Contribute

Nuclear culture is built on stories and experiences.

Tell us about your experiences learning or discussing nuclear weapons in the contact form below and they will appear on this site.

Submission Guidelines

Please submit around 50-500 words on your experience. Please mention your name, age, and the country where you had your educational experience. It can be from anywhere in the world. I can also just use your initials or say anonymous if you prefer (but please mention age and country).

Example:

In high school, I was given a presentation justifying why America needed to drop two nuclear bombs (fear of the american lives lost if there was a iland invasion of Japan). After that, we had to debate for 30 minutes about whether or not bombing Japan was justified or not. But because we were only given one-sided information, most of the class took the side of America.

-Charlotte Yeung, 21, America (Indiana)

Contact

Email
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Testimonies

  • I have taken 日本史A in Senior High School, What i recalled from learning Japanese History, the textbook may be direct and plain with explaining history compared to american history. The teacher simply explains the connections of the events. My experience was very factual and memorization heavy. Starting from the Japanese Meiji period up to world war 2. It was very rushed as most students needed to prepare for the university entrance exams. Mostly what came for the tests and exams were Names, places and dates which is why the textbook plainly illustrates the information in a way for students to actually memorize faster. Although, when it came to discussing whether it was right or wrong never came into question. Rather, the narrative is because of the soviet pressure and the nuclear bomb that Japan had to surrender. Russo-Japanese History is given more equal value, compared perhaps with American textbooks. Again, as I mentioned since WW2 history is at the end of the textbooks, it is possible that most classes don't cover it as thoroughly as other parts of the entire Japanese History. Even more impossible for World History B classes.

    -M.K, 22, Japan

  • The first mention of nuclear weapons I heard on TV when I was about 13-14 years old. It was a Russian news program, where, as far as I remember, they talked about how large the arsenal of such weapons Russia has. A more detailed acquaintance with nuclear weapons occurred already in the 11th grade (this is high school) at a history lesson. We were going through the period of modern and contemporary history, which fell under the invention, usage and testing of nuclear weapons. But this was very superficial information. However, I began to study the information about nuclear weapons in more detail on my own, after reading in the textbook on the History of Uzbekistan that Uzbekistan is a member of the nuclear-free zone treaty in Central Asia. My newfound awareness of Uzbekistan's nuclear-free status sparked a curiosity within me. I wanted to understand the reasoning behind.

    Mansur, 22, Uzbekistan

  • Growing up in Norway, my only encounter with nuclear weapons in school was through World War 2 history in history class. We did not learn much specific history, other than how the US dropped two bombs that ended the war, but it was presumed that it was not necessary. However, our teachers stressed that there was no way of knowing. We learned about the humanitarian effects of the bombs to some small extent, with examples such as burns, cancer, radiation sickness etc. However, the medical effects were heavily contextualized through the Fukushima Accident of 2011 (when I was in 8th grade / 12-13 years old). Without the accident to contextualize it, I’m not sure how much in depth we would have gone education wise. We learned further about the cold war and the Cuban Missile Crisis, but extremely surface level, never going into how close to nuclear war the world got. Norway also has a history of sabotage during WW2, especially the “heavy water action” which sabotaged the German nuclear bomb program. There is definitely a lot of pride involved this action of sabotage – as it was a great feat – but it probably colored our education a bit as well. As a NATO country, Norway is affected by the nuclear umbrella of the nuclear states in the alliance. While Norway considers itself a “peaceful” state, one can definitely see in hindsight how our education was affected, especially as it was not overly critical to the European countries with nuclear arms, the US or provided any extensive education on nuclear propaganda, testing, or any adjacent subjects.

    Ida, 25, Norway

  • My education on the subject of nuclear weapons was multidisciplinary. I would learn about the mechanics of the reaction in physics, the biological impact of nuclear energy in environmental science, the political and historical background of their use in WW2 through history, and the stories of survivors through literature in English. While the subject matter was not solely taught by a singular class, I found that there was a sense of gravitas attached in every dimension it was studied. The creation of a weapon that could end the world as we know it impacts us all, and I felt that was a viewpoint best reflected in my education.

    Scott, 19, United States (LA)*

    One important caveat is that schools in the US can have very different curriculums depending on the region. Unlike Japan, textbooks are not standardized and approved by the government.

