Random Thoughts From Marybeth

Unbiased or Unhinged?

Both of my mother's parents died when I was young. I regret that I didn't have a chance to know them better and learn more about their lives but when I read articles like this, I am also sorry that I didn't have the chance to thank them for leaving England and moving to the U.S.

Teaching packs entitled 9/11: The Main Chance, which invite pupils to imagine organising a terrorist attack, have been distributed to schools running the Government’s much-vaunted citizenship classes.

One worksheet asks the pupils to imagine what terrorist targets there are in their neighbourhoods. They have then to suggest what weapons and methods should be used to ensure the most effective results.

At the end of the worksheets, which are funded through the Government’s neighbourhood renewal programmes, a number of links to other terrorism-related articles are listed including one on food terrorism and how fast-food chains, for example, could be attacked. Another article is headlined “How safe is our water?” A series of links to websites on the September 11 atrocity, in which 2,986 people were killed when al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked and crashed four planes, are also listed on the worksheets.

Many of the sites propound outlandish conspiracy theories on the atrocity including the suggestion that the American military shot down flight United 93.

Another link takes pupils to a website which suggests that Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President, directed the attacks, while another “news” website the worksheets encourage pupils to visit includes references to images of Satan appearing in smoke over the Twin Towers on September 11.

Tim Window, one of the creators of 9/11: The Main Chance, said that the packs had been used with great success at a pupil referral unit he works at in East London before they were introduced across the borough of Waltham Forest.

Mr Window denied that the packs were culturally insensitive and said that they were about teaching pupils to bring “impartial and unbiased information” to a subject.