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Parents, family members and caregivers of students in K-12 schools have an essential role to play in ensuring that their students are supported in school. Increasingly, there has been a rise in incidents of biased behaviors and instructional materials when learning about Israel in the classroom. Acting as an ally alongside young people can ensure that classroom learning experiences account for biases that make students unsafe.
Since October 7th, 2023, K-12 Jewish students are facing an alarming surge of antisemitic incidents and bias in schools. According to ADL's Audit of Antisemitic Incidents 2023 there were 1,162 incidents in K-12 schools (not including Jewish day schools), a 135% increase from the prior year.
ADL is working proactively to address the rise in antisemitic activity through advocacy and education to help Jewish students, teachers and staff and allies feel safe at school and in the classroom. Explore the toolkits below.
Advocacy Toolkit for Parents & Caregivers
Designed to support you in advocating for classroom curriculum addressing Israel to be accurate, appropriate and taught with compassion and care.
Assessment Toolkit for Educators
Designed to support you in creating a meaningful, effective and safe learning experience for students of all identities. School and district administrators and leaders can use this resource to support educators in bringing this learning to the classroom.
Parent & Caregiver Advocacy Toolkit
In the classroom, following October 7th and the subsequent Hamas-Israel war, many educators have created time and space for discussion and learning on unfolding current events and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Learning about any current events risks harmful incidents among students. However, there is also an opportunity for meaningful and nuanced learning experience that may still cause discomfort or emotional reactions, but can create new pathways for connection and understanding among students.
Explore the main sections in this toolkit:
Where do I start?
- Have a Parent-Student Conversation. Start your process by having an open-ended conversation with your student. Ask them to share what is happening or is planned at their school and how they feel about it. Invite your student to share how they’re feeling and how they would like to be supported. Be mindful that you and your student may have different perspectives. Refer to Conversations that Matter: Understanding and Discussing Antisemitism with Young People for additional guidance.
- Communicate with the Educator. Initiate communication with the educator; teachers and staff in the classroom have the greatest capacity to influence what happens in the classroom, and building and maintaining a cooperative relationship with teachers is the most effective way to ensure your student’s safety in the classroom is prioritized. Refer to the chart below for support, and share the Educator Toolkit.
- Escalate Concerns to School and/or District Administration, and Report the Incident to ADL. If the issue is not resolved following direct communication with the educator, reach out to school administration and then, if needed, district-level administration. If necessary, file a report with ADL at www.adl.org/report-incident.
How can I advocate to address incidents that may or have occurred?
Partnership between parents and educators is an essential component of young people receiving an effective and inclusive educational experience. The following chart provides suggested language to communicate your concerns to teachers, staff and administrators in a productive way. Use this language along with sharing the Educator Toolkit to support a more effective learning experience or repair harm following a problematic lesson. The suggested language below can provide support in raising the important concerns about inclusion and proposes solutions for the classroom that transcend individual positions on current events.
| I’m concerned about... | Share with and ask educators... |
|---|---|
Tokenization, Exclusion & Other Biased Behaviors Example:
| “When Israel is in the headlines, antisemitic incidents spike because many people consciously or unconsciously generalize about Jewish people and our views on Israel or Zionism. What classroom guidelines or agreements are in place to proactively and reactively address name-calling and other biased behaviors? What learning has the class already done to ensure that my student and other Jewish students won’t be singled out in the discussion?” |
Oversimplification Example:
| “Learning is most effective when it is in context and incremental. When learning about Israelis and Palestinians, there is a lengthy history of many different peoples living in the region, and many different powers governing the area across several thousand years. It’s very common for learners to make direct comparisons when talking about Israel, but doing so causes confusion and harm. How much time is being devoted to building background knowledge about the history of the region and its people? From what sources? Are multiple perspectives being shared? How much new information is being introduced in a single lesson?” |
Misinformation + Disinformation Example:
| "It’s very common when war or violence is taking place for misinformation and disinformation to be rampant. Misinformation and disinformation about Israel can lead to an unsafe climate for Jewish people, including my student. What curriculum development and preparation are being done to ensure that instructional materials contain accurate information and misinformation or disinformation shared in class is corrected?” |
Stereotypes + Dehumanization Example:
| “When violence is in the news or in the curriculum, it’s very common for people to use strong language to describe the individuals or groups involved. Consciously or unconsciously, people may use stereotypes about Jews when talking about Zionism and Israel. To what extent have students previously explored common antisemitic stereotypes and how they show up today? What proactive and reactive plans are in place to address stereotypes and dehumanizing language if it comes up during the lesson? What background information or knowledge do they and/or students have about Zionism and the diverse views it represents?” |
Scapegoating Example:
| “Scapegoating of Jewish individuals and communities is a very common form of bias that is often activated in conversations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Debates about the legitimacy of Israel’s existence or demonization of Israelis create an unsafe climate for Jewish students and interrupt opportunities for critical thinking for all students. What instructional practices are used to ensure that students are considering multiple perspectives and drawing their own conclusions? What are the learning goals around critical thinking, examining multiple perspectives and using deductive reasoning?” |
Things to Keep in Mind
- No amount of advocacy or reporting can guarantee that your student will not experience discomfort or even mistreatment at school. Maintain open communication with your child about their experiences at school and listen closely to their perspective on addressing past or potential incidents. Support your student in identifying steps to take if something happens at school, including managing discomfort in peer interactions, removing themselves from unsafe situations, documenting and reporting any incidents and seeking support from trusted adults.
