Tag: teaching

By SAS & BB

Since November 2023, staff in Victoria’s government schools have faced pressure to remain neutral on the issue of Israel’s ongoing genocide. This began with the Victorian Department of Education issuing a direction to all principals to share a letter with staff in response to a ‘week of action for Palestine’ planned by workers. The week of action was organised by the Victorian Teachers and School Staff for Palestine group, and included wearing keffiyehs, hosting Palestine awareness events, posting photos and videos in support. The Department’s letter stated that it did not endorse the week of action, and that teachers and staff needed to abide by the Victorian Public Sector Code of Conduct at all times.

Whilst the letter was largely equivocal (e.g. support students, don’t upset your colleagues, stick to the curriculum etc.,) the Department did make clear that ‘school staff should not use their professional position to make political statements or seek to influence the political views of students’.

The Department’s Selecting Appropriate Materials policy is meant to ensure students are learning from resources created by ‘inappropriate organisations’, such as online gaming organisations, tobacco companies and companies involved in the sale or promotion of weapons. However, STEM programs commonly used in schools such ‘First Lego League’, ‘Code Quest’ and ‘Space Camp’ are branded by weapons manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman.

The Meddler spoke to two locals who work in government schools, about their experiences navigating this issue over the past year. One teacher recalled being spoken to by his worried principal after delivering a lesson about persuasive speeches. “We looked at debates around a few current issues… bike lanes, climate change… Often people look at Andrew Bolt” he explained. “The teacher will use a firebrand, with strong language, to analyse. We looked at one speech by Benjamin Netanyahu, who was responding angrily to the International Criminal Court’s deliberation over whether to issue a warrant for his arrest.” Referring to the Netenyahu content, the principal told the teacher that the Department did not want him teaching it, before instructing all staff to avoid the issue in their lessons. “I’m a teacher of humanities, which means I teach controversial issues”. Since then, I’ve still done little bits here and there; nothing major. When the students got to talk about Palestine, they were pretty engaged. No bad things happened.”

In brandishing the public sector code of conduct, the Department should probably read the whole thing. A second teacher told us that the code actually creates an obligation to support and advocate for human rights.

For him this means schools being consistent in their teaching of human rights. “Human rights only work if they’re universally applied and clearly the decision to not apply them, or to apply them selectively, is a political decision.” His motivation to teach is not only to help students do well in tests, he explained, but to help them to develop as citizens who have a political consciousness – which is a part of the prescribed curriculum. “Giving students an opportunity to develop a political consciousness means thinking about human rights and its selective application. It’s not specifically about Palestine. It’s also about West Papua or it’s about Kurdistan. It’s our obligation to teach these things. And that’s in accordance with Jewish values as far as I’m concerned.”

The teacher, who is Jewish, agreed that teachers shouldn’t be going into the classroom and telling students who to vote for, but they should be able to critically analyse with students a speech by a politician and to do that as a pedagogical practice.

“What I would say as well is that the [Department’s] directive, if one was to interpret that directive more extremely, is that you are not allowed to do anything political. If that was the case, it would hinder the work we do in the classroom. It becomes absurd.”

The teacher observed that young people know what is happening in the world; they are curious and have opinions. “The obligation of teachers is to meet students where they are at, whether they have connections to the issues or not.”

“We wear pride badges. We run queer clubs. We celebrate days like IDAHOBIT. So we’re doing political things at schools and anyone who says we’re not is either being disingenuous or spectacularly stupid.”

One of the ways concerned teachers are responding is through the vehicle of the union. At the Australian Education Union’s (AEU) annual branch conference, the highest decision making body of the AEU, teachers have been successful in passing motions. These include ‘Teaching for Peace’, and ‘Palestine is Union Business’. Amongst other things, these motions articulate teachers’ right to teach in alignment with their professional standards, their code of conduct and their conviction as teachers. “In these motions, we’re determining what’s appropriate as professionals, and as people who know our students.”

The AEU now officially promotes a union contingent to march the first Sunday of each month at the weekly protests for Palestine, and has called on the Department to equip teachers with the resources and guidance needed to educate for peace.