There’s a good read at Foreign Policy about the misperceptions that contribute to the debate about Afghanistan. It has a list of the limited number of Afghanistan experts in the United States. Several of these scholars helped Choices with its curriculum unit The United States in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan will continue to be a topic of debate in U.S. foreign policy, and will likely garner extra attention because of the presidential election. Our curriculum materials are a good way to bring the expertise of those few scholars of Afghanistan into classrooms and then on into the hands of students. Watch the video clip to get a sense of what they have to offer and some the issues raised in the unit.
About Andy Blackadar
Andy Blackadar is the director of curriculum development for the Choices Education Program at Brown University where he leads the curriculum development team. Andy also is a research associate at the Watson Institute for International Studies. Andy is a former high school teacher and administrator with eight years of experience teaching in the United States and Brazil. Prior to joining the Choices Program, Andy was the Project Manager for the Humanitarianism and War Project at the Watson Institute where he managed the project and contributed research on the nature of warfare in the twentieth century. Since joining the Choices Program, Andy has overseen the introduction of twenty-five new topics to the Choices curriculum series including, most recently, The United States in Afghanistan, which won the 2012 Franklin Buchanan Prize from the Association for Asian Studies for an outstanding curriculum publication on Asia. Andy holds a B.A. in English from Bates College and an M.I.A. from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. At Columbia, Andy was chosen as an International Fellow.
