This project of the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East (PRIME) focuses on teachers and schools as the critical force over the long term for changing deeply entrenched and increasingly polarized attitudes on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The goal of the project is to "disarm" the teaching of Middle East history in Israeli and Palestinian classrooms.
Specifically, teams of Palestinian and Israeli teachers and historians will develop parallel historical narratives of the Israeli and Palestinian communities, translate them into Hebrew and Arabic, and test their use together in both Palestinian and Israeli classrooms. Unlike other projects that are limited to revising existing Israeli and Palestinian texts, the PRIME project aims at engaging teachers on both sides in an entirely new collaborative process for teaching the history of the region.
At this stage in their polarized history there is not enough common ground for Israelis and Palestinians to create a single historical narrative. Rather, the project is designed to expose students in each community to the other's narrative of the same set of events. For the first time, students in each school system (beginning with 15 and 16 year olds) will not only learn what shapes their own community's understanding of historical events, but be required to confront the historical perspectives and contexts that shape the other community's sense of reality.
The project may, at a later stage, develop multiple narratives of events within each community, reflecting the fact that neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis have a monolithic view regarding the history of the region. The goal, in other words, is not necessarily to create a single "bridging" historical narrative that is shared in common by both communities, but to break down stereotypes and build more nuanced understandings by the next generation of citizens of the two states in the region: Israel and the future Palestinian State.
Webseite
Country
Israel/Palestine
Runtime
2002-2009
Contact for more informations
Dr. Achim Rohde: achim.rohde@fu-berlin.de
Project results
[The description of the activity, individual projects and products is based on the content of the Initiative's website.]
