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As teachers, we try to convey to young people that life often does not follow dualism. As Jews, we witness the October 7th attack on Israel by Hamas, the death, suffering, and captivity of hundreds of Israelis, and now, as the war drags on, thousands of innocent Palestinians. It can be heartbreaking and scary.
We can demand the release of Israeli hostages and fight for humanitarian aid to starving Gazans. We can fight hate and fight for freedom of expression. We can embrace security, freedom, and self-determination for both peoples.
What is indisputable is our basic humanity. This applies to both students and the adults who teach them.
Two days after the Hamas massacre, one of us (Karen Marder, a teacher at Hillcrest High School in Queens, New York) attended a vigil with others devastated by the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
Karen: News of the torture, rape, and massacre of young people at music festivals was particularly disturbing to me. I have seen their zest for life in my own young adult children and in the thousands of students I have taught over 20 years. He posted a photo of himself on Facebook holding a placard that read, “I support Israel.” That action, hours after the Hamas attack, would provoke a devastating reaction from the students I care deeply about.
Several of Karen’s students distributed screenshots of the photo and called for a riot targeting Karen. On November 20, hundreds of students stormed her hallway and tried to enter her classroom, cursing, threatening and demanding that she be fired. Karen was in another part of the building, but she watched all of this on a monitor and later saw the video her students shared online. In a cruel irony, the lesson she was scheduled to teach on the day of her riot was about hate crimes.
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I met with students to discuss our common humanity.
Karen: I had the option of transferring to another school. I stayed to use that experience to connect, listen, learn, debunk misinformation, and fight intolerance. The day I returned to school, my Palestinian friend (a fellow teacher) and I met with the students. I answered their questions and shared my feelings. I repeated the hurtful, threatening, and untrue things students said during the riot and on social media to help them connect with my humanity, and their own humanity. Many students hugged me and apologized for what happened.
For me, going back to work was difficult. What happened to me was horrifying and terrifying, and something no teacher, staff, or student should ever have to experience, especially inside a school building.
Dealing with that trauma and the publicity surrounding it is a long process and it takes time to heal. But I went back because he knew one thing: He had to talk to his students. I needed them to understand the context of my post and why it was posted at this time.
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I had to ask. I needed to understand what messages they were absorbing and where they were coming from. I had to answer their questions, deal with their fears and confusion, and just stay there.
Additionally, I had to show them that I wasn’t going to run away, even if some of them behaved inappropriately. They needed to understand through my actions that I would not give up on them and would keep coming back again and again.
Those conversations weren’t easy, though. Trust once betrayed must be regained. Teachers must model so many things for their students: forgiveness, active listening, admitting mistakes, and sitting with uncomfortable emotions. Things don’t have to be black and white, right or wrong. As humans, we can see the nuances, the shades of gray, and the commonalities between differences. This gives me hope as a teacher navigating the difficult world of schools and students, and also for the situation between Israel and Palestine. Every human being has a different path to follow: peace, negotiation, and civility. As teachers, we can set our students on that path.
Acts of hate against Muslims and Jews have skyrocketed in recent months, leaving people fearful as culture wars target people based on their race, sexual orientation and gender identity. I often hear this from teachers.
Karen’s experience and her reactions point the way forward. Schools should be safe, welcoming spaces that are safe from physical violence and safe for everyone.
Education helps build empathy
That means acts of anti-Semitism and anti-Arab hatred must be addressed, not ignored. But we need more than that. Of course, education is about knowledge, but knowledge is more than just memorizing facts. It involves critical thinking, empathy, and understanding and respecting different backgrounds and perspectives.
Karen: I’m not hiding. And neither should anyone else. If something is happening, we must act instead of pretending it will go away.
That’s what Karen’s union, the American Federation of Teachers, did in the days before the riot, and that’s what New York City Schools Superintendent David Banks promised.
In public schools and public squares, we must exercise our right to free speech responsibly. Combating hatred, intolerance and misinformation. And it fosters respectful discussion and debate, perhaps even about particularly difficult topics.
Karen’s actions are a ray of hope for a peaceful resolution to this most intractable conflict, rooted in our shared values of empathy and basic humanity.
Karen Marder is a teacher in Queens, New York. Randi Weingarten is president of the American Federation of Teachers.
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