Do schoolchildren need to ‘advocate for Palestine’?

By attempting to bring the ‘struggle’ into the classroom, the National Education Union is grossly overreaching

What should children be taught about the war in Gaza? The simple answer is: nothing. Schools are not political institutions and keeping global conflicts out of the classroom allows teachers to focus on education. More realistically, faced with older pupils keen to discuss hot button issues, some teachers might decide to act as a neutral arbiter of debate.

But the National Education Union seems intent on going further. Britain’s largest teaching union not only wants to bring the “Palestinian struggle” into schools, it plans to train members in how to “advocate for Palestine”. At a workshop set to be held in Liverpool next month, teachers will learn “educational approaches that capture the history of the Palestinian struggle” which are “aimed at strengthening the movement for Palestinian liberation”.

Let’s be clear: this is neither neutral “awareness raising” nor a straightforward dissemination of facts. By bringing “the Palestinian struggle into schools” in this way, the NEU’s leadership is taking one side in a fiercely contested global conflict and encouraging its members to do the same. After the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 2023, the NEU did not to my knowledge hold workshops advocating for Israel.

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Today, sadly, “strengthening the movement for Palestinian liberation” effectively means siding with Hamas. This turns the classroom into a hostile environment for Jewish students at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise, including, shamefully, within schools and universities.

But the NEU has form on this issue. The hardline head of the union, Daniel Kebede, is a militant anti-Israeli activist who has attended numerous rallies and called on gathered crowds to “globalise the intifada,” interpreted by many Jewish people as an incitement to violence. Kebede has since said he used those words “in regards to civic protest and oppose violence” and that he has been “unequivocal in [his] condemnation of the attacks on October 7”. Meanwhile, another of the union’s executive members, Louise Regan, is also a chair of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

The workshop is not the only pro-Palestine activity the NEU has planned. The union is encouraging teachers to hold a day of action at their place of work on Thursday to highlight “the Palestinian struggle for freedom”. Of course, teachers should be free to hold whatever beliefs they like. And outside of school hours, they should have the same rights to protest as other members of the public. But when your place of work is a school and your audience is children who are compelled to attend, then you are not simply exercising your right to free speech: you are abusing your position.

Teachers exercise huge influence over children’s lives. Introducing children to knowledge of the world they have been born into is a huge responsibility and a tremendous privilege. Teachers shape children’s attitudes and values. It is because of this power that the UK already has legislation barring the promotion of partisan political views in schools. Educators have a duty not to use the classroom as a recruiting ground for their favoured political causes.

It is perhaps unsurprising that senior union officials seem confused as to where the boundaries lie between activism and teaching; after all, many aspects of schooling have been politicised. From lessons in sexuality and gender identity to the decolonised history curriculum, from campaigners addressing assemblies to pupils making videos to welcome migrants or fasting in solidarity with children in Gaza, the line between teaching and indoctrination appears increasingly blurred. Yet Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson’s curriculum review looks set to take schools still further down this path.

But for teachers to exploit the authority they have over children in support of a political cause is morally reprehensible. A teaching qualification should not give anyone the right to use the classroom as a pulpit and the “Palestinian struggle” should be kept out of schools.

Originally published at The Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/fcf03db0416441c9