Casualties of War
As this issue of Canadian Social Studies is posted online, the United States seems poised to lead a "coalition of the willing" into a war on Iraq, and the "new world order" that George Bush Sr. proclaimed in the early 1990's has taken on a much more menacing tone than could have been imagined a decade ago.
In the face of the likelihood of an American-led invasion of Iraq, it is important to be mindful of US Senator Hiram Johnson's warning, issued in 1917, that " when it comes to war, the first casualty is truth." Of course in the last 86 years there has been a wealth of bitter experience to demonstrate how well Johnson understood conflict among states; in some senses, we are all "casualties of war"-as is informed public discourse. But given the probability of war and the campaign of disinformation that is its inevitable companion, key questions emerge about our collective and individual responsibilities as social studies educators. How will we encourage and maintain a vigorous and critical discussion about the war among our students? How will we find and make available a balanced range of source material about the conflict? How should we react to the concerns and fears our students express about the war? And finally, how should we respond to the war ourselves, and as a social studies community?
These questions are all the more critical to ask because the terrain of social studies teaching has changed dramatically in the last decade-and not for the better. Results based education, high stakes testing and the rhetoric of "accountability" have significantly decreased the time and curricular space available to teachers in which to take up important issues of current concern. I think it is safe to say that this neo-liberal environment has led to the substantial disenfranchisement of the discipline. Ironically, at the same time that discourses of standardization have effectively narrowed the horizons of social studies to test preparation, social studies classrooms across the country have become much more diverse places and the range of world-views we see among students has never been greater. Unfortunately, the unremitting focus on results-based education has left many social studies teachers ill-prepared to take advantage of the possibilities increasing ethno-cultural diversity has for reengaging the discipline in an investigation of significant social issues such as war.
It seems to me that the impending confrontation in Iraq offers us an important choice as social studies educators. We can continue to follow the dictates of standardization and results-based education-in which case the Iraqi conflict will be a subject for teaching rather than inquiry. Or we can respond to Johnson's implicit challenge to inquire deeply and broadly into the nature of received truth at times of great social upheaval. I think in this latter course of action we return to the historical roots of social studies, open ourselves to a rich and diverse discourse on the nature of the public good, and rediscover our moral purpose.
The Editor