One year ago, when the nation's schoolhouses echoed with debate about imminent war, two Normal Community High School freshmen shared a moral certainty that it was America's duty to invade Iraq and destroy weapons of mass destruction. Today they could hardly disagree more.
Anthony Hamer feels vindicated. ''When we captured Saddam, that reduced the threat,'' he said in a class discussion here.
What threat, countered Alex Oswald, who, like Anthony, is a sophomore. ''The government said Iraq's weapons put us in danger, but now they say there may not have been any. So the government has somewhat destroyed its credibility.''
For millions of American students, the invasion of Iraq brought a torrent of hard lessons about war, contemporary history and big-power politics. Thousands of high school teachers viewed the invasion as a teachable moment, and they offered crash courses in Mideast geography and Islamic history, and civics lessons on how a democracy goes to war.
A year later, the lessons continue, and many students -- once vehemently for or against the war -- now offer more nuanced or changed opinions. In recent months, students' debates have focused on how America should secure the peace and what international role is proper for the nation now. In some schools, the realities of war have become a little less abstract. Returning soldiers have told of harsh conditions -- the fear, the fatigue, the daily fact of death.Continue reading the main story
Technology has also brought the war closer, too. Students are discussing the conflict over the Internet with teenage Iraqi pen pals, who tell them the day-to-day details of their lives, including their brushes with violence. Others, in overseas study programs, have heard the sting of reproach from foreign teenagers who resent America's assertive foreign policy.
The fascination with Iraq has not gone away, enabling educators to stimulate even broader interest in international affairs, many teachers say.
''It's like building a house,'' said Kelly Keogh, the social studies teacher who organized the classroom debates here. ''Teach them history. Give them analytical tools. Then let them wrangle with contemporary issues, and they'll take ownership and ask their own questions.''
Students in Mr. Keogh's world studies class in this university town 114 miles southwest of Chicago said they had previously paid little attention to foreign news, but since the invasion many are following the Iraq story on television and the Internet and a few read The Pantagraph, the local newspaper. Others are reading books on foreign policy.
They are not alone. Students at high schools from Connecticut to California have been following the invasion's turbulent aftermath.
One student who now sees grays where once the war was black and white is Erin McCann, a senior at John Mall High School in Walsenburg, Colo., 150 miles south of Denver. Most students there were ''pro-war, kill 'em all, blow 'em up,'' she said, and when she stood in the cafeteria during an assembly a year ago to speak in favor of the invasion, they roared their approval. Students remained largely silent, however, when her friend, Karen Bressan, stood to argue that it could be destabilizing to invade Iraq without provocation.
Last fall, after it became clear that America faced a bloody insurgency and that no doomsday weapons were turning up, the two girls discussed the war again. Ms. Bressan said in an interview that she could not resist the temptation to gloat.
''Honey,'' Ms. Bressan said she told Ms. McCann, ''unless you can show me something new, I'd say I win this argument.'' Ms. McCann said that she learned the importance of being skeptical of government claims but that she is still hopeful the war will have a positive result.
''The more information I get, the more my views shift,'' she said, ''but I still think Saddam was an evil man. So maybe this war will turn out to be a good thing.''
Opinion pollsters do not systematically track the views of Americans under 18, but Ms. McCann's skepticism of government-intelligence claims appears to mirror that of a majority of American adults. A recent New York Times poll found that 6 in 10 of those polled felt the Bush administration had been hiding information about the existence of weapons of mass destruction, yet several other recent polls have shown that a majority still believe it was right to invade.
''People say, 'Yes, it would have been better if they'd found weapons, but we still support the decision for war,''' said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center.
But American views differ significantly from those prevalent in much of the rest of the world, as some students, including David Poli from Illinois learned first-hand. One year ago, Mr. Poli, then a senior at Maine South High School in Park Ridge, was studying about Iraq in a social studies class and concluded that President Bush was correct in ordering a pre-emptive invasion. ''We needed to be aggressive,'' he said.
Then Mr. Poli spent the summer studying in Italy.
''I wasn't around Americans at all, but with students from around the world,'' Mr. Poli said. ''They all said that Bush was selfish and greedy to have invaded Iraq. It was very different from the way people view it here. Now I think Bush did this war for oil. That's my basic opinion.''
Students at the Metropolitan Learning Center, a public school in Bloomfield, Conn., have gotten a first-hand viewpoint on post-war Iraq -- over the Internet.
Katie Loubier, a junior, said she exchanged e-mail messages with Ruba, an Iraqi girl with whom she has struck up a friendship. Before the invasion, a satellite television linkup enabled students in Baghdad and Connecticut to converse about the impending war and other topics, like hip-hop music. Since then, Ms. Loubier has become so concerned for Ruba's safety that she cannot bear to watch news reports out of Baghdad. ''Ruba's house was kind of shot up a bit recently,'' she said.
Students learned another lesson as well. During the March 3, 2003, television linkup, the Iraqi students betrayed no dissatisfaction with their government. But after the invasion, during a second linkup, at least one Iraqi student confided that she had not spoken candidly before the war. She was glad to be rid of the Hussein regime.
''They couldn't say what they thought the first time because they were under control,'' said Craig Kulas, also a junior at Metropolitan. ''But in June, some Iraqi students said they liked that the U.S. had gotten rid of Saddam. So it was interesting to see the change.''
In Connecticut, Mr. Kulas was outnumbered by antiwar classmates. At Stafford High School in Falmouth, Va., Tiffanie Woods and two other girls in a global issues class who opposed the war were outnumbered in a debate a year ago with a dozen boys who favored it.
That taught Ms. Woods the importance of marshaling strong evidence to support one's arguments, a lesson that in her view President Bush did not heed before the war, she said the other day.
''I don't think President Bush had sufficient evidence to go to war, even though we did capture Saddam,'' said Ms. Woods, whose mother is an Army sergeant. ''I feel like they lied to us on the weapons.''
Sarah Roeske, Ms. Woods's global issues teacher, said that a year of watching Iraq has helped her students embrace a more detailed view of post-war Iraq. At least half her students are uncomfortable with America's role in Iraq as an occupation force, Ms. Roeske said.
''But they all understand that we can't just pull out, either,'' she said.Continue reading the main story