- It will be more effective for your student and more reassuring for you to share concerns and resources with educators before a potentially problematic lesson takes place. Consider the calendar, including holidays, history and heritage months and anniversaries during which learning about Israel is more likely to happen. Communicating with teachers ahead of time increases the likelihood of a positive and productive relationship.
- If a problematic or even harmful lesson has already taken place, teachers, staff and administrators still have an opportunity to repair harm in the classroom or school. Use specific examples by referring to materials used in the lesson and reports from your student about what took place to document and share your concerns with school stakeholders.
Educator Assessment Toolkit
Feelings of fear, powerlessness and vulnerability are common experiences all people share whenever acts of hatred, terrorism, or mass shootings occur, and feelings are personally compounded when the events target a group with which members of the school community identify. Children and teens are not immune to these feelings, but adults can help by providing information that answers their questions, giving them opportunities to express how they feel, reassuring them that adults in their lives are working to keep them safe, and helping them channel their feelings into positive actions in their own lives and communities.
When discussing and learning about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and/or the current Israel-Hamas war, it is possible for educators or students to perpetuate harmful biases, intentionally or unintentionally, and make Jewish students and students of other identities unsafe. In other school communities, the topic is simply ignored for fear of being divisive, stifling opportunities to make meaning of complex current events in the classroom. Tackling complex current events topics is an immense challenge for educators, but there are resources that can provide guidance and support.
The following suggestions and resources are a non-exhaustive list to support educators in creating a meaningful, effective and safe learning experience for students of all identities. School and district administrator and leaders can use this resource to support educators in bringing this learning to the classroom.
Explore the main sections in this toolkit:
Inclusion and Challenging Bias in the Classroom
Bias is universal, and biases are often activated when learning about challenging history or current events. Even the most inclusive classroom and the most effective lesson can trigger biased language, feelings and behaviors during or after the learning experience.
- What community agreements or guidelines for respectful dialogue are already established in my classroom? How effectively am I able to address bias or other harms that arise during a lesson?
- How have I already incorporated exploration of identity and identity-based perspectives into my classroom community? How comfortable are my students with communicating, acknowledging and accepting diverse perspectives?
- How have I previously addressed common risks when discussing complex social issues, such as, assuming that one’s perspective is universal, debating about who is “right” and “wrong”, competing to see who is the most knowledgeable, etc.? What will I do if this learning experience becomes a debate or an argument?
- What will I do if students use jargon or conceptual terms in an inaccurate or oversimplified way? What will I do if a student expresses a stereotype about a group of people?
- How am I engaging parents and caregivers to ensure their students are safe and feel supported in raising concerns about bias in the classroom and school? How am I being supported by my school and district administration in this learning experience?
Practice Zero Indifference to these Biases:
Whether intentional or unintentional, harmful language must be addressed as quickly as possible to prevent acceptance or escalation. It’s possible that a student may make a biased comment that elicits no negative reaction from peers in the classroom, but it can still cause harm to individual students and to the overall classroom climate. Be prepared to interrupt all identity-based biases, including:
- Establishing a litmus test in which there is only one "good” perspective and other perspectives indicate a person is bad or immoral.
- Suggestion that either population of residents in the region should be eliminated or displaced from where they live.
- Use of nationalities or other group identifiers (such as Zionists, Israelis, Palestinians, etc.) as slurs or pejoratives.
