Day school teacher Mr. Berkman is a proud long-time Jewish educator, but only recently has he also come to see himself as an Israel educator. “In October,” he explains, “I joined every other Jewish educator in the world in realizing, wait, I have to teach Israel now. But how?”
Ms. Baghai, a general studies teacher at a different Jewish day school, has also had to rethink her teaching in the wake of October 7th. “How much do we talk about it and learn about it? How deep do we go? How much do I share?” she wonders.
As teacher educators and researchers, we’ve spent the year working with teachers like Mr. Berkman and Ms. Baghai as they reflect on and make sense of their teaching at this difficult moment in time. Our approach to professional learning is rooted in a deceptively simple idea: in order to understand how to better teach children about important issues in the world, educators need to understand how children think about those issues.
This year, as the events of October 7th and the ongoing Israel-Hamas war have weighed heavily on the hearts and minds of teachers and students alike, we’ve partnered with teachers to interview 4th and 5th-grade students at their schools to learn more about how Jewish children are making sense of key issues in the world, including October 7th and the war. We invited a group of 85 Jewish children to share their ideas and feelings about a range of current events, and we spent time with their teachers reading and listening to the children’s words. The children and teachers were all affiliated with one of five large synagogues on the West Coast of the United States. Each synagogue has both a day school and a supplementary school, and we spoke with students and teachers from all ten schools, capturing a range of children and educators with different denominational, political, and educational backgrounds. We believe that the ideas of the children in this project—and in all of our schools—ought to shape the ways that Jewish educators think about and approach their work.
From our careful listening to children this year, we’ve learned four important lessons that we think should challenge, complicate, and inspire the ways that Jewish educators approach discussions about October 7th and the war in their classrooms:
1. Jewish Kids Agree: This War Matters
We’ve been speaking with children who attend different types of schools, who affiliate with different types of synagogues, and who come from families representing a wide range of religious and political ideologies. And yet all of the children we’ve interviewed—regardless of the homes and schools in which they’re being raised—are worried about and are paying attention to the war between Israel and Hamas.
Some Jewish children speak about the Israel-Hamas war in much the same way that they speak about the Russia-Ukraine war. As 4th grader Ty explained, “When there’s a war, a lot of people die or get hurt, and it makes me and everyone in the world sad.” For these children, any war is terrible because of its cost to human life, and therefore all war is important—including the Israel-Hamas war. Other Jewish children feel more personally connected to the Israel-Hamas war. Some of these children believe it is important to care about this war as Jews. For example, 4th grader Bryce says that the Israel-Hamas war matters to him “because I’m Jewish. Israel is a home for the Jews. I’m proud to be Jewish. But I hate to say, lots of Jews are dying from this.” Others care about the war in even more deeply personal ways as they worry about family or friends who have been in harm’s way. As 4th grader Dalia told us, the war “really matters to me because I have a lot of family in Israel.” All of these children are united in a belief that the war “really matters.”
2. Jewish Kids Agree: Children Should Not Be Taken Hostage
All of the children we’ve interviewed are also united by a deep concern for the hostages held in Gaza and a shared moral outrage that children in particular were taken into captivity. 5th grader Piper expressed a position widely held by the children, exclaiming, “Hamas, guys, you don’t take kids!”
Many of the children we’ve interviewed are trying to make sense of the ways that they think war “should” work—including a common belief that war “should” impact only adults—and struggle to comprehend the ways that this war has unfolded—including great tragedies involving children. As 5th grader Leo explained, “The way that they took hostages, they took young kids and elderly people. If you think about it, adults are the ones who really fight in the army, not kids.” Some of the children we’ve interviewed, such as 4th grader Ty, draw explicit connections to what is likely at the root of this fear: “War is only supposed to be men versus men. And it’s like taking me or my brothers hostage.” These Jewish children, physically remote from the war and yet clearly tuned into unfolding events, share a deep anxiety about the fate of the hostages and a profound sense of injustice that children—even those who have been released—have been unwittingly drawn into a war that “should” belong only to adults.
