Portland Teachers Union Wants Kindergarteners To Wear Keffiyehs and ‘Pray for a Truly Free Palestine’

A lesson plan produced by the teachers union at Portland, Oregon, teaches kindergarten students that Jews are “settler-colonial” oppressors and encourages teachers to share “keffiyehs, flags, and protest signs” with the children to support “Palestinian liberation.” The publicly accessible curriculum, written by the Portland Association of Teachers, is titled “Teach Palestine!” and offers radical anti-Israel pamphlets, videos, and lesson plans for students between Pre-K and 12th grade. For the youngest cohort of students, Pre-K through second grade, the curriculum lists a book titled “Let’s Go To Palestine” which teaches that “Palestine is currently under a brutal occupation by Israel,” and that “we pray for a truly free Palestine so that all the Palestinians can prosper and we can all visit freely.” A lesson plan offered to the same age group titled “Art and Action for Palestine” aims to teach students about Palestinian culture and resistance by connecting “settler colonialism” in Palestine to America. The teachers are instructed to introduce Palestine with the following history: “75 years ago, a lot of decision makers around the world decided to take away Palestinian land to make a country called Israel.” Israel, the lesson describes, is a country “where rules were mostly fair for Jewish people with White skin.”The children are directed to look at a map of Palestine in which areas “where Palestinian land was taken away to make Israel” are shaded in black and a map of America with “Indigenous land” colored in blue. The students are supposed to compare the two maps and see what “looks same-same.” The final section of the lesson instructs students to “reflect” on the activity, noting that “Palestinians have been working to be safe and free in their homes for a long time, even when Israel makes unfair, unsafe, and hurtful rules.” Other resources for the young students include a slideshow that glorifies the palestinian Intifada and a pamphlet that offers a “sensory guide for kids” who attend a pro-Palestine protest. Scroll down to the section for high schoolers to find a link to a Zine titled, “Queer Voices From The Fight For Palestine Liberation” to learn about “queerness, Palestinian liberation, and pinkwashing. Incorporate into lessons on identity, gender, sexuality, zines, and more.” A pamphlet listed under additional resources titled “ALL OUT FOR PALESTINE” — dated October 2023 — lists recommended chants for teachers to use in the classroom, including calls for violence and the celebration of martyrs. A few highlights: “We salute all our martyrs! mothers, fathers, sons and daughters,” “There is only one solution: Intifada! Revolution,” “Resistance is justified when people are occupied,” and “Biden, Harris you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!”The head of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland, Marc Blattner, described the “one-sided” materials as “an effort by the teachers’ union to promote what many feel is a biased and historically revisionist curriculum,” he wrote in a blog post. The lessons, he says, reflect the Union’s “narrow agenda” to condemn Israel. “If they really cared about the people of Gaza, they would have been protesting against Hamas’s horrific rule years ago,” he added. Following mounting pressure from outraged Jewish educators and leaders, the teachers union pulled the lesson plan from their website on Tuesday.“After hearing concerns from members around the content of some of these lessons… we’re taking it all off of our website,” the President of the Portland Association of Teachers, Angela Bonilla, told OregonLive. “The concerns of them being one-sided is enough for me to say we have to pause and review.”“I’m hearing things about these materials that I would have not let through,” she added. However, Ms. Bonilla reported to OregonLive that the union will keep one document on its website — a guide for educators written by the Portland Association of Teachers titled, “Know Your Rights! Teaching & Organizing for Palestine within Portland Public Schools.”The guide was written “in response to the censorship, discrimination, and harassment” that many Portland public school educators “have experienced and are currently experiencing at the hands of PPS leadership,” the authors note. They charge the district office leadership with “actively censoring teachers and other education workers who are teaching about Palestine, posting pro-Palestine sentiments in schools, and even those wearing Pro-Palestine messages.”Ms. Bonilla has not yet responded to the Sun’s request for comment.

Portland Teachers Union Wants Kindergarteners To Wear Keffiyehs and ‘Pray for a Truly Free Palestine’

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