Battlefield: Education
"Most of the material is not 'new' to a curriculum designed for this age. It is simply being given fresh illumination." - A Realistic Approach to Civil Defense: A Handbook for School Administrators, American Association of School Administrators 1966
Civil Defense had a presence in the nation's public education system more than anywhere else. Elementary social studies curriculum emphasized community and preparedness and high schools became the training grounds for a new generation of experts in the sciences and math to ensure the U.S. remained a step ahead of the Soviets for at least another generation.
Schools were also the staging grounds for participation through Parent-Teacher organizations, who organized rehearsals of evacuation drills and made other resources and training available. These institutions were centralized in communities as well; and therefore housed a large percentage of the public fallout shelters. For the entire Cold War, schools played the most strategic role as the mediator between national civil defense procedure and local communities.
In 1951, the Federal Civil Defense Administration produced the film "Duck and Cover." which became the most iconic tool for civil defense in the Cold War era. In this 9 minute animated film, children were introduced to Bert the Turtle, who taught them how to react during an attack, because "there might not be any grownups around whent the bomb explodes."
Click on the play icon to the right and discover how children were taught civil defense during the 1950s. Would these types of civil defense efforts work effectively? How is the message delivered and why is it delivered that that way?
from the archive
In 1956, the Fulton County School System drafted a resolution pledging cooperation with the Atlanta municipal authorities for civil defense.
All Fulton County School System employees would be the agency's "representatives" when conducting civil defense exercises and drills. Click on this document and examine how this resolution was worded.
As the world was rapidly changing, Cold War policies were projected to students through a curriculum that embraced certain ideologies and put an emphasis on subjects that could sustain the future of democracy. As a result, local school systems took advantage of funding and new technologies made available through the federal government in order to reinforce this message. Excerpts from the Fulton County Board of Education Minutes from this era offer evidence for us to examine.
Click on the first document (top, left) to open a lesson plan for high school students that engages these ideological differences.
Click on the next document (top, right) to discover how federal funding was made available to local schools to promote sciences and foreign languages at a time when their emphasis could be considered strategic.
Click on the document (bottom, left) to see how curriculum was being discussed by educators across the nation.