EXCERPT
The Palestine Curriculum War Raging in Oakland
In the weeks leading up to the teach-in, we found ourselves immersed in the nationwide debate on how — or whether — Palestine should be taught in schools. Many Oakland teachers were already including the assault on Gaza and its history in their lessons.
For decades teachers have fought for liberatory pedagogy on the struggles of Black, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, workers, and other oppressed groups. The inclusion of the Palestinian struggle into the curriculum is a crucial component in this ongoing ght,inseparable from young people’s freedom to make informed choices.
In 2020, the Oakland United School District (OUSD) School Board recognized that certain fields, including Arab American studies, were at risk of elimination from California’s emergent ethnic studiescurriculum framework, and therefore voted unanimously to preemptively endorse the uncut curriculum draft (including Arab American studies) and to support the work of the Save California Ethnic Studies Coalition.
Source:
https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/what-we-learned-from-our-oakland-to-gaza-k-12-teach-in/