LEARNING TO TEACH IN A TIME OF CRISIS

By Emma Driban

How The iCenter is inspiring a meaningful and enduring connection to Israel by helping educators teach about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

If you are one of the many educators searching for the words to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, look no further than The iCenter’s new training program, Conflicts of Interest. The new initiative’s aim is to increase educators’ confidence, competence, and capabilities to hold nuanced perspectives and engage learners with different narratives. Central to any iCenter experience is its approach, which places the learners’ relationship with Israel at the center of the learning experience.

The iCenter is an educational resource with a mission of catalyzing excellence in the professional field of Israel Education by supporting the development of educators, pioneering new educational approaches, and relentlessly promoting a relational and learner-centered philosophy. Their goal is meeting Jewish youth everywhere they are— summer camps, birthright trips, youth organizations, Hillels, and more. Since its founding in 2008, The iCenter has reached over 200,000 young Jews.

In this moment of crisis in Israel, The iCenter is focused on empowering Israel educators to teach the complexity of the current environment and providing them with the tools, resources, and opportunities to meet their changing needs. At the same time, The iCenter is adapting its signature programs to ensure they are responsive to the current dynamic and adaptive as the situation evolves.

The pilot certificate program on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was offered to interested Israel educators and others working in the field of Israel education in August 2023. Since then, three other cohorts have completed the program, totaling 196 educators from across the United States and Canada.

“Especially after October 7, Jewish educators are also Israel educators,” said

Anne Lanski, CEO of The iCenter. “Educators must be ready to engage with Israel and the conflict in nuanced ways that respect each learner. We support and train educators in ways that reflect what we call ‘the art of turning conflict into growth.’”

Conflicts of Interest draws from the best resources and pedagogies from leading organizations in the fields of conflict education, peace education, political education, civic education, and more. The learning is organized around a set of values and core pedagogic approaches, content areas, and historical and contemporary points of contention.

Over about four weeks, both virtually and in person, participants develop skills, open-mindedness, courage, and resilience to approach conflicts in their work and everyday lives. Throughout the program, educators engage with core content related to conflicts and Israel, learn and practice protocols for facilitating conversations around controversial issues, examine primary sources, and receive practical tools for engaging with these topics.

The most frequently mentioned takeaway for participants was the value of learning multiple perspectives of historical and current events.

“The program challenged me to think outside the box to find new ways to think and new ways to teach,” said a participant. “It makes me want to be more experiential with how I teach and the importance of not only the topic but connecting to the learner through lived experience.”

As so many of us have seen, younger generations are more likely to sympathize with the Palestinian people. A Pew Research study indicates that a third of adults under 30 say their sympathies lie either entirely or mostly with the Palestinian people, while 14% say their sympathies lie entirely or mostly with the Israeli people. The rest say their sympathies lie equally with both, with neither, or that they are not sure. Furthering the complications surrounding the issue, there are wide partisan differences in views on the question. Additionally, six-in-ten adults under age 30 have a positive view of the Palestinian people, compared with 46% who see the Israeli people positively. Holding too strictly to just one point of view could prove to be isolating.

In line with these figures, one Conflicts of Interest participant reflected, “We must teach with nuance and complexity, recognizing different narratives and perspectives. Anything else a) feels like it lacks integrity; b) risks losing learners who are skeptical that Jewish institutions can hold space for more than one perspective (e.g., teens, young adults, etc.), and c) risks creating resentment in learners down the road who could feel like they’d been ‘lied to’ through their Jewish educational experiences when they were younger.”

Beyond this new program, The iCenter offers The Aleph Bet of Israel Education—a set of core principles, approaches to content, and essential pedagogies that together constitute the building blocks for the field of Israel Education. They act on their belief that the subject of Israel is an important priority of American Jewish life and shouldn’t be left to social media. Moreover, we shouldn’t wait until the young adult years to engage with this subject. The Aleph Bet is about more than just educating. It’s about taking part in a time-honored Jewish Tradition, thousands of years in the making, asking us to love “with all your heart, soul, and might.” The initiative begins education during a child’s early years, so they can participate in lifelong learning and develop a strong connection at a young age.

The iCenter site explains, “At the heart of our approach is the Aleph Bet of Israel Education. The resources we curate and create are designed to be learner-centered, feature the diversity of voices in Israeli life, and draw on genuine Israeli culture. Our goal is to create multiple entry points for educators to engage learners in meaningful and dynamic relationships with Israel.”

The iCenter offers nine additional initiatives, including higher education programs, Birthright experiences, camp journeys, and more.

Applications are open now for the November 2024 and January 2025 cohorts for Conflicts of Interest at theicenter.org/conflictsofinterest.