LTC Salon | Responding to the World in the Classroom: Palestine, Israel, and Beyond

For this Friday’s LTC Salon, I’m doing something a little different: offering space for an emergent conversation on what may feel like a pressing topic – 

Responding to the World in the Classroom: Palestine, Israel, and Beyond

Friday, November 3, 12:30-2:30

Learning and Teaching Commons (Sem II E3120)

Come when you can, leave when you need! We will have tea and snacks 🙂

Make this your lunch break: there will be food catered by Nineveh

Nancy Koppelman will be my co-facilitator for an informal discussion about how the war in Gaza – and more broadly, erupting national or global crises – may intersect with your teaching. We can be a resource for understanding the current conflict, considering the impact students might be feeling, and exploring strategies for responding when fraught and upsetting issues come up in class. 

I encourage you to stop by in person, but if Zoom works better for you I’ll set that up with an OWL. Link: https://evergreen.zoom.us/j/85758273129

The attached resource packet contains some guidance for the general teaching challenges under consideration. In addition, Faculty Emeritus Bill Arney  wrote “What Do You Teach After the War Begins?” in 1992 after the first Gulf War started.  He was teaching in the MIT program at the time.  The article documents how his students, imagining themselves as teachers in the future, grappled with how to teach during a war.

It’s not “homework,” but we also recommend this recording as a good primer on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, its latest eruption of violence, and possibilities for peace. It’s a panel discussion between Israeli, Palestinian, and Egyptian scholars at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University, which took place on October 19, 2023. They are co-authors of a book called Arabs and Israelis: Conflict and Peacemaking in the Middle East (2013). (The link above launches the video at about 12 minutes in, after explanations and introductions of the panelists, but you may start at the beginning if you’d like.) 

Please join us if you can,
Julie

P.S. Staff are welcome to attend!