- Use of dehumanizing names or comparisons (like “vermin,” “savages”).
- Generalizing about all people in an identity group.
Additional Resources to Support Anti-Bias Practices
Professional Development and Intellectual Preparation
Reflect on your prior knowledge on current events in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the history of the region. Consider your experience and tools for teaching history, culture and geopolitical conflicts, and consider your students’ perspectives and identities. Ask yourself:
- What are my personal identities and perspectives that connect me to this content? What attitudes and inclinations do I have? With whom can I share or process my biases ahead of this lesson?
- What academic or professional experiences have prepared me to understand and interpret the current and historical dynamics of the region? Who in my professional networks can support me in expanding or complicating my knowledge?
- What am I seeing or hearing from my students about this topic? What do I know about my students’ identities and experiences that may shape how they learn new information on this topic?
- How prepared is my classroom and am I to address bias, stereotypes, dehumanization, scapegoating, misinformation, disinformation and other problematic language or behaviors that may arise during or following this learning experience?
- How can I be sensitive to the needs of students’ parents, caregivers and families? What concerns, pushback, or scrutiny can I expect and be responsive to? How can I communicate effectively with diverse communities on this topic?
Consider Exploring:
- Institute for Curriculum Services Professional Development Offerings
- ADL Education Professional Learning for Educators
- Explore the guidelines and approaches collected by National Council for the Social Studies
Building a Meaningful Learning Experience with Clear Goals and Objectives
Creating a learning experience focused on current events that are engaging students can be beneficial to students’ social-emotional and academic development, but it also comes with risks. Teaching about Israel is a typical part of some World History courses, but otherwise may not be addressed as part of the curriculum, and there is often limited time to build knowledge gradually. In crafting goals for the learning, ask yourself:
- How does teaching this topic fit into my current unit(s) or overall curriculum? How can this learning experience support the building of knowledge, skills and mindset that are aligned with the goals I have for my students?
- Which frameworks and best practices am I leveraging to ensure a developmentally appropriate learning experience?
- What previous learning experiences in my classroom can connect to this topic? How have I previously addressed religious literacy, social identity groups, history of Israel or the region, media literacy or other relevant topics? Where will I begin and end this learning experience?
- How much time do I have to devote to this topic? How much new information can I reasonably introduce in that time? How am I creating scaffolds to support learning about a new topic?
- How have I gathered data on or assessed my students’ prior knowledge and current perspectives on this topic? What will progress, mastery or success look like at the end of this learning experience?
Quick Tips to Get Started:
- Refer to curriculum and instruction frameworks adopted by your state or district, and/or refer to the National Council for the Social Studies C3 Framework.
- For one-off lessons, establish a realistic and manageable learning goal or essential question. Some examples:
- 12th Grade: Determine the different kinds of sources and points of view that should be represented in an inquiry project on the Israel-Hamas war.
- 8th Grade: Explore maps representing the Levantine region over time to understand different groups’ perspectives on the region.
- 5th Grade: Who are the peoples who live and have lived in the Levantine region?
Gathering Curriculum and Instructional Resources
It can be challenging to select quality curricular resources. When it comes to lessons that address Israel, it can be difficult to find developmentally appropriate, accurate and effective instructional material. As you are assembling your instructional materials, ask yourself:
- What terms do I need to define for my students? How will I ensure that terms and definitions are appropriately sourced? How will I manage dialogue if students disagree about how terms are defined?
- What primary source material can I access for this learning? How will I ensure that the primary sources are reflective of a cross-section of perspectives and experiences? How will my students make meaning of these sources?
- What secondary source material will be effective for this learning? How will my students and I address bias and point of view in examining this material?
- What do I know about the authors and/or intentions behind the curricular material I found or was offered to me? Am I equipped to assess if this material conveys a biased narrative?
- Who in my school, district or professional network can offer me feedback about the learning experience I’ve constructed? How open am I to changing my lesson materials or approach based on feedback I solicit?
Recommended Curriculum and Instructional Resources:
- Institute for Curriculum Services' Curriculum on Jewish History and Israel & the Middle East
- Facing History & Ourselves' Lesson Plan, Antisemitic Conflation: What Is the Impact of Conflating All Jews with the Actions and Policies of the Israeli Government?
- Jewish Education Project's Resources for Teaching about Israel in Crisis
- Unpacked for Educators' Tools for Teaching Israel and Judaism