Gaza-Israel Conflict
Gaza-Israel Conflict
As the situation in Israel and Gaza develops, teachers may find themselves fielding questions from students and supporting them in processing what they have heard and seen in the news. The following resources from NCSS address discussing current issues in a classroom setting.
Position Statements
Position Statement on Antisemitism, Antisemitic Violence, and All Bigotry and Discrimination
A Position Statement of National Council for the Social Studies
Approved and published June 2022
Media Literacy
A Position Statement of National Council for the Social Studies
Approved and published June 2022
Human Rights Education
A Position Statement of National Council for the Social Studies
Approved and published 2021
Global and International Education in Social Studies
Revised and approved by NCSS Board of Directors 2016
Social Education
How Can Educators Prepare for Teaching Controversial Issues? Cross-National Lessons
A few key strategies related to the selection and framing of issues, pedagogical choices, and classroom atmosphere can pave the way for successfully teaching controversial issues in fraught times.
Delving into Difficulty: Are Teachers Evading or Embracing Difficult Histories?
Teaching difficult histories has many challenges but it also offers important opportunities.
Seeking Truth in the Social Studies Classroom: Media Literacy, Critical Thinking and Teaching about the Middle East
Students are bombarded daily with a torrent of media messages, many of them with historical content. By selecting the right media documents for decoding, teachers can teach core content while guiding students to think critically about these messages.
Middle School, the Middle East and a War: Debunking Myths and Stereotypes
A group of Wisconsin seventh grade students studying the Middle East reach beyond the headlines to form a connection and friendships with students at a nearby Muslim school.
Life Behind the Wall: Palestinian Students Online
English classes seemed boring to the author's tenth-grade Ramallah students, until they decided to launch the first Palestinian online youth magazine.
Social Studies and the Young Learner
Approaching the Teaching of War in the Elementary Classroom with Text Sets
The authors provide an overview of teaching war and explore ways to situate these notions in the elementary classroom. As part of this discussion, they offer a guide for selecting appropriate texts for a thematic text set for children involving issues of war and peace.
Curriculum Integration Using Picturebooks: Combining Language Arts and Social Studies Standards to Address Controversial Issues
The authors argue that with the continued marginalization of social stud- ies in the elementary classroom, integration has become a popular and effective method for the inclusion of social studies content in the daily curriculum. Using controversial issues, they highlight a model for this integration with a focus on children’s literature.
NCSS welcomes additional articles and resources published by its Affiliated Councils and Associated Groups on teaching about this conflict, and how to teach about current events. Please feel free to share your suggestions with Nancy Driver (ndriver@ncss.org) for consideration.