FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Linda Bevis, lindabevis1@aol.com, 206 633-1086
PALESTINE TEACHING TRUNK released for high school and middle school teachers
Palestine Information Project announced today that the Palestine Teaching Trunk is available free of charge to teachers in high schools and middle schools. The Teaching Trunk is both a physical trunk full of curriculum and teaching materials for teachers in the Seattle area, and an extensive series of online curriculum units that meet state and national standards, available for teachers anywhere to download and adapt as needed.Online curriculum materials: http://www.palestineinformation.org/trunk_contents
To borrow the physical Teaching Trunk for no charge in the Puget Sound area: palestineteachingtrunk@gmail.com
The Teaching Trunk contains a range of materials about Palestinian culture and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Organized into four units (classroom based assessments) suitable for different grade levels, activities include Literature Circles, a simulation activity about how a barrier divides a neighborhood, a Socratic discussion about settlements, a prose poem about occupation, and two movies that provide competing narratives about the 1948 expulsion of Palestinians and the founding of an independent state of Israel.
Both the typical Palestinian side and the typical Israeli-government side of the conflict are presented. Students are encouraged to compare how the narratives differ. More complex facets are also represented, including Israeli high school students who refuse to serve in their army, Israelis who are for and against the Wall and settlements, and Palestinians and Israelis who advocate for a single state for both peoples.
The materials were developed by Linda Bevis, who adapted other teachers’ lessons and wrote some of her own in order to compile the Teaching Trunk. Bevis has been a high school social studies teacher, as well as an attorney. She has Master’s degrees in Education and International Studies. For two years, she worked with a Palestinian human rights organization in the West Bank of the Occupied Territories, often coordinating with Israeli human rights groups as well. She is a volunteer with the Palestine Solidarity Committee and the Palestine Information Project in Seattle. In writing and adapting lessons for the trunk, she had help from many other educators who offered their own lessons or who edited the trunk material.
“As a high school social studies teacher,” said Bevis, “I was always looking for curriculum that would teach about the conflict in ways my students could understand so that they could draw their own conclusions. I didn’t want to use my position of power as a teacher to advocate only my own views. But since I knew so much about the conflict, I also couldn’t teach the one-sided version of events that is presented often in textbooks or online. A high-quality, comprehensive curriculum was very hard to find.”
“The Trunk provides balance in the classroom for what many students might hear outside the classroom,” adds Bevis. “American mainstream media most commonly presents the Israeli-government position, and Israeli experiences are usually more humanized than Palestinian. It’s important for students to realize that people are involved on all sides of the conflict and that there is more than one side to the story.”
“We hope there are materials in the Trunk for every educator,” adds Bevis. “Even when teaching straight from a textbook, teachers can supplement with activities and information in the Trunk. Teachers can also utilize the information to offer Middle Eastern parallels when teaching about Apartheid South Africa or the Civil Rights struggle in the US.”
The Teaching Trunk has already been praised by writers and educators:
“An amazing piece of curriculum, that has as much for the teacher as for the children. It’s well-documented, easy to access, and very attractive.”
— Huda Giddens, a long-time Seattle educator, founder of the Giddens School in Seattle
“It’s clear that [the trunk materials] meet a need. I have spoken in local high schools and provided lessons to both students and educators and I appreciate lessons plans with the level of depth and detail that you provide in the Teaching Trunk. I also really appreciate how you created lesson plans that are in line with Washington state educational standards and grade level goals in social studies.”
— Lena Khalaf, co-founder of the Institute for Middle East Understanding, volunteer with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
“The most comprehensive, thorough, engaging, nuanced, complex curriculum dealing with Palestine/Israel that I have ever seen.”
— Jen Marlowe, journalist and co-author of The Hour of Sunlight: One Palestinian’s Journey from Prisoner to Peacemaker
Palestine Information Project is a local all-volunteer organization devoted to educating about Palestinians, Israel and the need for equal rights. Palestine Information Project created the popular DVD PALESTINE FOR BEGINNERS which is also included in the Teaching Trunk.
All the activities, maps, and lessons in the Palestine Teaching Trunk are available free of charge online at http://www.palestineinformation.org/trunk_contents. The physical Teaching Trunk is available to teachers in the Puget Sound area. They can use the maps, movies, curriculum binders, and class sets of young adult novels for up to nine weeks by emailing palestineteachingtrunk@gmail.com.