The Death of Osama Bin Laden-A Teachable Moment

The Teachable Moment

Every now and again, an event occurs that just jumps out at a classroom teacher saying this is a golden opportunity to create a relevance between  current events and history. Whether you are teaching geography, social studies,civics or current events, the death of Osama Bin Laden is one of those opportunities that should not be passed up.

There are any number of web sites that would be excellent teaching tools for classroom teachers.

You could direct student to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list where they can see the poster of Osama Bin Laden, with the caption in red and white showing “deceased” at the bottom. The web address ishttp://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_by_the_fbi.

 Another unique opportunity is to have students access the web page of Al Jazeera, the Arab news agency. Here students can obtain, in English, another perspective. They can read how the Arab world is responding to the death of Bin Laden.  Go to http://english.aljazeera.net/.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/ This is the official web site of the White House. Currently you can view video clips and photos about the US government’s successful plan to get Osama Bin laden.

There are many other links to this site, including the story of the White House as an historical building and stories about its past residents.

Additional information about the Bin Laden death can be found at the Defense Department’s web site, http://www.defense.gov/

The major news networks all have links to many of the back stories that have come to the forefront as a result of the Bin Laden killing. http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=13505793  is just one example.

Last week as part of the James Madison program at Princeton University, a panel discussion was held to discuss the impact of Bin Laden’s death. One of the recurring issues was the role of the Pakistani government.  Many of the participants found it incredulous that Osama Bin Laden had been hiding in a town with a military academy only 35 miles from Islamabad for five years. (Incompetence or duplicity)

One of the other issues was the resolve of the US government. This Special Forces mission, ten years in the making, proved to the world that when the US makes a commitment to bring a terrorist to justice, it makes good on its word.

There are many issues that make for great class discussions. Take advantage of them. Your students are ready.