Educating for Peace
by Natalie S. Barkovich
In my time as a high school and middle school English teacher, I have had the opportunity to team up with Social Studies colleagues in order to create ELA and History integrated courses. Currently, I co-teach ELA Civics for eighth graders, and we infuse reading, writing, and research instruction with the Civics content. The first integrated course that I took part in was a tenth grade English, World History, and Art course designed for students to deepen their understanding of World History with literature, writing, Art History, and student-created art. My first foray into integrating my English classroom with history helped me to see the power of memoir, historical fiction, poetry, art, and student writing to help students better understand complex historical events. That course resulted in a collaboration with Classrooms Without Borders which brought educators from Israel to Pittsburgh. As a part of that experience, we were invited to Israel for an Inside Israel: Educational Leadership Seminar. We made the trip a reality in March 2022.
There were many educational facets to this trip. One key focus was to get us into innovative schools, talking with educators who are working to build connections among students whose opportunities for interaction have been limited due to segregated school systems–we visited schools that went against the norm and educated Jewish Israeli citizens together with Arab Israeli citizens. We sought to explore the role that educators can play in creating classrooms that bridge gaps, facilitate understanding, and help students honor and respect people from different backgrounds, cultures, and life experiences. Our itinerary took us all over Israel, learning the history behind one of the world’s most implacable conflicts–and seeing the impact of that history in the lives of students and their educational experiences.
One of our first meetings occurred at Neve Shalom, a community built by Israeli Jews and Arabs who have chosen to live together, to learn together, and to work for peace together. We met in a room that had recently been bombed by somebody opposed to their ideals. Because Jews and Arabs are in classrooms together and there are often stories of conflict in the media, the teachers talked us through their process they use to ensure that all students feel safe and respected. First, the teachers emphasized that they are not trying to convince students of any particular idea; instead, they facilitate conversations that start with students telling what they have heard and then trying to help them sort facts from opinions. This conversation usually involves teachers asking, “What is your source?” They teach listening with respect, and they do not allow anybody to cancel facts or history. They ask questions like, “What if that is true?” And, finally, they end conversations by asking, “What can you do to create a better future?” The teachers talked about how these conversations help students to see how their attitudes and actions toward people in their community impact the life experiences that they all have. Instead of seeing an incident as something occurring between two sides, they are consistently reminded that the sides involve human lives; humanizing the sides helps students to acknowledge complexity that helps to dispel a binary way of understanding the conflict. Even in this community in which people have chosen these close quarters, it was clear that getting students to communicate productively is a difficult task, requiring a consistently even-keeled approach; the opportunities are frequent, and the stakes are high.
We also met with a Palestinian professor in the basement of a bookstore in an Arab neighborhood in Jerusalem. Sami Adwan talked to us about his life as a Palestinian and his work with PRIME. Adwan shared a textbook series that he was instrumental in creating–unique because it presents students with narratives from both sides of the conflict with a key design feature that gives space in between for students to write their reactions and comments. This series attempts to humanize people with differing perspectives and to get students to think critically about those perspectives; the students are encouraged to question both narratives and to consider the impact of word choice, phrasing, and tone. One of the points that repeatedly came up over the course of the trip was the idea of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict being a zero-sum game to many people, meaning that in order for one side to be “right,” the other side’s narrative must be completely negated. This textbook series rejects that idea, instead allowing students to consider the complexity of the conflict, to humanize multiple perspectives, and to encourage students to work past claims and assumptions. Adwan stated, “We are all victims of our own narratives.” Adwan also shared with us that the textbooks have been adopted around the world, but they were rejected by the Israeli Ministry of Education and the Palestinian Ministry of Education.
We visited with teachers in Kibbutz Sasa, and I was reunited with one of my teaching partners from the Israeli teacher visit to Pittsburgh in 2018. The school serves children who live in the Kibbutz with children from outside the Kibbutz, many from low socioeconomic status and various religious and cultural backgrounds (Christian, Druze, Jewish, and Muslim). Much of our conversation centered around teaching during the pandemic and adjusting back to normal life. If there was a transcript of that conversation, it would have been impossible to tell who was teaching in Israel and who was teaching in the U.S.; the stories were incredibly similar as we talked about our efforts to keep students engaged via Google Meets, to get students help for social-emotional challenges exacerbated by the pandemic, to maintain a sense of community in a world of masks and social distancing, and to temper grace with holding students accountable. The teachers also talked about their school as a microcosm of Israeli society and their view that they must prepare the students to live in the diverse richness of that society. An important tradition that they celebrate is called Holiday of Holidays during which students share with each other customs and food from Christmas, Hanukkah, and Ramadan; this event allows the students to take pride in their cultures, to learn about their classmates’ cultures, and to understand and appreciate the similarities and differences. They try to include diverse texts in the curriculum, including those from Druze and Circassian authors. They honor a Day of Mourning for the Circassian people killed in a genocide–inspired by student research that was completed for a project. They also read American literature that brings up conversations about racism in the United States. When the Israeli teachers visited Pittsburgh, racism in the United States was a topic of interest, study, and discussion, and we even visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture together–another layer to this challenging learning experience.
We were welcomed at a school for Druze students, the top-performing school in Israel, and a mural with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. greeted us as we arrived. The students proudly presented information about their school in English, their third language; they led us in games; and one student sang a John Legend song while playing her guitar. Our time in that school was a beautiful celebration of scholarship, student leadership, and student empowerment. The teachers hold their students to extremely high standards, and the pride in the school community was quite evident. Most memorable were the moments when student presenters stumbled over words or concepts that they were trying to explain. The teachers would shout out words of encouragement–almost like people do at a sporting event– and nobody was embarrassed. In fact, the level of confidence never waned, and it was clear that everyone understood that perfection was neither realistic nor necessary; instead, passion and effort were the ultimate requirements–an attitude that I have tried to bring back to my classroom. We spent time at Shamir High School in Tel Aviv, talking with the students about their classes, current events, comic books, and how to make the world a better place. The war in Ukraine was foremost in their minds, and while some students expressed feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, Tsipy Gur, the founder of Classrooms Without Borders and the daughter of a refugee from the Holocaust, challenged the students to think differently–to consider what they COULD do to help refugees impacted by the war. A few weeks later, the principal, Ran Inbar, let us know that the students held a bake sale to raise money for Ukrainian refugees, as that conversation made them see their own responsibilities and power in a different way.
It’s been almost a year since I took this trip, and I think of this experience daily. We know that educators in the United States are working hard to develop critical thinking skills in students so that they can openly and honestly work toward peace in our neighborhoods, cities, and countries; to see that work happening across the world, too, is humbling and inspiring. I was repeatedly struck with the idea that the students sitting in those classrooms, learning to think critically and to see the human complexity in their neighbors, are the key to future efforts for peace and understanding. I remember that feeling when I look at my own students, and it makes me more cognizant of the power that education holds to humanize people that the larger world might be othering. Classrooms Without Borders plans to run the trip again in 2024, and they run regular trips for educators all over the world (and in the United States!). I encourage all educators to take advantage of these heavily subsidized opportunities. We know the impact that education has, and we know how much it can accomplish. Meeting educators in other parts of the world engaged in that work offers great hope and inspiration–two things that educators often desperately need.
Author Bio:
Natalie S. Barkovich is in her twenty-first year as an English teacher. She is a strong believer in the power of literature and writing, and she has greatly enjoyed the recent professional opportunities to explore how the English Standards can help students to deeply learn and think about history, and, of course, life. She is quite grateful for the unexpected twist in her teaching career that led to her learning experience in Israel.
