Lessons on Combatting Antisemitism & Anti-Muslim Sentiments at School

The following resources, lessons, and exercises are designed to help educators address Islamophobia and antisemitism in K-12 Schools (Begin by reading the article on NIOT.org and Edutopia by Becki Cohn Vargas).

 

Unit Rationale: Jews, Muslims, and Arab Americans in the U.S. are experiencing a dramatic rise in hate and violence. Consider the threat and the problem: 

• There has been a 912% increase in antisemitic content on TikTok since the Pandemic started in 2020. 
• A 2020 poll found that 51% of American Muslim families reported that their children experienced religious-based bullying – insults or physical assaults – in school. That’s nearly twice the rate reported by parents among the general public, the same poll found. 
• There has been a 337% increase in antisemitism since Oct 7, 2023 
• There has been a 216% in anti-Muslim bias since Oct 7, 2023. 

Middle and high school students are particularly at risk of encountering antisemitic and anti-Muslim content in unmonitored digital spaces—meme culture, social media, and gaming platforms. By understanding what antisemitism & Islamophobia are, how they show up, and how they impact individuals and communities, students are more likely to recognize and, more importantly, challenge antisemitism and anti-Muslim bias when students encounter them. Educating young people about antisemitism & Islamophobia –the racial and religious elements, the history and how they appear in the present day – can help them better understand how such prejudice manifests and how it can be challenged. (adapted from Facing History)

 

NIOT presents background information on extremist groups and antisemitism on Repairingtheworldfilm.org Here are additional sources for  understanding antisemitism and Islamophobia  from these links and sources listed below: 

 

What is antisemitism? 

What is Islamophobia?

 

Establishing a Reflective Classroom: Reflective classroom communities are places where explicit rules and implicit norms protect everyone’s right to speak; where differing perspectives can be heard and valued; where members take responsibility for themselves, each other, and the group as a whole; and where each member has a stake and a voice in collective decisions. (source: Facing History and Ourselves)

Students need to be prepared to engage in conversations on antisemitism and Islamophobia. Teachers need to create a class environment to provide opportunities for civil discourse. The ideas and tools in these Facing History guides Fostering Civil Discourse and Contracting will help educators prepare students to engage in reflective conversations on Antisemitism and Islamophobia. 

Lesson 1: Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred 

Essential Questions:

• How do we recognize similarities among people and identify our own biases to make positive changes in our school/community?  
• What can we do as educators and community members to confront racism and other forms of hatred in our schools and communities?
•  How do we work together to build a unified school/community that affords all people membership?

Students Will Be Able To: Explore, confront, and deconstruct stereotypes targeted at Jews. Students will learn about the impact of Antisemitism. 

Lesson: Students will read and answer the following questions to prepare for a Socratic Seminar discussion on the Facing History Resource Antisemitism and its Impacts

1. What is antisemitism?
2. What forms does Antisemitism take and where does it show up?
3. Why does Antisemitism persist?
4. How does Antisemitism impact individuals and communities?
5. Have antisemitic tropes/memes shown up on your school or social media? 
6. What are the ways a community can appropriately respond to antisemitism? 
7. How can a community support those who have been impacted by antisemitism? 
8. Have antisemitic tropes/memes shown up on your school or social media? 

Closing activity 

The class will watch the seven-minute  Deconstructing Memes Facing History video to reflect on the following questions

• What strategies do you use to identify racist or discriminatory memes in your social media feed?  
• What do you do when you see these images on social media?
• What steps can you take to be a virtual upstander?

 

Lesson 2: Islamophobia

Essential Questions:

• How do we recognize similarities among people and identify our own biases to make positive changes in our school/community?  
• What can we do as educators and community members to confront racism and other forms of hatred in our schools and communities?
•  How do we work together to build a unified school/community that affords all people membership?

Students Will Be Able To: Explore, confront, and deconstruct stereotypes targeted at Muslims. Students will learn about the impact of Islamophobia 

Do Now: Have you ever been judged and/or treated differently on account of your cultural practices (these could be linked to clothes, food, traditions, and/or beliefs)? 

• What happened?
• How did the situation make you feel?
• What, if anything, were the consequences of this judgment and/or treatment? 

**Given the personal nature of these reflections, students should be allowed to keep their responses private. 

Have students read Islamophobia past and present and complete the SIT chart

Have students read the quote to answer questions about the role of the media in promoting and/or perpetuating stereotypes.

“The stories audiences read in newspapers or see on television about current events are not objective accounts of what happened. Journalists and editors make choices about the angle to adopt in telling a story. ... The news media creates frames of interpretation through which we understand “reality,” but the reality in question is a construction that reflects the biases and ideologies of individual journalists and the media organizations that employ them. The reality created by the media, moreover, is often constructed to attract consumers and to keep a newspaper, news website, or television network in business. The mass media, after all, is part of the corporate world, with ownership of most news organizations held by a handful of companies.

Profit is always a part of the picture, which means that the media faces immense pressure to present news stories that reinforce the assumptions and ideologies held by the dominant culture and its most powerful institutions.”

Todd H. Green, scholar, author, and professor

Students can answer or discuss the following questions:

Think-Pair-Share

Save the Last Word for Me

1. What does Todd Green state about the way that the media represents information?
2. Why might the need to make a profit mean the media faces ‘pressure to present news stories that reinforce the assumptions and ideologies held by the dominant culture and its most powerful institutions’? 
3. What media do you engage with? 
   • How has it shaped your views?
   • What steps do you take to ensure the information you consume is reliable?

