Most people don't like the war, they still think we should be there, in Iraq. It's because we have to show the terrorists that they can't do whatever they want and think they can get away with it. THESE ARE the words of Arianna, a seventh-grade middle school student. Arianna's views have probably been influenced far more by the mass media than by anything she has learned in school. Like many of the 22 adolescents I interviewed, Arianna ranks her teachers last as a source of information about the war--far behind TV news, the Internet, newspapers, and family members. teachers at my school don't talk about she reports. So for Arianna and perhaps many other students, information about the war in Iraq falls into the null curriculum--that which schools do not teach. (1) In the spring of 2005 I asked middle school and high school students what they thought about the Iraq War, what they had learned about the war in school, and what they would like to learn. Their answers suggest such a variety of beliefs that is difficult to generalize about typical adolescent points of view. Like adults, these young people held views ranging from staunch support for the war to passionate disapproval. Yet some similar ideas were often repeated. One of the most recurrent themes was for adolescents to regard the war in Iraq, especially in relation to their own lives, as a non-issue issue. (2) There were a number of reasons for this sense of personal disconnection. Only two of the students I interviewed had close family members serving in Iraq. For these individuals, the war was immediately present in their lives and often frighteningly real. But most of the other students spoke of the war with a marked degree of indifference. While daily media reports of the war were pervasive at the time of the study, the students often spoke of themselves as uninterested and removed. Paradoxically, they seemed to regard the war as eventful, even controversial, also of little consequence to their daily lives. THE WAR AS NULL CURRICULUM One high school junior mentioned that his social studies teacher had copied and distributed a news article on war refugees for class discussion. Another student told me that her math teacher's son was serving in Iraq and that the teacher sometimes spoke critically of the war. However, the students made note of these examples precisely because they were out of the ordinary. The students reported overwhelmingly that the war was not discussed--or even mentioned--in any of their classes. The brief discussion of war refugees in the social studies classroom was the only example a student gave of information about the war being included in anything that could be considered a formal lesson. One student mentioned that fellow students had raised the topic in her World Today course. Our teacher allowed us to talk about she said, but he didn't encourage it, and he won't give his own opinions. Despite my persistent questioning, student responses fell along the lines of We just don't talk about it and My teachers never bring up. When asked why they thought this was the case, the students were quick to say that the war was just too controversial to discuss in school. Teachers don't want to hurt anyone's feelings or be insensitive, one student explained. Another commented that no one wants to make waves. A third student concluded, Schools aren't very comfortable with this kind of thing. They don't want to seem like they're taking sides. Nevertheless, sharp divisions between pro- and antiwar sentiments were not borne out in the particular beliefs expressed by the very same students who warned about the dangers of addressing controversial topics in schools. Here are a range of the students' opinions: I think the future of Iraq is unclear, we'll need to have a strong military presence there for a long time. …