somepeoplegetit

I am consistently amazed by the ignorance people insist on presenting to the outside world.

I teach a civics and history class to 7th graders, these are students who are about 12-13 years old. Lately we’ve been going over the past and present of the situation in the middle east. Mainly I have also been re-informing them about the Israel/Palestine issue—since at the beginning of this they didn’t even know that Palestine is or ever had been a country. Somehow, not to my surprise, it was only footnoted in their textbook as a portion of Israel (i.e. Gaza Strip and West Bank, not one country).

Ok so that pretty much sets the stage for you. Now I have only really gone over the barest of facts with them, since, as in any school even the private one at which I work, History is relegated to a second class subject (just one step above art really) and this means we have a limited about of time to cover a large portion of world history. But even with my barebones style of information they have come to two brilliant conclusions—completely on their own:

1) The situation that the Zionists have imposed on the people of Palestine is very alike to the treatment the Jews of Europe suffered at the hands of the Nazi Government. In that, the Palestinians are relegated to refugee camps, prejudiced based on ethnicity, and have zero rights under the Israeli government. (now please don’t tire me with posts about how they are protecting themselves etc, etc. Israel started this mess. Read history. Then get back to me with something intelligent)
2) That this situation in Palestine and Jerusalem could be directly fueling the emotion of extremist Muslims that then feel it necessary to retaliate to the US’s apparent approval of the way in which Israel has chosen to govern the state.

Now tell me this. How is it that these CHILDREN with about 7 total hours of history and current events have come to these conclusions and the majority of modern American ADULTS cannot come to the same idea?

How is this possible?

This is an awful rant to begin things again on here, but teaching has been consuming my hiatus and this is the greatest revelation that came form it.

On the day the students came up with these points, I stood there dumbly for a minute and then dismissed class into a free period because it was apparent that I had nothing left to teach them on the subject.

Next week we begin African history…