3. Jewish Kids Disagree: Is Israel Conducting the War Ethically?
Despite children’s shared interest in the war and shared concern about the hostages, the children we’ve interviewed have vastly different beliefs about the morality of Israel’s conduct as the war has unfolded. American Jewish children—much like American Jewish adults—differ in both their political ideologies and their range of beliefs about the ethical use of military force.
Some Jewish children believe that because the horrific events of October 7th were perpetrated by Hamas, Israel is—by definition—in the moral right as it conducts the war. As 4th grader Gideon explains, “Everything that happens in the war is not Israel’s fault, because Hamas attacked first.” Other Jewish children, however, are profoundly skeptical about Israel’s conduct in the war, and many of these children are especially concerned about the fate of Palestinian children in Gaza. In the words of 4th grader Darya, “It makes me sad that women and children in Gaza have died because I know that they’re not Hamas. They didn’t deserve to die.” These two types of Jewish children—those like Addison, who is “not convinced Israel is doing the right thing about Gaza,” and those like Gala, who believe that “Israel has a right to defend themselves no matter what”— sit side by side in Jewish classrooms.
4. Jewish Kids Disagree: How Much is Too Much Information?
Just as the children have no unified set of beliefs about Israel’s conduct in the war, they also have no shared understanding of the question Ms. Baghai and many others wonder about: how much should children learn about (and how much should they be shielded from) violent and horrific events?
Many of the children we’ve interviewed have strong feelings about this question. On one side of the spectrum fall children like 4th grader Jeremiah, who insists that because children know how important the war is, it ought to be a central topic for teaching and learning in Jewish schools. In his words, “I want to learn about it, and I think that children have a right to learn about it!” On the other side of the spectrum sit children like Dalia, for whom any discussions about October 7th and the war make her feel “upset and worried.” Dalia insists that she “can’t bear to see” what’s happening in Israel and Gaza, and she wants the adults in her life to construct spaces for her where she doesn’t need to think or worry about the war. Other children, like Addison, fall elsewhere along this continuum, believing that children and their teachers should discuss some—but not all—information. In her view, “I want teachers to inform us, but I don’t want to know every single detail about what’s happening.” Teachers should expect that the children in their classrooms have different levels of interest in discussing events related to the war and different levels of tolerance for learning about violence.
What Children’s Ideas Mean for Teachers
Regardless of their educational settings or religious affiliations, Jewish children are united in concern about the fate of the hostages and outrage about child hostages in particular but hold very different beliefs about the morality of Israel’s conduct in Gaza. They have a shared belief in the significance of the war, but different beliefs about how the war ought (or ought not) enter their classrooms. Both the commonalities and the differences among children must inform teachers’ ways of responding to and proactively addressing children’s ideas in the classroom.
Every year—and perhaps this year more than ever—teachers make choices about how to respond to the world around them while creating a safe environment in which students can learn and grow. Because of the quick pace of classroom life, teachers often make these choices at lightning speed while also juggling their curriculum, social dynamics, and a myriad of other challenges. Children’s ideas should inform this decision-making, but teachers need opportunities to pause and step back from the rapid-fire pace of classroom discourse and listen to those ideas.
One powerful way to help teachers reflect on how and when to have classroom conversations about the Israel-Hamas war (or any challenging topic) is to offer them the chance to pause, slow down, and hear the ideas of the children they teach, whether those ideas are challenging, reassuring, or surprising. When teachers can hear the voices of their students without needing to react immediately, it allows them to ground themselves in what they know to be true about teaching and learning. As veteran teacher Mrs. Ingram explained after examining the words of students, “I am reminded that what we do [as teachers] is meaningful work. Kids are going to be the next grown-ups, and they’ve got real serious thoughts.” Getting to hear those serious thoughts is a gift that all teachers deserve this year and every year.
This article was originally posted in Jewish Education Leadership, How To Teach Israel, Volume 23:1, Fall 2024
This project was funded by by an award from CASJE's Small Grants Program.