Students can answer or discuss the following questions:

Muslim students in America

1. What challenges did students face in their schools and communities? 
2. What examples of allyship were presented in the video?
3. What are some steps you can take to make sure your classmates are welcome in school?

How a Christian community reacts when Muslims move next door

1. What are some of the feelings you heard people discuss in the video?
2. How did members of the community work to build bridges?

Exit ticket Please write a 5-7 sentence reaction to the quote addressing what steps you can take to build commUNITY in your school. 

“Communities are not built of friends, or of groups with similar styles and tastes, or even of people who like and understand each other. They are built of people who feel they are part of something bigger than themselves: a shared goal or enterprise, like righting a wrong, building a road, raising children, living honorably, or worshiping a god. To build community requires only the ability to see value in others, to look at them and see a potential partner in one’s enterprise.” -Suzanne Goldsmith
 

Lesson 3: Taking Action to Address Antisemitism & Islamophobia 

Essential Questions:

• How do we recognize similarities among people and identify our own biases to make positive changes in our school/community?  
• What can we do as educators and community members to confront racism and other forms of hatred in our schools and communities?
• How do we work together to build a unified school/community that affords all people membership?

Students Will Be Able To:  Judge and employ strategies to interrupt Antisemitism and Islamophobia.
 

Lesson: Select “Scenario 3” from the Echoes & Reflection’s resource Taking Action. 

1. Have students read the scenario, answer the questions, and prep discussion notes.  Then discuss as a class.
2. PRACTICE interrupting bias!  The more you practice, the more capable you are of responding in the moment. Discuss the difference between what you would do, could do & should do.  

Would do- if allowed having done something it is the action you take

Should do- something that would have been a good idea or the proper thing to do, but you didn't do it

Could do- something was possible/an option in the past, or you could do something in the past, but wasn’t done; 

 

Use episodes from MTV’s “Look Different” to have students practice responses. Here are some options:

You don't look Jewish

What's up Bin Laden

Students should fill out the chart after watching 1 episode of an antisemitic incident & 1 episode of an anti-Muslim incident. The teacher leads the discussion.

OR 

The chart can be projected on a whiteboard. Students leave sticky notes for their actions under each heading. The teacher reads some examples and students discuss their efficacy.

 

Lesson 4: Modern-Day Antisemitism & Islamophobia 

Essential Questions:

• How do we recognize similarities among people and identify our own biases to make positive changes in our school/community?  
• What can we do as educators and community members to confront racism and other forms of hatred in our schools and communities?
•  How do we work together to build a unified school/community that affords all people membership?

 

Students Will Be Able To: Empower themselves to be UPSTANDERS who INTERRUPT ignorance and hate

 

Lesson: Go to the ADL Heat Map.  

What strikes you the most about what this website is showing? 

 

1. Next Filter by State for your home state (Ex: CA or NJ)

When was the most recently recorded/reported Antisemitic Incident, and where was it? 

 

2. Do these crimes surprise you? Explain.

 

3. Use this link Hate Symbols Database | ADL to determine how these images are used to signal hatred to others.

 

Look for at least 3 that are new to you (you can do more): 

 

Students will read the excerpts from CNN: These are the New Symbols of Hate

 

From CNN: New Symbols of Hate

“The visibility of hate symbols also makes them prime fodder for trolls and other ne’er-do-wells who know such symbols are shorthands for fear, pain and outrage – like teenagers tagging the sides of buildings or a recent incident in which a group online tried to convince the Internet a simple bird meme was actually a hate symbol by photo-shopping a swastika on it.

“People know it will attract attention,” he says. “I always consider three things: If you see someone spray paint KKK, it’s not the Klan. If you see someone spray paint 666, it’s probably not a Satanist, and if you see someone spray paint a swastika, it’s not a Nazi.”Of course, that doesn’t lessen the emotional and cultural harm these symbols can cause.If anything, it makes them more dangerous because people use them without fully considering their damaging and deadly implications.

It is an interesting distortion of a hateful tradition in which devotees try desperately to control the message – to conveniently hide their beliefs under hidden lip tattoos and white hoods (and online anonymity) while perpetuating symbols and messages that, like a virus, don’t need a specific host to cause harm.”

They do so by just existing.

4. What does the author mean by the last 2 paragraphs? Explain it in your own words. Then elaborate on whether you agree or disagree with this position.

 

Additional resources:

Facing History: Confronting Islamophobia

Not In Our Town: Billings, Montana

Learning for Justice: Countering Islamophobia

Expelling Islamophobia

Islamic Network Group

Echoes & Reflections: The Scope & Scale of Antisemitism

Antisemitic Incidents: Being an Ally, Advocate and Activist

Resources for Preventing & Expelling Islamophobia in Schools

Facing History: Influence, Celebrity & The Dangers of Online Hate

Facing History: White Nationalism

Facing History: Repairing the World: Stories from the Tree of Life lesson

 

Extension discussion:

Kanye West has more Twitter followers than there are Jews in the world. There are an estimated 14.8 million Jews and he has over 30 million followers. American Jews are experiencing a historic rise in antisemitic incidents. His actions are extremely dangerous and should be called out. What do you do?  Do you wear his shoes? Do you listen to his music? Where do you feel you draw a line for refusing to put up with intolerance and antisemitism?