California Poets in the Schools is devastated by the heart-wrenching humanitarian crisis unfolding in Israel and Gaza.  As a nonprofit, youth-serving organization, we stand against racism and oppression.  We recognize how our government and society create the conditions for racism and oppression to occur. We work for change through fulfilling our mission and our vision - building opportunities for large numbers of California youth to express their truth in poetry, and to listen deeply as others do the same.

 

Our curriculum aims to put empathy at the center.  In our poetry workshops, Poet-Teachers encourage youth to find their own voices and their own feelings about these particular issues and many other pressing issues of our time.  Poet-Teachers work to create structured, safe spaces for students to share their own poems and then listen carefully to the poetry of others whose views may be different from their own. 

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As educators and poets, let us commit to creating conscious, open and safe spaces where young people can work to build bridges of understanding across some of the most difficult divides.  In this spirit, we are collecting resources for poetry teachers and classroom teachers that may be supportive in guiding youth to contemplate the situation in the Middle East.  We will add to this list as time goes on, and build it out to include resources for teaching other critical issues such as climate change, the war in Ukraine, gun violence, etc.  If you have a resource that you would like to see listed here, please email it to: info@cpits.org.

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Resources for Poetry Teachers:

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Israel/Palestine:

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Solutions not Sides: https://solutionsnotsides.co.uk/

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Teaching Controversies:  https://teachingcontroversies.com

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Understanding Antisemitism: https://www.jfrej.org/assets/uploads/JFREJ-Understanding-Antisemitism-November-2017-v1-3-2.pdf

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The Zinn Education Project:  https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/teaching-palestine-israel

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Facing History and Ourselves: https://www.facinghistory.org/en-gb/resource-library/discussing-israel-palestine-conflict-classroom

Gaza Monologues: https://www.gazamonologues.com

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A Bilingual Poem from Gaza:  https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/poetry/bilingual-poem-gaza-refaat-alareer

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Why Jewish Educators Need to Teach the Palestinian Perspective:  https://jweekly.com/2016/01/15/why-jewish-educators-need-to-teach-the-palestinian-perspective/

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Teaching Jewish Youth to Think Critically about the Israel/Hamas Conflict: http://reframingisrael.org/about-the-project/