  • My name is Kyle Tucker, and I would like to talk about my experience with nuclear weapons education for the Nuclear Narratives Project. It is obvious that education about weapons of mass destruction in the United States school system is lacking, as it is in most places, I would assume. For context, I attended both high school and a public four-year university in Indiana, USA. During my K-12 schooling at a public school, I cannot recall a time when we spoke concretely about the politics surrounding weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons, in the classroom. The one exception was AP U.S. History, where nuclear weapons were briefly mentioned in the context of World War II. I did have one class that was an open-ended research course for a select number of students. This course allowed each student to conduct several independent projects over the school year, covering academic topics that vaguely followed a theme. One of the themes was conflict, and at around age 14 or 15, I had already become interested in nuclear weapons. My presentations in that course covered Cold War nuclear close calls, North Korean nuclear weapons testing, and Russia's war in Crimea. At that school, most kids knew about nuclear weapons only through popular culture like the video game Fallout and movies like Terminator. Many thought it was an issue that didn't really matter anymore after the end of the Cold War. In university, I majored in International Studies, and there was a much more in-depth look at peace and conflict studies. International Studies was a multidisciplinary degree, however, and some people focused on things like international development without ever touching security studies. More specifically to this project, at Indiana University, there was only one class offered that dealt specifically with nuclear weapons—'America in the Nuclear Age,' taught by Professor Dina Spechler in the Department of Political Science. This class covered the Manhattan Project, nuclear strategy throughout the Cold War, and its consequences. For the final project, we had to write an essay about a nuclear topic, and many of these essay topics were contemporary, such as North Korea, the India-Pakistan conflict and nuclear arsenal modernization. Other courses that taught history, like the Cold War, briefly touched on nuclear issues. However, by and large, my focus on nuclear studies was considered very niche among my peers in the International Studies department. On a handful of occasions, guest lectures from Middlebury Monterey, the Arms Control Association, and the Department of State did come to visit and speak at my university during guest lectures and student conferences. Still, nuclear weapons were not a chief focus of education overall.

    Kyle Tucker, 23, USA (Indiana)

  • Being an Indian, world War 2 wasn't a huge part of my curriculum in high school. We had a few chapters on it but we dove more comprehensively into the British colonial rule of India and Indias fight for freedom and independence from them, which happened in 1947. India's fight for independence overlapped with the second world War and that's how I learned about the the united States bombing of Hiroshima, an event that ended world War 2. The utter and complete destruction of an entire city, not even giving the Japanese a chance to fight against it.

    Tara, 20, India

  • For my high school chemistry class we had to write an “atomic report”. There was no necessary connection with atomic weapons. As a fourth grader, I was allowed to get up to watch a Denver TV station live broadcast of the destructive power of a nuclear weapon as it was tested in New Mexico before sunrise. That made it clear survival in an underground shelter would just open to total destruction. I understand Hiroshima’s bombing as analogous to the fire bombings of Germany and Japan, but think the Nagasaki bomb and any fusion bomb use as wrong.

    Jim Carroll, American, 80

  • I went to secondary school in Lebanon. We took history and geography in Arabic and in French. The Arabic ones focused more on Lebanon and the region, whereas the French ones focused on Europe and the EU. I remember nuclear weapons being mentioned in relation to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, mostly in the French history and geography courses. I am unsure, from memory, if they were mentioned in the Arabic history and geography courses, but I am inclined to say that they were not. Even in the French history and geography courses, they were more mentioned in passing than focused on extensively. I remember knowing that they happened but not the details surrounding them. What we studied extensively were the World Wars, particularly World War II in details and the atrocities committed during it. At university, even though I studied Political Science and International Affairs, along with three different minors and being part of my university's honors program, we did not study nuclear weapons or Hiroshima and Nagasaki. During my graduate studies in Peace and Conflict, the only times we spoke about these topics were when I brought them up in class or in other spaces. As part of my graduate assistantship within our International Programs Center, I was supported by my supervisor and other colleagues to organize two hibakusha testimonials, which helped sensitize individuals to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the plight of hibakusha and to think critically about nuclear weapons.

    -Christelle, 26, Lebanon

  • Hello, my name is Joris Gadellaa I live in The Netherlands. And I want to share my experiences with nuclear weapons. My first experience with the nuclear weapons dangers was with the movie called wargames. When I was 12 years old. That made me think about the cold war in general and MAD for the first time. And how this weird way of mistrust worked for the east and west. Later movies what got me home to threat of MAD and how dangerous it can be was with the terminator I film. It made me even more interested in MAD and the nuclear triade. At 21 I joined the air force as a NCO where I became a helicopter mechanic, and NBC specialist. Because of my interest in nuclear warfare. In this training course I saw the victims of the various weapons of mass destruction. This was terrible to see. This made the absurdity of these weapons all clear to me. They shouldn't exist in this world.

    Joris, 48, Netherlands