1. Start with a statement about what you did and how you felt during the
events that took place. Encourage students to do the same.
2. Facilitate relatively unstructured discussions that would allow students
to share information about their experiences, ask questions, and express their
feelings.
3. Discuss stereotyping and prejudice, some politics, and allow students to
air their views, anger, grief, sadness, etc.
4. Explain how various psychological concepts are operating around the
country and world.
5. Encourage students to have an open mind.
6. Discuss individual differences in how people of different diverse groups
think, feel, and act.
7. Display understanding and empathy for all their values, beliefs, and
attitudes.
8. Discuss the relationship between the self-esteem literature and the
consciousness and actions of a country and society.
9. Discuss how the incident and the subsequent violence fit the
self-presentational strategy of intimidation.
10. Discuss how our reactions as victims resemble the fear of those who
experience hate crimes with the feelings of vulnerability related to our
identities as U.S. citizens.
11. Discuss the literature on ingroup bias, the violation of our belief in a
just world, and the physiological effects of unpredictable and uncontrollable
stress.
12. Discuss the role of religion in the tragedy. For information on this
topic visit:
http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig
http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/fundamental.html
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/8874.html
13. Review the literature on the bystander Intervention model of helping,
conflict resolution, problem solving, peace studies, aggression,
deindividuation, “mob behavior,” attributions, intergroup conflict, group
dynamics, and outgroup homogeneity bias.
14. Visit this website:
http://www.wmsu.org/programs/jean_baker.htm
It includes basic critical incidence debriefing information for teachers
and includes web resources.
15. Suggest that your nontraditional students who may wonder what to tell
their children visit:
http://www.ces.purdue.edu/terrorism/children/index.html
16. The Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology has materials on peace,
genocide, conflict, and human rights. Visit:
http://www.lemoyne.edu/OTRP/teachingresources.html#diversity
17. Review the “Training Manual for Mental Health and Human Service
Workers in Major Disaster.” Visit:
http://www.mentalhealth.org/publications/allpubs/ADM90-538/
18. Review the “Disaster Mental Health Guidebook.” Visit:
http://www.wramc.amedd.army.mil/departments/socialwork/provider/DMHS.htm
19. To obtain a very extensive set of links pertaining to disasters and
recovery that can be used as the basis for handouts when teaching about crisis
intervention visit:
http://www.trauma-pages.com/
20.
Invite someone to speak to your class who has a close, warm friendship
with
an Arab-American. Class discussion can focus on extended contact,
contact
theory in general, the “inclusion of other in the self” model and
the
Robber's Cave studies.
21.
Recognize the importance of training providers to be responsive to PTSD
symptomology.
To learn more visit the National Organization for Victim
Assistance
http://www.try-nova.org/
22.
If relevant to course curriculum, encourage students to read materials on
the
group dynamics of terrorist groups. The following papers can be used as a
basis
for discussion:
McCauley,
C. R., & Segal, M. E. (1987). The social psychology of terrorist
groups.
In C. Hendrick (Ed.), Group processes and intergroup relations.
Review
of personality and social psychology (Vol. 9, pp. 231-256). Thousand
Oaks,
CA: Sage.
Post,
J. M. (1987). Rewarding fire with fire: Effects of retaliation on
terrorist
group dynamics. Terrorism: An international journal, 10, 23-36.
[This
paper is sometimes listed in some database with the following title:
"It's
us against them": The group dynamics of political terrorism.]
23. General references to use in teaching:
Baumeister, R. F. (1999). Evil: Inside human violence and cruelty. New
York: Freeman.
Beck, A. T. (1999). Prisoners of hate: The cognitive basis of anger,
hostility, and violence. New York: HarperCollins.
Kressel, N. J. (1996). Mass hate: The global rise of genocide and terror.
New York: Plenum.
Lerner, R. M. (1992). Final solutions: Biology, prejudice, and genocide.
University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Staub, E. (1989). The roots of evil: The origins of genocide and other
group violence. New York: Cambridge University Press.
