Alan Luxenberg, vice president of the institute and a teacher at religious schools in Philadelphia, says he wants to stop the "airbrushing" of 9/11 -- he says liberal educators are afraid to tell students that the U.S. is at war with a real enemy.

"Reasonable people can disagree with the war in Iraq," he said, "but if we can't tell our children that we are fighting radical Islamists, then we might as well hang it all up because nothing it going to get better."

Six years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Luxenberg is at the front lines of the struggle to define 9/11 for American middle and high school students.

On one side are the conservatives, who Luxenberg says want teachers to speak plainly to their students, and not hide behind politically correct pandering. On the other side is the position supported by the country's largest teacher's union, the National Education Association, which emphasizes tolerance and respect for other cultures as part of its own guidance for teachers.

___

FLOWER FACES VS. NATION AT WAR

In the aftermath of the attacks, the teacher's union helped developed a curriculum where middle school students used "Feeling Flower Faces" to express their feelings about the violence they saw unfold on 9/11. Jerald Newberry, director of the Health Information Network for the union, also developed "100 gentle lessons" to help students express their feelings.

Older students have been taught to examine the complexity of Middle Eastern politics and America's role in global affairs.

Conservatives have come down hard on the union, saying it has allowed political correctness to supersede the importance of teaching children that the country is at war. But John Wilson, executive director of the union, said most teachers are responsible and don't want the war on terror to stir up hatred of Muslims.

"It would be irresponsible to teach children that our enemy is any one culture or religion, and nobody should be painted with one broad brush," he said.

Wilson countered that students are smart enough to learn about all political perspectives.

"Unless you do that, it's a slippery slope," he says. "As (late Supreme Court Justice) Oliver Wendell Holmes put it, free discussion should take place in the marketplace of ideas. We have to be cautious to give diverse opinions."

___

A MIDDLE WAY?

Many educators are trying to stake out a middle ground, and they're deeply worried about this struggle to define the most important event of the 21st century.

Doug Stewart, a political science professor at Dickinson College and former director of the college's Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, was instrumental in setting up a detailed online school curriculum called "Teaching 9/11." The Clarke Forum also held a conference on the third anniversary of the attacks to give teachers prizes for imaginative approaches to teaching 9/11 and the war on terror.

For Stewart, the challenge lies in finding a way between the "let's-kick-some-butt camp" on the right, and the "extreme tolerance" left.

Within six months of 9/11, he noticed an "unhealthy reaction" among students and the general public alike.

The debate was being driven by groups like the National Education Association, who he says saw it as "a way of promoting their own issues, such as inclusion," as well as organizations like the Lynne Cheney-backed Fordham Foundation, which has accused the NEA of failing to put America first.

In response to both sides, Stewart produced a comprehensive teaching plan for middle and high schools. This way teachers could make their own decisions on how to proceed, rather than letting instruction be defined by "influential interest groups."

"I pity all teachers trying to get a curriculum with these two forces pulling them apart," he said.

___

THE PATH OF A FLAG

Stewart's model is a teacher named Tracey Paxman in Bettendorf, Ohio, who won a prize for teaching about 9/11 at the Clarke Forum conference. Her sixth- and seventh-grade students were asked to send an American flag to troops in Iraq and study the countries it passed through along the way.

"OK, it was a little kitschy, but it was very imaginative and nicely done," Stewart says.

He believes the "Teaching 9/11" materials are a welcome alternative to the cacophony of political squabbling that crescendos every September.

"We're not teaching what to teach," he said. "We're just giving teachers the materials to do it.

"We put it out there and say, 'Now, it's up to you.'"

___

asap contributor Sean O'Driscoll is based in New York, where he writes for the Irish Times.

___

Want to comment? Sound off at soundoffasap@ap.org.