Medal of Honor Legacy: War on Terror is a week-long professional development seminar that examines the origins, conduct, and continuing legacy of the American response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Combining history, foreign policy, firsthand testimony, field study, and classroom pedagogy, the program will help teachers place 9/11 and the wars that followed within the broader history of American national security and foreign policy.
Participants will trace the development of Islamist terrorism and the emergence of al-Qaeda, examine the circumstances that led to 9/11, and consider the difficult strategic and constitutional questions confronting the United States after the attacks. The seminar will explore the war in Afghanistan, the relationship between the War on Terror and the Iraq War, the rise and defeat of ISIS’s territorial caliphate, and the continuing challenges posed by terrorist organizations and state-supported proxies in the Middle East.
A full-day field study in New York City will take participants to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, where the physical landscape, artifacts, and personal stories of September 11 will provide an essential encounter with the human consequences of the attacks and their place in American public memory. The seminar will also connect this history to the experiences of the Americans who fought in the conflicts that followed.
A Medal of Honor Recipient from the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan will share a firsthand account of combat, leadership, courage, and sacrifice. Teachers will visit Founding Forward’s Medal of Honor Grove and participate in dedicated Medal of Honor Character Development Program training, learning how to use the stories of Medal of Honor Recipients to explore such qualities as courage, commitment, integrity, sacrifice, citizenship, and patriotism with their students.
By bringing together scholarly analysis, historic sites, firsthand testimony, and practical pedagogy, Medal of Honor Legacy: War on Terror will give educators the historical context and classroom resources necessary to teach one of the most consequential and increasingly historical periods in recent American history.
Typically scheduled from Sunday through Friday in the summer, Founding Forward’s week-long teacher seminars are hosted at Union League Liberty Hill, a 300+ acre private conference center and golf course in suburban Philadelphia. Each seminar has a single theme and consists of content-focused talks by highly regarded scholars (morning and afternoon) interspersed each day with activation sessions featuring either lesson demonstrations from master teachers and presentation from resource providers like Retro Report or Periodic Presidents. Finally, each seminar includes an out-of-classroom field study to historic sites, archives, and museums.
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