A Curriculum of Fear: Homeland Security in U.S. Public Schools

301 Pages·2016·5.691 MB·English

by  Nicole Nguyen

A Curriculum of Fear
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A Curriculum of Fear
Homeland Security
in U.S. Public Schools
Nicole Nguyen
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
Copyright 2016 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All photographs are by the author, unless otherwise credited.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the
publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401- 2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal- opportunity educator and employer.
21 20 19 18 17 16 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Nguyen, Nicole, author.
Title: A curriculum of fear : homeland security in US public schools / Nicole Nguyen.
Description: Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015039886 | ISBN 978-0-8166-9826-4 (hc) | ISBN 978-0-8166-9828-8 (pb)
Subjects: LCSH: National security—United States. | Terrorism—United States—Prevention. |
Public schools—United States.
Classification: LCC HV6432 .N55 2016 | DDC 363.325072/073—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015039886
Contents
Introduction Welcome to Milton High 1
Chapter 1. Teaching War and Feeling Fear 15
Public School Reform during the Global War on Terror
Chapter 2. The Covert Researcher 45
The Ethics of a School Ethnography
Chapter 3. This Is Your Future 73
Militarizing the Dreams of Students
Chapter 4. Teaching Terrorism 127
Inside the Homeland Security Program
Chapter 5. Student, Terrorist, or Patriot? 185
Learning to Fear, Mourn, and Love after September 11
Conclusion Thinking Differently While under Siege 235
Acknowledgments 245
Notes 247
Bibliography 261
Index 279

Introduction
Welcome to Milton High
As I did most mornings in the field, I drove up to Milton High School’s
faculty parking lot, passing through a barbed wire– lined chain link
fence that wound its way around the school.1 Two signs welcomed me
onto Milton public school property, which rests on the edge of the Fort
Milton military base in the greater D.C. area: “Warning: Restricted
Area” and “This area patrolled by military working dogs.” After park-
ing, I walked to the front of the school and bound up the long set of
stairs, nodding hello to two students hanging out on a blue metal bench
marked with the school’s logo. On my way, I noticed two police cars
parked out front, one more than usual.
I knew the school’s front doors would be locked, so I peered through
the small windows next to the steel doors in search of a student who
might open them so I could avoid buzzing the main office. Soon enough,
a student pushed open one of the doors for me. After I walked in, he
glanced outside for any other stragglers. I then reported directly to the
main office, following the signs that asked me to do so. I maneuvered
around dillydallying students who, late to class, dragged their feet even
more to spite the teacher who chided them as she passed by. On my way,
I found that the cheerful murals of the Capitol and Statue of Liberty
brightened the school’s windowless but clean hallways.
Once in the main office, I routinely handed over my driver’s license to
the school secretary, who scanned its barcode into her computer. Using
the data attached to my driver’s license, the school computer ran my
name through Raptor’s vSoft visitor management software, which de-
tects registered sex offenders and those with a record of domestic vio-
lence. My presence in the school required that I submit an official form
of identification and that I comply with this background check each
time I entered the school.2 While I waited for the computer to complete
its scan, I turned around to sign the school logbook. I documented who
- 2 - Introduction
I was, when I entered the building, and where I intended to go. Looking
up at the clock to record the time, I took a minute to glance at the color
TV monitors displaying real- time images from the school’s security
cameras.
Behind me, administrator walkie- talkies buzzed with activity, call-
ing school staff to classrooms to remove disruptive students and re-
minding administrators of meetings to which they were already late.
Students bustled in and out of the main office in search of a late pass,
a missing notebook, a friend. A parent waiting for a meeting with the
principal nervously tapped her foot. I smiled. On this April morning
several months into my fieldwork at Milton, the cadences of the school
day felt familiar, with these scenes predictably playing out in similar
fashion each time I visited the school.
Turning back, the school secretary reached out with a visitor sticker
that displayed the photo from my license, my name, the date and time of
my entry, and my destination. As I took the sticker, my eyes wandered to
a small, telephone- like device behind the secretary. Surveillance video
from a camera perched above the school’s front doors circuited to this
device and allowed me to watch as a parent rang the main office for
entry into the school. After checking this screen, the secretary pressed
a button that momentarily unlocked the front door.
Peeling off the back of my visitor badge, I pressed the sticker to my
chest. Looking down, I checked that the sticker stuck and was clearly
visible to the police officers and hall monitors patrolling Milton. A hall
monitor had recently chastised me for not submitting to these security
procedures, and so I intended to show my full compliance, at least for
one day. Holding the door open for the newly arrived parent, I thanked
the secretary and turned to head to the class I was set to observe that
day: Foundations of Homeland Security 1, a required course for stu-
dents enrolled in the public school’s specialized Homeland Security
program.
On that spring day, I observed ninth- grade students in the Founda-
tions of Homeland Security 1 class discuss with their teacher “Besides
death, why would a terrorist attack U.S. agriculture?” As the teacher
explained to her eager students about the economics of the U.S. food
supply and the deaths that could result from the movement of contami-
nated foods across state lines, I wondered, how did the United States
Introduction - 3 -
get here? What investments and social structures made this discussion
about terrorism and national security3 in a U.S. public high school not
only possible but frighteningly normalized?
Opening the Doors to the National Security Industry
Having observed and interacted with mostly ninth- and tenth- grade stu-
dents at Milton, my first real conversation with eleventh grader Jamal
occurred when I formally interviewed him toward the end of the school
year. A soft- spoken and polite Black boy with braces, Jamal enrolled in
Milton’s Homeland Security program in his freshman year and was on
track to graduate with a geographic information systems (GIS) certifi-
cation that would qualify him for entry- level map- making jobs as a GIS
technician. Given his training, Jamal intended to pursue a career in the
cybersecurity industry for either the government or the private sector.
He was even in the process of obtaining a “top secret” security clear-
ance for a summer internship at the National Security Agency (NSA).
In his interview, Jamal reflected on his time in Milton’s Homeland
Security program, tracing what he learned, the opportunities made
available to him, and his new career goals:
I came in not knowing anything about terrorism and, you know,
you learn a lot of information and background on it. And also get op-
portunities you wouldn’t really expect to get. And, okay, so, what can
I do? They kind of help you with your career and even make sure your
grades are on point. . . . It might be like for the government ’cause,
like, GIS, I’ve thought about opportunities. You don’t even have to
work for the government. You could work for private companies. So
it gives you a lot of options to think about. . . . And I’m meeting good
people. For instance, internship opportunities: one of the intern-
ship opportunities I was given was for NSA. I was an intern for DISA,
for the Defense Information Systems Agency, and I met some good
people. . . . And, that’s probably the best part of this program is you
get lots of experience. You meet lots of people, high people like mili-
tary generals.
In meeting “high people” through the Homeland Security program,
Jamal landed a potential internship with the NSA. Like most jobs at the