Here is an interesting story published recently regarding the release of a colouring book for young children explaining the events of the 9/11 tragedy 10 years ago.
If the idea of memorialising an event such as this in this fashion isn't strange enough, the blurb on the inside takes the cake. According to the story, it is full of factual inaccuracies and falsehoods, but more worryingly, it takes a pro-American, anti-Muslim view of the events.
The fact that Muslims are labelled as "extremist", "terrorist" and "anti-freedom" is of some concern. The target demographic (ages birth to around 8, I'd image) is largely unable to comprehend any sense of reasoning here. Everything they understand is, for want of a better term, black or white; no shades of grey. That comes with the ability to think in abstract terms into the high school years.
For the most part, kids of this age group believe almost blindly what their parents and teachers tell them. This in itself is not a bad thing. What IS a bad thing is when the kids are told something that is inaccurate, and they take to believing that in the same way. Explaining this to kids in this fashion is likely to make it easy to understand, but I do see potential for kids to assume wrongful views based on biased information.
Kids of all ages need to be given information that presents a cohesive view of the world. Most kids under the age of 10 can see both sides without getting confused. It's not hard to say that "a handful of bad people did bad things to innocent Americans. The bad guys identified themselves as "Muslims", but not every Muslim is a bad guy like them. Not everyone agrees with what these bad guys did. Killing people is wrong etc etc etc..."
Where were you when you heard about the 9/11 tragedy??
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