Mass. teachers face hard conversations around Israel-Hamas conflict

School districts in Massachusetts are working to find the best ways to respond to the student stress brought on by the violence in Israel and Gaza, the latest international tragedy that has wound its way into schools, while doing their best to teach about what's going on.

Anna Nolin, superintendent of Newton Public Schools, said they have focused on providing resources and support to students since Hamas launched an attack against Israel earlier this month.

"It's a lot," Nolin told GBH News on Monday. "For some folks in the profession, it is becoming too much, and that's why you're hearing about a lot of educator burnout and people thinking of changing professions right now.

Navigating difficult news with students creates another challenge to teaching them the educational basics, she said.

"When you care about young people and you want to invest in them, you do what it takes," Nolin added. "But it is an immense burden on people who are also teaching kids to read and to write and how to interact with each other as social human beings."

The attack by Hamas militants on Israel and the resulting conflict has spurred difficult conversations in classrooms and school districts across the United States. And it is only the latest in a string of hard conversations in recent years, whether it’s teachers talking about the pandemic, school shootings, the murder of George Floyd or the war in Ukraine.

Many Massachusetts school administrators waded cautiously into discussion of the conflict, with some superintendents opting to issue statements. Thomas Scott of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents said it's been very difficult for those making decisions on how to send out a message on this.

Some of those statements from superintendents have drawn criticism for not doing enough to speak out against the attack by Hamas. Going forward, the task is to help educators handle the conversation about what's going with students.

"The one message ... is having sensitivity to sort of the multicultural environment that we find ourselves in in schools today and in classrooms," Scott said, "And trying to be as inclusive as we can in terms of having different points of view, as well as an understanding of what's acceptable — and what's unacceptable — in terms of the way in which people treat each other."

In its own statement from last week, M.A.S.S. wrote that as educators they "condemn the act of terrorism committed by Hamas against Israeli citizens." The statement also said that as citizens of the world and as educators, the organization cares "about the well-being of all, including the Palestinian people. As with all that we do there are teachable moments here."

Another challenge is helping students parse through a massive influx of information about the conflict.

Joe Giarusso teaches a modern world geopolitics class at Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School in Marlborough.

The Hamas attack coincided with his pre-planned lesson on the region, which made it easier for him to draw connections between the past and now.

Now, his task is helping students understand what's going on while avoiding misinformation.

"When this first started ... I was telling the kids, 'Look, this is Jerusalem Post, this is CNN, this is Fox News, this is the BBC. ... Look at everything,'" he said. "'Look at everything, don't just look at what you normally look at that's just going to solidify the biases you already have, or tell you that you're already right. You've got to look at this type of thing from all sides.'"

Giarusso and his fellow teachers are also reminding students that short videos may not be the best place to get all the context needed to understand what's going on. A Deloitte report last year found that, among all news sources, social media is the most common daily news source for Gen Z teens.

"We have been harping on them for years and years about: A 30-second Reel on Instagram is not going to tell you the whole story," he said. "Like, you need to read. If you're insisting upon video, fine, here's an hour-long video, go watch this. But don't get your news from something that is a minute or two minutes long. Because they're just not telling you the whole story there."

On top of navigating how to discuss the what's going on in the Gaza Strip and Israel, educators have to handle simply being there for students through the trauma of such widely broadcasted violence.

Nolin, the superintendent in Newton, said there's a desire from staff for more training on how to carry out counseling and support roles. Now, that kind of work is increasingly teachers' responsibility.