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As students across the country grapple with issues surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, educators too are engaged in discussions about how to approach the difficult subject.

Despite various criticisms, Web sites and school boards provide a variety of resources teachers can use to create lesson plans addressing issues related to Sept. 11.

The www.teaching9-11.org Web site, created by the Clarke Center at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, offers a listing of resources, sample lesson plans and syllabi for educators to share with each other, including educational sites on the Taliban and lessons on promoting tolerance.

“We just want people to share what they are doing so they can incorporate these things in a way that is comfortable to them in the classroom,” said Clarke Center Director Michele Hassinger. “We did not get into any suggested way of teaching because everybody has different ideas.”

The National Educators Association also established a Web site to help guide parents and educators, called “Remember Sept. 11.” The site provides links to other news sites as well as a link to 120 lesson plans.

The lesson plans are meant to help students talk about frightening events and become critical viewers of the media, and help children feel safe in the aftermath of Sept. 11, according to a “Guidance from the American Red Cross” posting on the site.

The NEA’s Web site has been under fire recently by some who feel it places too much emphasis on feelings instead of facts, and by others who are upset by some of the content posted on the site.

In a column titled “Teaching 9/11 Lies,” syndicated columnist George Will cites three things that make the Web site a “national menace” – a condescending attitude toward parents, a politically correct obsession with diversity and America’s sins and a therapeutic, not educational, focus.

“Teachers are urged to be mere enablers,” he wrote. “Which probably means assuring students that Sept. 11 is about their serenity, not about their nation and its rigors in responding to the world’s dangers.”

Because of the onslaught of media attention and recent criticisms, the NEA responded with a news release posted on the site.

“Using this national tragedy to attempt to score political points is a new low, and we urge visitors to make their own assessments of (the site’s) value,” the release said. “We are confident that most will find the site quite useful in helping our young people cope with the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.”

Universities are another major target of criticism regarding their approach to teaching Sept. 11. They are attacked primarily for presenting America in an unfavorable way and leading discussions based on the self-interests of the professors.

In October of 2001, a report titled “Defending Civilization: How Our Universities are Failing America” condemned colleges for a “blame America first” response and for reflecting a “shocking divide between academe and the public at large.”

The report, published by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a nonprofit educational organization, says colleges can still be subjected to criticism even though they have the freedom to discuss the issues however they choose.

Critics specifically targeted professors at UCLA last year, after the school pioneered 50 “Perspectives on Sept. 11” seminar courses created to help students and teachers explore issues that emerged from the attacks.

But despite accusations that professors were turning the subject into “sentimental psychobabble” and teaching “politically correct pseudo-courses,” seminar instructors and their students found the classes to be valuable.

“The objection seemed to be that people were reacting emotionally and that it was simply academically inappropriate to deal with topics like that in a classroom,” said provost Brian Copenhaver, who also taught the “War, Terror and Violence: Reflecting on Machiavelli” seminar.

“I find that wrong-headed and wildly out of line with the whole experience of education in general,” he said.

French and francophone studies professor Eric Gans, instructor of the “Culture and the Deferral of Violence” seminar, felt the criticisms were unwarranted because teachers were not using the courses to pursue self-interests, but rather to help understand the traumatic events.

One seminar, taught by art history professor Albert Boime, received attention for its name alone, “Navigating between Blithesome Optimism and Cultural Despair.”

Boime said he was astonished by the criticisms at first, but then understood they stemmed from “conservative voices that could not break from the mid-line ideology at the time.”

“We need to keep a level of seriousness and commitment to maintain an independent and self-critical position and not feel that we are under pressure to tow any mainline reasoning,” he said.

Other seminars offered include “Understanding the Taliban,” “National Security in the 21st Century,” and “Beyond Tears: Evidence, Fact and Crisis.”

In an evaluation of the seminars, 40 percent of students said the courses helped them understand the Sept. 11 events “very much,” and 35 percent a “fair amount.”

Educators at the K-12 level are also discussing how to best tailor Sept. 11 material for their students,

At Emerson Middle School students wrote reflections about the event to read today for the anniversary. University High School student leadership plans to make visitations to classrooms, but the student council has not finalized its program.

“A lot of what the campuses have been focusing on is just hearing the kids’ concerns and confusion and helping them work through those feelings and questions,” said Caprice Young, board president of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Since teachers know their students the best, Sept. 11 curriculum will be left to the individuals to decide, rather than following strict board guidelines, Young said.

“This is an opportunity to embrace the diversity that is in our schools – that is the real message,” Young said.