The Blogs: Hey Pedagogues, leave the kids alone…

**Screenshot from Teachers for Palestine (Ireland)**

At the age of twelve, I voluntarily entered a Quaker co-ed boarding school.

What made that school distinctive was the Quaker education experience. It wasn’t only concerned with exam results. Personal growth that was measurable was equally esteemed by the headmaster and teachers.

My round peg perspectives refused to conform to any systematic square hole. It helped that Newtown School didn’t demand Soviet-style collectivised conformity.

Once a term, the regular hot dinner was replaced with soup and dry crackers. The money saved from not buying meal ingredients that day was donated to international hunger relief and Northern Irish refugee children of The Troubles. Imbibing that religious ideal of social justice stood me in good stead.

In late-March 1972, just before lights out, I was verbally picked on by the teacher on duty. This fourteen-year-old punk spoke truth to power. In response, the teacher roughly pushed me pell mell down the dorm stairs. Then he beat me up outside in the cold dark night. There were many witnesses looking out the windows but no-one intervened…

Eventually, bullied into submission, my very sore solar plexus encouraged a forced apology. That story serves as an apt metaphor for teacher / pupil interfaces.

Contemporary teachers aren’t allowed to physically bully pupils these days. But what if the primary-aged school children, or secondary school teens, don’t agree with the “Nakba” narrative?

Were any politically pointed comments made to pupils by their teachers? Or, were any anti-semitic sceptics bullied by their peers?

A febrile spirit of brown-shirt fascism dominates the digital and analogue public discourse.

Teachers for Palestine (TFP) have radicalisation resources to further promote such a one-sided agenda.“Let’s talk about Palestine” (May 2025) their multi-menu manual of anti-Israel options. All age groups are catered for – starting from age of five to eighteen years old.

“This week is not about stigmatising Israelis or about minimising or negating the suffering of Israelis on or since the October 7th attacks…The organisers recognise that both Israelis and Palestinians are at very painful points in their respective histories, and that both feel existentially threatened.” (1)

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As the Jewish phrase goes – “what’s not to like?”

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Learn Arabic words and phrases – but not Hebrew or Aramaic. Follow recipes for Hummus – but not Challah. Learn how to celebrate Eid – but not Passover. There are videos on dances, songs and more.

For teens there were doctrinaire documents, as well as “anti-Zionist” articles from the Guardian and Al Jazeera but not from Haaretz or Times of Israel, et al.

In the extensive resources, there is no representation of Israeli /Jewish or other minority religious / cultural perspectives. So much for D.E.I. then! A comprehensive Middle Eastern education was willfully missed.

But wait, there’s more! In the same document, point 6 states:

“All fundraising activities should be accountable, and funds raised directed at recognised charities or reputable causes, completely unconnected to violence.”

What was the purpose of fundraising? Who exactly determined which are the “recognisable” charities? How did admin / teachers make sure that such funds raised were distributed to charities “unconnected to violence”?

Were appropriate controls, legal obligations and transparent financial records maintained? (2)

In closing, how were counter-narrative parents treated by teachers if they objected to the pro-Palestinian protocol? Were they discreetly accommodated or shame lectured? And what unnecessary tensions roiled within schools over such pointed, platformed propaganda?

With no apologies to Roger Waters, I offer my reworking of ‘Another brick in the Wall’. (3)