A union-sponsored ‘Teaching Palestine’ training draws pointed questions in Beaverton

An upcoming “Teaching Palestine” training for teachers sponsored by the Beaverton Education Association is reigniting debate over how to incorporate the ongoing conflict and devastation of the Israel-Hamas war into the classrooms of Oregon’s public schools.

The Beaverton union’s president, Lindsay Ray, said the goal of the April 28 workshop, led by retired Grant High School teacher Bill Bigelow, is to “provide a two-hour overview of the history of Palestine to help educators address complex questions raised by our students about the ongoing events in the region.”

She noted that Bigelow had been invited to deliver similar workshops to both statewide and national gatherings of social studies teachers.

But several parents, two Beaverton School District teachers and a leader of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland told The Oregonian/OregonLive that they are concerned that the workshop, which is open to any member of the Oregon Education Association, won’t promote critical thinking, is one-sided and casts Israel and its Jewish population solely as oppressors.

Beaverton parent Liz Terzo said she reached out to the Beaverton Education Association seeking more context about the presentation but received no reply.

“It is important to note that if this material is out there, it will find its way into the classroom, whether the exact curriculum or in a more informal way, in how teachers view certain student populations,” said Terzo. “As a parent, I am concerned it will normalize antisemitism and hate in our schools.”

Terzo said her child has weathered jokes from his peers about the Holocaust and the tradition of wearing a yarmulke in synagogue. One of his teachers skipped over a planned presentation on Jewish American Heritage Month, telling the students that it was “boring” and that they could read about it on their own if they wanted to, she said.

Bigelow and several other co-editors, including Grant High School social studies teacher Suzanna Kassouf, published a new guide for teachers, entitled “Teaching Palestine,” in February. The authors are affiliated with Rethinking Schools, a publisher that focuses on social justice education materials.

In an introduction to their work, Bigelow, Kassouf and their co-editors write that questioning Zionism – the belief that Jews have a right to Israel as a Jewish homeland — does not in their view equate to antisemitism.

And they say they invite students and their teachers to unpack charged language like apartheid and settler colonialism, to determine for themselves whether those terms apply to Israel’s actions since its establishment in 1948.

Bigelow said that at the workshop, he’ll lead a role-playing exercise called “Teaching the Seeds of Violence in Palestine-Israel” that spans the period between 1882 and 1922, when a wave of Jews immigrated to the region to escape violence in Russia and Romania.

“The premise [is] that the better we understand this early period of Palestine, the easier it is to identify throughlines to today,” Bigelow wrote in an email to The Oregonian/OregonLive.

A Jewish Beaverton high school teacher who reviewed the materials in the Rethinking Schools’ Teaching Palestine guide said she was concerned that the work excluded the ancient Jewish historical ties to the area that is now Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

“None of the lessons I found give any real credence to the historical fact that Jews originate in Judea, that we were expelled and remained homeless for 2,000 years and that this is supported by archeological evidence,” said the teacher, who asked to withhold her name so as not to sow discord with her colleagues. “These curricula present Jews as essentially European people, erasing Middle Eastern Jews who never left the region and the origin of the Jewish diaspora.”

Some of the material highlighted in the Teaching Palestine guide was also featured in lesson plans posted on the Portland Association of Teachers website last June. The link to those lesson plans was later removed after a firestorm of criticism erupted from both inside and outside of the union’s ranks over its contents.

Critics said then that the lesson plans highlighted the widespread suffering, death and destruction the Palestinian people have experienced over the last 18 months without mentioning Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, including its killings of civilians and taking of hundreds of hostages, amounting to indoctrination and exposing Jewish students to feeling alienated and unsafe.

The Beaverton workshop comes just three weeks before school board elections in communities around Oregon. In Beaverton, Oregon’s third largest school district and typically more politically sedate than neighboring Portland, races for three of four school board seats are hotly contested this year.

Unions in both Beaverton and Portland have endorsed and are actively campaigning on behalf of slates of candidates, with an eye towards electing board members whom they believe will more critically scrutinize district administrators’ actions and proposals and give top priority to teacher perspectives.

Along with hiring a superintendent and approving an annual budget, school board members are charged with reviewing and signing off on proposed curriculum adoptions.

The Oregonian/OregonLive asked all of the candidates running in contested races in Beaverton whether they would support integrating materials from the Teaching Palestine guide into the district’s social studies curriculum.

Four of the candidates responded by the news outlet’s deadline: software sales executive and Beaverton parent Andy DeMars and educational consultant Vân Truong, who are both running for a vacant seat in Zone 1, community volunteer and parent Erin Hatch and technology consultant and parent Syed Qasim, who are both running in Zone 3. Qasim has received the union’s endorsement.

All four said they would rely on the district’s year-long process of analyzing and vetting proposed curricula to make informed decisions, with Truong noting that the district’s process includes input from a range of “educators, curriculum experts and the broader community.”

“I haven’t had time to look at this specific content in detail,” Qasim wrote. “I know our community has opportunities to engage in this process and will create solutions for all students.”

DeMars said his goal for curriculum adoption was to “encourage critical thinking as a skill and a practice. We should encourage multiple narratives and students to form their own opinions. The information must be presented without bias or personal agendas.”

Beaverton last adopted a phased-in social studies curriculum in 2021 and 2022 and is not scheduled to do so again until 2027, said Shellie Bailey-Shah, a spokesperson for the district. The district already has two units of study in its high school social studies curriculum covering current events in the Middle East, she said, including the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Teachers who want to expand on that approved curriculum may do so, but must follow the guidelines spelled out in the district’s administrative policy on teaching controversial issues, including reviewing the material they intend to use with their principal.

The district is also hosting its own voluntary professional development event for staff on May 8, featuring speakers from the Islamic Community and the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland who will address both antisemitism and Islamophobia in schools, Bailey-Shah said.

Another Beaverton educator who is Jewish said he felt the district’s approach was on the right track. He’d sought answers from his union about how and why their workshop was scheduled, given that he did not feel there was particular demand among his fellow educators for such a training, but he’d heard nothing in return, he said.

“This issue is nuanced, it’s fragile, it’s divisive,” he said. “You need to find a way to do this so that everyone feels heard and cared for and safe.”

— Julia Silverman covers K-12 education for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach her via email at [email protected]