MECA’s Teach Palestine Project includes:

  • The Teach Palestine website, a collaborative project by and for K-12 teachers and educators who are bringing Palestine into their classrooms. The site includes curriculum from elementary school through high school, a curated list of videos, and articles about teaching Palestine in the US and education in Palestine. Website access and materials are free.
  • Regular workshops on teaching Palestine at social justice curriculum conferences for K-12 and post-secondary educators. Recent conferences include San Francisco Teachers 4 Social Justice; Free Minds, Free People; New York Collective of Radical Educators; Cross Borders Conference; Northwest Conference on Teaching for Social Justice; and others.
  • Collaborations with schools and school districts on how to integrate Palestine into curriculum and relate it to issues that most affect your students. Recent collaborations have included connecting Pueblo and Navajo history to Palestine at the Santa Fe Indian School in New Mexico and a workshop on militarized border zones in Douglas, Arizona, at the US/Mexico border.
  • Support for teachers on developing and implementing curriculum about Palestine.
  • Classroom visits

About the Project

The recent history and current reality in Palestine are connected to many issues K-12 educators already teach, including immigration, Manifest Destiny, borders and walls, the juvenile justice system, water and other environmental issues, and US policy in the Middle East. Yet very few teachers in US schools teach about Palestine. That silence feeds demonization of Palestinians, lack of understanding of their struggle for human rights, and Islamophobia.

The objectives of the Teach Palestine Project are to:

• Provide accessible background knowledge for teachers on Palestine/Israel history and current realities
• Provide model curriculum, lesson plans, and resources (DVDs, videos, picture books, maps, interactive websites, etc.).
• Create a community of teachers in person and online to develop the work and share experiences. For example, we have designed the Teach Palestine website to include opportunities to share new curriculum and discuss classroom experiences, problems and success. We see the website as an online community for teachers already engaged in teaching Palestine/Israel as well as those who would like to but aren’t sure how to start.
• Collaborate with educators and community activists on key points of interdisciplinary and inter-community curriculum—for example, how borders and walls affect communities around the world, including at the US/Mexico border and in Palestine; how the criminalization of youth affects children and families in Palestine and in the United States; how the struggle for clean water affects Palestinians and marginalized communities in the United States, etc.

Location: United States

We lead workshops and provide materials to teachers and educators across the US. Email Jody Sokolower for more information: jody@mecaforpeace.org