Anti-Palestinian racism in Canadian schools and what we can do about it

Like most people engaging in conversations about Palestine and Israel, I’m afraid of my words being taken out of context, misunderstood, or inadvertently causing harm. I’m especially worried about breaking trust with people and communities about whom I care deeply. As an educator, however, I’m called to balance my fears with my responsibility to learn about and teach the issues, especially as they directly impact the learners in my care.

This “fear-responsibility” balancing act isn’t new. From lesson plans that encourage students to learn and reflect on their responsibility to engage in truth and reconciliation, to teaching about past discriminatory government policies and actions, to the links between carceral violence and racism, teachers help students to connect what they’re learning in school to the complexities of the real world. We need this now more than ever, but it is happening far less when it comes to Palestine and Israel than it should. As an anti-racist educator, I’m called to name this erasure and curricular violence for what it is: anti-Palestinian racism.

While readers may have varying opinions about Palestine and Israel, most would agree that the world we want for future generations must be more—not less—equitable and just. Such a world is only possible if people have the capacity to dialogue and contextualize history and commit to taking on all our challenges together, with humility and care. If the present moment is any indicator, we are failing ourselves and our students at building such a world, and causing great harm in the process.

I’d like to ground this discussion in two examples of the many harmful incidents that have occurred across the country recently, one from before October and the other after.

In March 2023, a Palestinian student wore his keffiyeh to his school’s culture day. The student was told to take off his keffiyeh because, according to the principal, the keffiyeh is a “sign of war.”

Telling a student to erase a part of themselves is deeply harmful any day, but the fact that an authority figure asked a Palestinian student to remove his keffiyeh on a school culture day speaks volumes to not just the curricular but the cultural-political landscape in this country. What would the principal’s reaction have been if they themselves had more accurate, dynamic, and positive representations of Palestinian people and their history to draw on? What if instead of telling the student to remove his keffiyeh, the principal had looked up what keffiyehs actually represent?

When we tell a Palestinian student that they need to take off their keffiyeh because “it is a sign of war,” we reinforce dehumanizing stereotypes that there is something inherently violent and divisive about being Palestinian. We are showing them that despite what our equity statements and Education Plans say about all students belonging, these commitments don’t extend to them.

Essential questions for fellow educators

• What is the purpose and aim of education?
• Are the decisions you are making now congruent with the essential purposes and aims of education?
• What is the hidden curriculum of your classroom? In other words, what messages do you send not only when you speak, but when you are silent? Which perspectives do you center, and which are left to the periphery? Which narratives do you surface and which are the ones you avoid?
• Why are you here?

Palestinian students have been experiencing an increase in this type of behaviour over the past several months. On October 16, 2023, a Palestinian elementary school student in the Ottawa-Carleton School Board (OCDSB) was asked to remove a Palestinian flag from their online profile or risk being removed from class. The principal believed that the Palestinian flag was a “political statement” that would make the other students feel unwelcome. The student protested by saying, “you’re not really welcoming me right now.”

Would this principal have responded the same to a student displaying the Israeli flag? The Canadian flag? How can we ask Palestinian students to trust and participate in an education system that equates Palestinian identity itself with “a political statement” that has no place in a classroom?

After this story went public, the OCDSB posted an online statement stating: “While we will not allow imagery that promotes or symbolizes hate, discrimination or violence, students may express themselves using flags or symbols which represent their identity, background or beliefs.”

Of course, a ban on keffiyehs and Palestinian flags would be absurd and grossly violate our educational policies, commitments, and responsibilities. And yet, these kinds of examples illustrate the pervasiveness of anti-Palestinian racism. Until we reckon with this truth, we will continue to perpetuate profound harm.

These types of inconsistent applications of policy and procedures indicate that the problem isn’t the action itself (wearing a keffiyeh or critiquing the actions of the Israeli government), it’s the fear of how the action will be perceived. In doing this, we are modelling that we will break where and when people apply pressure. This is profoundly destabilizing and scary for young people who require consistency to feel safe enough to ask critical questions and meaningfully engage in the world around them.

The same impacts occur when our values and morals are incongruent with our actions. For instance, we say we value social responsibility and welcome sock drives for Ukrainian refugees but shut down fundraisers for medical aid in Gaza. We say that we support students responding to injustice through student clubs, posters, art installations, fundraisers, and more when it comes to climate justice, women’s and queer rights, but when these actions are taken to stand up for Palestinian life, dignity, and freedom, these same students are told to “stay neutral” and warned not to “take sides.”

Further, when we erase and silence Palestinian culture and people from the curriculum and classroom conversations, we commit curricular violence and contravene our professional responsibilities (such as British Columbia’s Positive Personal and Cultural Identity Core Competency). If we fail to mention entire portions of history on the principle that these stories are “difficult” or “too complicated,” we disconnect students from reality—as well as from how they see history and themselves.

Anti-Palestinian racism can also mean only mentioning Palestinians in the context of violence and terrorism. Lessons begin with the intifada but fail to mention the Nakba. Teachers cite resources that claim that Israel was a “land without people for a people without a land” while telling students who question this narrative to stay quiet. When teachers silence Palestinian students and their lived experiences, they abdicate their professional responsibilities and cause emotional and intellectual harm in the process.

Ending curricular violence means coming to terms with the harm that the education system has caused Palestinian students and communities for decades. It means stopping the cycle, working towards repair, and actively preventing ongoing harm. It means recommitting ourselves to humanizing, contextualizing, and nuanced dialogue about Palestine and Israel. While some media create the delusion of two equal sides in conversations about Palestine and Israel, the reality is much more nuanced. How can we encourage students to listen to learn when so much of the world is reinforcing an “us vs. them” mentality that leaves little room for dialogue?

When we humanize oppressed groups and center those most marginalized by racism and injustice, we improve safety for everyone. Taking a principled anti-racist approach to current events leads to more safety, not less. And to more hope. Take, for example, the portrait of Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda, painted by grade 10 student, Asha R, at an art school in Vancouver.