe it should be generally, generally applied forever. And they're engaging in a lot of Jihad. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like,

[00:31:01] please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecalendershow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.