The Hamas Israeli War

 Curtis Greeley , thanks for asking such a good question. I'm not sure how I will present it to my students. This article from the Times does provide some discussion of its global context.

Thanks, John Vidoli for the article. I have long been interested in Middle Eastern history and have devoured Hourani's A History of the Arab Peoples, Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem, Zunes' Tinderbox, and Destiny Disrupted by Ansary to name a few. Thanks for the article, I found this one very interesting too - www.foreignaffairs.com/.../what-hamas-attack-means-israel-daniel-byman-alexander-palmer

Curtis, I teach contemporary world problems and this war sure qualifies.  What we do in CWP is have our students all pick a country at the beginning of the term.  Nobody gets the USA.  Through the course we have them analyze issues in the categories Globalization, Conflict, Human Rights and Environment.  They all have built a website using Google Sites, and they meet regularly as 'experts' on their country in small groups to discuss world issues.  Since Monday, my kids who have middle east countries (nobody in the class has Israel) have been talking about the new war.  The kid who has Ukraine absolutely connected it and so did Taiwan.  So I can vouch for the fact, seniors al least, can and do care about this new war and see the ramifications it presents for the whole world.

Bryan Dibble , thanks for sharing an interesting approach. I really like that they create a shared website. Do students engage with each other on the website? What sort of discussions do you have in class?

 John Vidoli This week they discussed country leaders.  They introduced the leader, how they get elected or take over, and one historical leader from their country.  Some when way back, others it was the last guy.  My Brazil kid talked about the swing from right to left, Chile talked about the death in the 80s.  My kid representing Cuba spoke about the current leader and then about Raul Castro.  I asked him about Fidel, and he said, "Who's that?"  It's not all roses.  Next week it's the impact of the war in Gaza, either how it affects the country or just what position your country has on the conflict.  It's pretty cool having them group up and discuss these issues.

docs.google.com/.../edit

For obvious reasons I'm absolutely not touching Taiwan with a ten-foot pole. That said, even here in China and with students still at lower English proficiency (and by extension, news literacy) I've made a point with my sophomores to connect a few threads between the recent events and our new unit (10th grade roughly aligns to the 1200 WHP course) where we are emphasizing China (Tang/Song), West Africa (Mali and Mansa Musa especially), and, crucially here, the Middle East (Abbasids in particular). That said, it won't be until Friday that the first class discusses the Islamic World, where I'm planning on using a version of the great SHEG Ibn Battuta lesson to lay the groundwork.

What are the roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict? This is a good article that outlines the historical context of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. I think this could be great practice with causation.

I am looking forward to hearing how this goes. Here's the real world we need to be preparing students for - complex, nuanced problems that may not have a "right" answer, that requires hundred, if not thousand year old context, just to understand the components of the issues that people are trying to resolve. My heart hurts.

Hi Curtis Greeley , thanks for starting the discussion on this topic. I found the CNN 10 episode from October 9 to be really helpful in laying out the context for the conflict. From there, we were getting into the characteristics of states, which led some kids into comparisons and connections to current events. 

I am teaching a lesson on Nationalism on Friday as we enter our unit on the Enlightenment and political revolutions. I was thinking about curating some resources for students (with inspiration from this thread - thank you!) and having students respond to a writing prompt about the role of nationalism in the Hamas-Israeli conflict. 

Does anyone have suggestions about the wording for that writing prompt? It's a delicate issue, for sure.