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The Perils of Nuclear Education
| Article
# : |
12040 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1987 |
2,161 Words |
| Author
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W. Wesley McDonald
W. Wesley McDonald is associate professor of political science
at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. |
ARMAGEDDON IN THE CLASSROOM
An Examination of Nuclear Education
Herbert I. London
Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, Inc.
127 pp.
To introduce a unit on nuclear weapons to a group of tenth graders, they are shown Hiroshima/Nagasaki, a film depicting in grisly detail the horrifying death and maiming of Japanese women and children following the dropping of American atomic bombs. Stunned by the spectacle, one emotionally distraught student asks, "Why did we do it?" "We did it once; we can do it again," the teacher answers. "Whether these weapons of destruction are used depends on you."
After discussing their personal expectations for the future, a seventh-grade social studies class was shocked when their teacher dismissed all their optimistic hopes by grimly observing that "in this world with nuclear weapons no one in this class will be alive in the year 2000."
At a high school in Suffolk County, Long Island, President Truman was put on trial posthumously by students for his decision to drop the atom bomb on Japan. "he was found guilty of crimes against humanity by a vote of 23 to 0."
These are only a few of the many representative examples of so-called nuclear education offered by Herbert London in his lucidly written new book, Armageddon in the Classroom. London, the dean of the Gallatin Division at New York university and a senior fellow
... (1998 of 13081 Characters)
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