I witnessed first-hand the teaching materials used in UNWRA funded schools, during my service in the Middle East 2006 -2007. That Canada continues to fund UNWRA with no attached conditions , similar to other Western nations, is a stain on our foreign aid policy.
‘If a 27 year old teacher, fresh out of a rigidly politicized and decolonization-heavy teachers' college is standing in front of 25 kids with the door closed, what do you think the real lesson will be about?’
Yeah, pretty much. Although I also wouldn't discount the chronic, snotty "we're-the-adults-here-and-we know-what's-right" smugness of GAC decision makers.
Many thanks for this interesting post. I can't say, however, that these findings are exactly surprising. It is good to see at least that the study seems to be very thorough. In view of anecdotal reports of problems in Canadian schools, and so far as I know specifically in Ontario schools, I would really like to see a similar study to do with Canadian, especially Ontarian curricula.
I'm not sure the primary problem in Ontario is the curriculum content itself. I would be very surprised to find Ontario textbooks explicitly promoting jihad martyrdom. (Although there's certainly plenty of stuff in those textbooks that many of us would no doubt find objectionable for different reasons.)
The larger related issue in provincial systems is that what's actually taught in classrooms often has very little to do with any official curriculum guidance. If a 27 year old teacher, fresh out of a rigidly politicized and decolonization-heavy teachers' college is standing in front of 25 kids with the door closed, what do you think the real lesson will be about?
That's something I've so far been unable to properly study and quantify.
Yes, I agree with your first paragraph. Naturally mutatis mutandis, I was not thinking about the outright encouragement of Jihad in Ontario textbooks, but rather, as you suggest in the second paragraph, heavy “decolonization” and “anti-settler” narratives.
One hears, for example, about our all being infected by “white-body supremacy virus”, and the like, for which we of course need to be compelled to take some sort of cure; but it is pretty well impossible to tell how widespread this sort of thing is. And one gets the impression, especially from some highly-publicized cases, that so-called “anti-racist training,” is all the rage for educators, “training” which is naturally expensive and inevitably involves a high degree of reductionism, especially when membership in sundry variably valued categories is said to be a matter of self-identification.
Since textbooks, in principle, codify what is considered worth teaching, one can’t help but wonder how far behind contemporary theory they are and to what extent the students are expected to parrot what they are taught, whether verbally or in written form, to get through the education system.
Your comment actually reminded me of a post I published (and then forgotten) just a few months ago, where I used the Open Syllabus project to understand what they're teaching in teachers' colleges in Canada. Based on those insights, teaching materials are indeed changing, but we don't seem to have reached such extremes just yet.
Yes. Thanks for reminding me of this; and then there was your excellent piece on violence in the schools in June (https://www.theaudit.ca/p/whats-really-going-on-in-ontarios). But of course the reasons for this state of affairs remain officially unclear.
The elected Jacobins and Bolsheviks of the state are ethically and morally unfit to determine through unnecessary bureaucracies where huge amounts of taxes taken from the unborn are directed. In this case, it's the alignment of the left and centrists with Islam, now a significant voting block. All foreign aid qualifies as funding that would be better left to those who wish to individually and voluntarily fund foreign (and domestic) forms of assistance. "If" altruism is a virtue, it certainly isn't when implemented at gun point (taxes). This goes back to St Francis of Assisi and his work on "Free will".
Canada's $65 million commitment in May 2024 includes $25 million to UNRWA for Palestinian education, health, and social services. This brings total aid since 2016 to $259 million, as noted. Yet the funding requires UNRWA to uphold UN neutrality policies and implement reforms from independent reviews for stronger oversight. These steps address curriculum issues without halting essential support amid Gaza's crisis.
That's true. Although, as other nations have noticed, such policies obviously haven't worked. Having said that, of course, EU and UK conditions have also failed to make a difference. UNRWA appears impervious to pressure.
This was insightful and useful. However, the first question I asked myself is “who is IMPACT-se?” They are an Israeli based organization, which is not in itself a problem for me, but will clearly let some critics of the work dismiss it outright. It would be useful to see if this assessment has been accepted by the EU, or if it’s being challenged or supported by other institutions. On the actual report, I didn’t see much reference to how a Palestinian curriculum would or could teach an appropriate stance on Israel’s actions, such as its continued rejection of a two state solution. Maybe I missed that, but it would seem the report looked at one part of the curriculum only.
Those are valid questions. Reactions have certainly been mixed - with UNRWA and associated agencies predictably challenging IMPACT-se conclusions. Here are some related notes on international reactions from the IMPACT-se group itself:
> I didn’t see much reference to how a Palestinian curriculum would or could teach an appropriate stance on Israel’s actions, such as its continued rejection of a two state solution.
I would say that such considerations are out of scope for outsiders like IMPACT-se. It wouldn't be appropriate to tell the Palestinians how and what they should be teaching their children. But removing overt demonization, historical revisionism, and calls for violence are certainly reasonable requests.
I witnessed first-hand the teaching materials used in UNWRA funded schools, during my service in the Middle East 2006 -2007. That Canada continues to fund UNWRA with no attached conditions , similar to other Western nations, is a stain on our foreign aid policy.
‘If a 27 year old teacher, fresh out of a rigidly politicized and decolonization-heavy teachers' college is standing in front of 25 kids with the door closed, what do you think the real lesson will be about?’
