The Anti-Israel Extremist at the Helm of Two Influential Education Organizations
Deborah Menkart thinks Israel's motivations for going into Gaza are "greed for land and profits from arms sale" - she heads up Teaching for Change and the Zinn Education Project.
Deborah Menkart is the executive director of Teaching for Change and co-director of the Zinn Education Project.
Teaching for Change’s tagline is “Building Social Justice starting in the classroom.”
The mission for Teaching for Change is:
“Teaching for Change provides teachers and parents with the tools to create schools where students learn to read, write, and change the world.
By drawing direct connections to real world issues, Teaching for Change encourages teachers and students to question and re-think the world inside and outside their classrooms; build a more equitable, multicultural society; and become active global citizens. Our professional development, publications, and parent organizing programs serve teachers, other school staff, and parents. Our main focus is national and we have dedicated programs in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.”
They do this by providing resources for teachers, curricula and professional development opportunities.
One such resource from Teaching for Change is the “Challenge Islamophobia” project. This includes lesson plans like “Whose Terrorism.”:
“Since George W. Bush declared a “war on terrorism” following 9/11, the words “terrorism” and “terrorists” have been used to justify wars, incite violence, detain, torture, and kill. Through a role play activity, this lesson gives learners an opportunity to critically analyze the word “terrorism” and understand how the use of this word has played out in the lives of Muslims and those targeted as Muslim since 9/11.
“Whose Terrorism? Part II” is an extension of the lesson “Whose Terrorism?” by Bill Bigelow, included in the Rethinking Schools curriculum Teaching About the Wars (2013). Bigelow’s lesson asks important questions in our inquiry into Islamophobia: Whose terrorism makes the headlines? Whose terrorism is labeled as such? Whose terrorism do we sanctify and whose do we punish? What if, instead of asking who is a terrorist, we asked who is being terrorized? The lesson gives learners an opportunity to challenge the “good guys versus bad guys” dichotomies that are ubiquitous in discussions about 9/11.”
And “Who Benefits from Islamophobia: Investigating the Profit Motive behind Bigotry and Discrimination”.
“This lesson gives participants an opportunity to investigate some of the individuals, organizations, and corporations that benefit from anti-Muslim hate through a role play activity.
They meet people like Marillyn Hewson, CEO of weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corporation, and George Zoley, CEO of Geo Group, a private prison company.
Participants also hear from people who are negatively impacted by Islamophobia, like 8-year-old Nawar al-Awlaki, who was assassinated by a U.S. military drone in Yemen in 2017, despite being a U.S. citizen. Nawar’s brother and father were also murdered by U.S. drones.
Participants discuss how the information in this role play affects their perspectives on Muslims and Islamophobia and then create a public service announcement to share what they learned with a wider audience.”
Together with “Rethinking Schools”, previously covered in this substack, Teaching for Change runs the Zinn Education Project.
“The Zinn Education Project promotes and supports the teaching of people’s history in middle and high school classrooms across the country. Based on the lens of history highlighted in Howard Zinn’s best-selling book A People’s History of the United States, the website offers free, downloadable lessons and articles organized by theme, time period, and reading level.”
“Since 2008, the Zinn Education Project has introduced students to a more accurate, complex, and engaging understanding of history than is found in traditional textbooks and curricula. With more than 160,000 people registered, and growing by more than 10,000 new registrants every year, the Zinn Education Project has become a leading resource for teachers and teacher educators.”
They offer lesson plans and resources for teachers such as Samia Shoman’s “Independence or Catastrophe: Teaching Palestine Through Multiple Perspective”, previously covered in this substack.
And they run the National Education Association-endorsed “Teach Truth Day of Action” .
So what is the “truth” about Palestine, according to Deborah Menkart, executive director of Teaching for Change and co-director of Zinn Education Project?
…it’s not hard to guess.
She recently had a lovely visit to the Museum of the Palestinian People where she dropped off “Rethinking Schools” latest magazine issue. It includes an article on how the ADL weaponizes antisemitism to “push an anti-justice, pro-Israel agenda” and should be dropped from schools.
Museum of the Palestinian People is followed by well-known figures in this substack:
And the team behind the Museum has some interesting views…
Wafa Ghnaim, curator at the museum, had this to say on October 7th, 2023:
“I feel a superior clarity in my commitment to liberation that is as light and refreshing and crisp in as the morning breeze felt by a former prisoner escaping his slaughterhouse on a parachute flying high above the cruel world that imprisoned him for so devastatingly long. His only crime was Indigeneity. Freedom must taste just like that air.”
Julia Pitner is the Director of Programs and Operations.
She has written for Electronic Intifada on the “ongoing Nakba” and engaged in some Holocaust inversion on her Instagram:
Menkart was in good company then…
Here she is on October 16, 2023.
Here she is on October 29, 2023. Israel’s motivations for going into Gaza could only be land or greed, apparently.
Nothing posted on Instagram or Twitter on October 7th of course.
Here she reposts Christopher Rogers of the W.E.B. Du Bois Movement School for Abolition and Reconstruction, previously covered in this substack.
According to the “educator”, getting elementary school children to cheer for Free Palestine days after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust is a great thing. Menkart agrees. This is the “truth” they wish to teach.
Perhaps she didn’t post on October 7th, 2023 because she was too busy manning the “DC Area Educators for Social Justice” exhibit….
Here are more links between Menkart, Rethinking Schools and the Abolitionist Movement.
Drag Queen story hour for kids!
And finally, Menkart with our substack regular, Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi, at the “social justice curriculum fair” hosted by Teaching for Change’s D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice:
Teaching for Change, Rethinking Schools, and the Zinn Education Project are influential organizations, supported by our teachers unions. It’s good to know who is running things over there…