The Hamas Israeli War

Thinking about this conflict and how to approach it with students, I've leaned on two OER resources -- The Danger of a Single Story and Benedict Anderson's concept of the nation being an "imagined community" -- as a way of understanding the conflict. I'm wondering if other teachers had success using these concepts as a way to frame the discussion and develop student thinking of a complex issue.

 Curtis Greeley Anne Koschmider Bryan Dibble Todd Nussen Adam Esrig 

Thinking about this conflict and how to approach it with students, I've leaned on two OER resources -- The Danger of a Single Story and Benedict Anderson's concept of the nation being an "imagined community" -- as a way of understanding the conflict. I'm wondering if other teachers had success using these concepts as a way to frame the discussion and develop student thinking of a complex issue.

 Curtis Greeley Anne Koschmider Bryan Dibble Todd Nussen Adam Esrig 

Hi John Vidoli  I'm certainly not touching it the war in my classroom. If anything I try to subtly discuss this in the context of the human story - in BHP and WHP that we're all homo sapiens made up of the same genetic and biological material - and that the differences between us are conceived by humans making choices to construct national identities. I hope in some small ways this brings more students together rather than driving us apart. It sounds like with the Danger of the Single Story and Imagined Communities you  are taking a similar angle and I  think that's the right one. 

There have been some assertions in my school community that the conflict is "not that complicated" and that we should be "teaching Palestine by just presenting the facts. " I couldn't disagree more. For me, there are too many competing narratives at play here, and they're all fraught with emotion and speak to our very identities. This is not just the case for my students - many of whom are Palestinian and come from other Arab countries - but also for me as I have a lot of family in Israel. For that reason I am very much continuing on with Origins Era 4. I hope that by simply sticking to great social studies instruction that my students will aquire the skills they need to accurately and thoughtfully analyze world events like this for themselves. 

Adam Esrig , I am fortunate, in a way, that discussions around this conflict is a lot less fraught at my school. This gives me some more latitude in having discussions. I agree with the approach you are taking. Helping students see the humanity of those on the other side would seem to be a prime responsibility. Maybe it's a way for students to examine those many competing narratives without planting a flag, as it were, on a position. 

That sounds about right, John Vidoli  Sometimes working in a community where there is less at stake (in all kinds of ways - politically, economically, spiritually, emotionally) allows you to take a step back and really maybe try to unravel this thing. In my school community I think we're working more on just trying to preach holding humanity as the task of the day - not letting our emotions and anger get the best of us.  

I ended up getting a ton of mileage from Danger of a Single Story in my world history class.  The connection was made to DoaSS almost every unit and chapter.  It's much like how I refer to claim testers so often in BHP.  The situation in Gaza has me using the lesson from Danger and claim testers.  I do a lot of activities where kids find the sources and present to each other.  That takes me out of the presenter role, so it's not me bringing up the "facts".  Now the kids aren't set up to make them look like they're taking sides, I've trained them all to question everything.  However we're in rural Washington, so not many in our school have personal connections to either side of the conflict.  But because students present the issues, I can be a moderator and keep pressing them to look for the angles and motivation of the sources.  Have you heard of 1440 news btw?  A great starting point for kids to get evidence.