An excellent point, David!. Please keep digging.
And by "steady and reliable funder" you mean unserious stooges slavishly pandering for arab-canadian votes.
Yeah, pretty much. Although I also wouldn't discount the chronic, snotty "we're-the-adults-here-and-we know-what's-right" smugness of GAC decision makers.
Many thanks for this interesting post. I can't say, however, that these findings are exactly surprising. It is good to see at least that the study seems to be very thorough. In view of anecdotal reports of problems in Canadian schools, and so far as I know specifically in Ontario schools, I would really like to see a similar study to do with Canadian, especially Ontarian curricula.
I'm not sure the primary problem in Ontario is the curriculum content itself. I would be very surprised to find Ontario textbooks explicitly promoting jihad martyrdom. (Although there's certainly plenty of stuff in those textbooks that many of us would no doubt find objectionable for different reasons.)
The larger related issue in provincial systems is that what's actually taught in classrooms often has very little to do with any official curriculum guidance. If a 27 year old teacher, fresh out of a rigidly politicized and decolonization-heavy teachers' college is standing in front of 25 kids with the door closed, what do you think the real lesson will be about?
That's something I've so far been unable to properly study and quantify.
Yes, I agree with your first paragraph. Naturally mutatis mutandis, I was not thinking about the outright encouragement of Jihad in Ontario textbooks, but rather, as you suggest in the second paragraph, heavy “decolonization” and “anti-settler” narratives.
One hears, for example, about our all being infected by “white-body supremacy virus”, and the like, for which we of course need to be compelled to take some sort of cure; but it is pretty well impossible to tell how widespread this sort of thing is. And one gets the impression, especially from some highly-publicized cases, that so-called “anti-racist training,” is all the rage for educators, “training” which is naturally expensive and inevitably involves a high degree of reductionism, especially when membership in sundry variably valued categories is said to be a matter of self-identification.
Since textbooks, in principle, codify what is considered worth teaching, one can’t help but wonder how far behind contemporary theory they are and to what extent the students are expected to parrot what they are taught, whether verbally or in written form, to get through the education system.
Your comment actually reminded me of a post I published (and then forgotten) just a few months ago, where I used the Open Syllabus project to understand what they're teaching in teachers' colleges in Canada. Based on those insights, teaching materials are indeed changing, but we don't seem to have reached such extremes just yet.
https://www.theaudit.ca/p/what-do-they-teach-in-canadian-faculties
Yes. Thanks for reminding me of this; and then there was your excellent piece on violence in the schools in June (https://www.theaudit.ca/p/whats-really-going-on-in-ontarios). But of course the reasons for this state of affairs remain officially unclear.
The elected Jacobins and Bolsheviks of the state are ethically and morally unfit to determine through unnecessary bureaucracies where huge amounts of taxes taken from the unborn are directed. In this case, it's the alignment of the left and centrists with Islam, now a significant voting block. All foreign aid qualifies as funding that would be better left to those who wish to individually and voluntarily fund foreign (and domestic) forms of assistance. "If" altruism is a virtue, it certainly isn't when implemented at gun point (taxes). This goes back to St Francis of Assisi and his work on "Free will".
Canada's $65 million commitment in May 2024 includes $25 million to UNRWA for Palestinian education, health, and social services. This brings total aid since 2016 to $259 million, as noted. Yet the funding requires UNRWA to uphold UN neutrality policies and implement reforms from independent reviews for stronger oversight. These steps address curriculum issues without halting essential support amid Gaza's crisis.
That's true. Although, as other nations have noticed, such policies obviously haven't worked. Having said that, of course, EU and UK conditions have also failed to make a difference. UNRWA appears impervious to pressure.
This was insightful and useful. However, the first question I asked myself is “who is IMPACT-se?” They are an Israeli based organization, which is not in itself a problem for me, but will clearly let some critics of the work dismiss it outright. It would be useful to see if this assessment has been accepted by the EU, or if it’s being challenged or supported by other institutions. On the actual report, I didn’t see much reference to how a Palestinian curriculum would or could teach an appropriate stance on Israel’s actions, such as its continued rejection of a two state solution. Maybe I missed that, but it would seem the report looked at one part of the curriculum only.
Those are valid questions. Reactions have certainly been mixed - with UNRWA and associated agencies predictably challenging IMPACT-se conclusions. Here are some related notes on international reactions from the IMPACT-se group itself:
https://www.impact-se.org/wp-content/uploads/Selected-international-reactions-and-condemnations-of-the-Palestinian-curriculum-and-UNRWA-education.pdf
* Here's a related UK parliamentary briefing:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2021-0105/
* This study of Palestinian textbooks was commissioned by the EU in the wake of earlier IMPACT-se reports:
https://www.gei.de/en/research/projects/report-on-palestinian-textbooks-paltex/faq-answers-to-frequently-asked-questions
> I didn’t see much reference to how a Palestinian curriculum would or could teach an appropriate stance on Israel’s actions, such as its continued rejection of a two state solution.
I would say that such considerations are out of scope for outsiders like IMPACT-se. It wouldn't be appropriate to tell the Palestinians how and what they should be teaching their children. But removing overt demonization, historical revisionism, and calls for violence are certainly reasonable requests.