Interest in Palestine amongst students and the wider public raises an age-old question regarding the teaching profession: can educators be neutral and objective? Is it possible for teachers to discuss what is happening right now across the Gaza Strip in ways that maintain an ‘unbiased’ position?
State governments and conservative commentators have attacked teachers who have shown solidarity with Palestine or have dared to discuss the current genocide in Gaza within schools. The NSW Minister for Education, Pru Carr, has taken issue with teachers who wear Palestinian scarves in schools. She has said, “We rely on them [teachers] to be impartial in the classroom.” Similarly, Victorian Education Minister, Ben Carroll, warned educators about participating in any organised activity in support of Palestine. Carroll stated that ‘teachers in government schools must be unbiased and not have political agendas’.
Students in Australian schools want to talk about Palestine
For over a year, we have seen school students assemble and actively rally in support of school students in Gaza. Not since the student climate protests have we seen such enthusiasm amongst Australian students. In almost every capital city, and some regional areas, students have participated in strikes in solidarity with Palestinians. In the course of mobilising, we are witnessing students become ‘active and informed’ on Palestine. Yet, school students participating in these strikes have been scolded by politicians and conservative commentators. They have told students to stay in class and ‘educate’ themselves.
Take the NSW Premier, Chris Minns. He condemned the student strikes, stating: “If you [students] want to change the world, get an education.” A student protesting in Wollongong responded, ‘Because I am educated I am here, because I am informed I am here at this rally … I would love to be at school, I would love for the children of Gaza to be at school’.
Similarly, hundreds of school students in Melbourne defied the Victorian Education Minister’s condemnation of their strike. The Minister Ben Carroll said students should be in school. A parent of a student protestor responded, “Young people are often presented as being naïve or ignorant and shouldn’t have an opinion when it comes to politics – I disagree.” Another student stated, “They’re not really teaching it in class. So the only way you’re going to find out is if you come to the rallies; educate yourself because you’re not learning any of it at school. It’s not even getting mentioned at school.”
Educators are told to be ‘impartial’ and ‘unbiased’ about Palestine
Similar to students, educators themselves have organised ‘Teachers for Palestine’ groups across NSW and Victoria. These groups have led rallies and held Zoom sessions to discuss incorporating content about Palestine in the curriculum. They have also discussed how to support students currently striking for Palestine. Two major groups include Teachers and School Staff for Palestine – NSW and Teachers/Staff for Palestine in Victoria. In some cases, educators have shown solidarity by openly supporting student strikes and wearing Palestinian Keffiyehs (scarves) or watermelon badges.
Teacher unions have supported these initiatives and even passed motions that acknowledge the rights of teachers to discuss the current genocide with their students. For example, the NSW Teachers Federation Vice-President pointed out educators have a long history of publicly supporting anti-war and social justice causes. Similarly, the Australian Education Union sent its members a bulletin about the right to respectfully discuss Palestine in classrooms.
Recently, on the eve of ‘R U Ok Day’, the NSW Teachers for Palestine group posted the following:
Teaching is a political act
A common argument for teacher neutrality is that it avoids students being brainwashed. But the purpose of critical approaches to citizenship education is not to tell students what to think. It is to support them to ask questions. When the questions are curtailed, we all lose as a democracy, and we lose the opportunity to challenge injustice.
A second argument for neutrality, or more precisely, silence, is that there is no room for politics in the curriculum. However the Australian Curriculum encourages engagement with the world and with the interests that students bring across multiple subject areas. Recognising what students bring with them to school should include recognising that they are developing an understanding of conflict and politics before they enter the classroom door. There is no point pretending that politics does not exist.
All education is political
We commonly engage initial teacher education students with theories of critical pedagogies. For example, Paulo Freire argued in his landmark book The Pedagogy of the Oppressed that ‘all education is political; teaching is never a neutral act’. Similar words were echoed by bell hooks, who wrote in Teaching to Transgress that ‘no education is politically neutral’. More recently, a pioneer of critical pedagogy Henry Giroux wrote: “Those arguing that education should be neutral are really arguing for a version of education in which no one is accountable.”
Teachers are citizens and workers. They have political opinions and many are members of labour organisations. They are also responsible for helping their students to become informed, questioning and critical citizens. Pressure from educational authorities for teachers to hide their beliefs and opinions is damaging for both students and teachers.
Governments are keen to avoid political or politicised topics. Their eyes are more firmly on negative media attention than on ethical considerations. A slippery standard is therefore applied. Almost any topic can become politicised or attract media attention, which makes schools increasingly timid. And attempts to silence discussion are applied unevenly even with similar issues. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza have been treated very differently by governments and inside schools, despite the fact that both have similarities in raising sensitive issues of conflict and trauma.
The teaching profession cannot be neutral, unbiased nor objective
As citizens, teachers and students take on multiple roles. They constantly give off signals about their beliefs, even if in subtle or unrecognised ways. As long as these support the status quo, they are unquestioned. But when they go against the status quo, there is a need to make claims on the rights that all students and teachers have to express themselves. A long tradition in critical scholarship shows that ‘apolitical education’ is a myth. What is often framed as ‘neutrality’ and ‘objectivity’ within education systems stems from Eurocentric white supremacy.
Palestine presents us with a reminder that education can never be neutral. As outlined previously, many teachers and students wish to engage in discussions about Palestine. The Australian curriculum presents many opportunities despite the condemnation that various Education Ministers have offered. It is this contradiction that affirms how neutrality in the context of an on-going genocide, live streamed to the social media devices of our students can be one that supports it, as Paulo Freire himself once said, ‘Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral’.
From left to right: Ryan Al-Natour works as a lecturer in teacher education at Charles Sturt University on Wiradjuri Country. He is written widely about antiracist teaching, social justice pedagogies and Indigenous education. Joel Windle is an associate professor of education at the University of South Australia. He has undertaken research on educational inequalities and community activism in Australia and Brazil. Sarah McDonald is a lecturer based at the Centre for Research in Education & Social Inclusion at the University of South Australia where she conducts research in the areas of gendered subjectivities, social mobility, social barriers, and inequalities in education.