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Defend CRT and Ethnic Studies! Join our People’s Assembly!

The current attacks on Critical Race Theory (CRT) are a terrifying indication of the rabid racism of the right wing. CRT isn’t an abstract idea for graduate students. Authentic Ethnic Studies, all anti-racist education, is based in CRT. When elementary school teachers have their students write counter-narratives about the strengths of their communities, they’re teaching CRT. When middle school teachers compare “Manifest Destiny” in the US to the “Promised Land” in Israel as ideologies of settler colonialism, they’re teaching CRT.

So we have to fight for ethnic studies, including Palestine, and CRT in the same breath. And we need a united strategy and organizing to do that!

In coalition with Save Arab American Studies and the Free Minds, Free People conference, we're launching a National Liberated Ethnic Studies Coalition, and we hope you will join us in the fight against rightwing, Zionist attacks on education!

New Book on Palestine for Students!

We hope that you are about to have a chance to relax and recuperate from an immensely challenging school year.

The past couple of months have been intense. We’ve seen the escalation in both resistance and repression in Palestine, and an explosion of solidarity across the United States and the rest of the world.

The current round of demonstrations throughout Palestine was spurred by mounting Israeli efforts to expel long-time Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan in Jerusalem. There’s never been a more important time to understand and teach about what’s happening in East Jerusalem. Determined to Stay: Palestinian Youth Fight for Their Village is the story of Silwan, and it’s written with middle and high school students in mind.

If you missed the book launch for Determined to Stay, check out the recording here. In addition to Jody talking about the book and reading a few excerpts, you’ll hear from Sahar Abbasi, deputy director of Madaa Creative Center in Silwan, talk about the current situation.

Teaching Solidarity

We know you share our outrage at attacks by the Israeli military and settlers against the people of Palestine. And that you join us in expressing our solidarity in every way we can.

This is a particularly critical time to be teaching about Palestine. Don’t hesitate to contact us at the Teach Palestine Project if we can help with curriculum development, resources, or information.

One resource about Sheikh Jarrah is the video My Neighborhood, which is about resistance and solidarity in Sheikh Jarrah and is narrated by a Palestinian youth. For up-to-date information on sheikh Jarrah: #saveSheikhJarrah.

Check out our Resources section for more teaching ideas. And check out these Instagrams—@theimeu and @adalahjusticeproject. |||

New Resources

As teachers and students settle into the spring semester, we hope that 2021 will bring more health, more justice, and more peace. This has been a difficult time to be an educator, and many of us are feeling the impact of so many months of trying to support our students, our families, and ourselves.

Despite everything, we’ve made some exciting changes to the Teach Palestine Project and to our website. We’re honored to add Dr. Samia Shoman to our staff as co-coordinator of the project. A Palestinian educator with many years of experience as a high school teacher, Samia co-led our delegation of teachers to Palestine last year.

Featured Curriculum

The Environmental Impact of Colonization: From Palestine to the US/Mexico Border

This webinar for K-12 teachers and teacher educators uses environmental issues as an entry point for pedagogy that compares the ongoing impact of settler colonialism in Palestine to the US/Mexico border region. The emphasis in this first of three webinars is on content knowledge within a decolonial framework.

Copresented by Anita Fernandez and Curtis Acosta from the Xicanx Institute for Teaching and Organizing in Tucson, AZ, and Samia Shoman from the Teach Palestine Project at the Middle East Children’s Alliance in Berkeley, CA.

Featured speakers are Jamal Juma’, cofounder of Stop the Wall, the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid

Reading, writing and racism: ‘Nation-state’ law now official Israeli curriculum

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