"Two Handfuls of Bone and Ash": Teaching Our Children about Hiroshima.

Mr. Kazemek finds that textbook treatments of the bombing of Hiroshima are woefully inadequate to the task of conveying the horors and complexities of the event. Here are his suggestions for resources that will heighten the sensitivity of students and teachers alike. WHAT ARE we teaching our children and young adults about peace and war? What are we doing in our schools to help students understand the consequences of this, the bloodiest century in history? Martin Luther King, Jr., contended that "it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. " Is it possible to make young people both understand and act on his words? Perhaps we can help children grow into adults who will make the 21st century the most peaceful in history. The signs of the times are not encouraging, however. The so-called democratization of Eastern Europe and the breakup of the Soviet Union have unleashed only the first dogs of racism and ethnic violence. The recent wave of militarism, jingoism, and "triumphalism" over our destruction of Iraq is dispiriting. Even more so is the fact that, during Desert Storm, many Americans saw nothing wrong with using tactical nuclear weapons if necessary. And in a frighteningly insane scenario that might have come straight from Kurt Vonnegut, the crew of the Enola Gay has made a national tour of shopping malls -- signing autographs and selling Enola Gay coffee mugs, photographs, videos, and copies of the order authorizing the use of the atomic bomb. [1] We can only shake our heads in wonder. Why do so many adults and children seem so insensitive to or unaware of the horror and tragedy of warfare in general and of nuclear warfare in particular? The answer lies in the way in which the history and effects of war have been presented to the public at large through the various media and to children through their textbooks. Consider the Orwellian misuse of language in the media that helped to deader our moral sensibilities during Desert Storm. For example, ordnance for bombs, removal for killing, and collateral damage for the death of civilians. The fact that at least 100,000 and perhaps 150,030 Iraqis -- human beings -- were killed seems of little import. We won. It still is true, as George Orwell wrote over 50 years ago, that, "in our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. "[2] In order to test my hypothesis concerning the manner in which war is presented to children and young adults in textbooks, I conducted a content analysis of 50 elementary and secondary history and social studies textbooks published during the 19-70s, and 1980s. I focused specifically on one event: the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. I wanted to see how this morally complex action that changed the world forever was presented. I wanted to see if Robert Jay Lifton's assertion turned out to be correct: "Yet one might ask, where is Hiroshima taught? Where are the images that are given to us from Hiroshima at such tragic cost to the victims seized upon, studied, learned from? Not too many places. "[3] The recent of this article is divided into three parts. In the first part, I discuss the results of my content analysis. Next I argue that it is important to teach our young people about Hiroshima honestly. Finally I explore how we might go about doing this through the use of trade books and other resources. HIROSHIMA IN TEXTBOOKS I analyzed the 50 history and social studies textbooks that were available in my university library's curriculum lab. This sample was neither random nor comprehensive. I simply examined all the texts the lab had. However, I believe the sample is broad enough to give us a sense of how textbook authors and publishers have presented the bombing of Hiroshima. What I found was discouraging and served to confirm Daniel Fleming's earlier content analysis of 19 secondary-level world and U.S. history textbooks. [4] Like Fleming, I found little space devoted to the atomic bombing. …