VCHR Education Outreach

VCHR Participation in the Virginia Conference for the Social Studies (March 2023)

VCHR exhibit table at VCSS March 2023 in Richmond

In March 2023, members from VCHR’s Education Committee offered Virginia high school history teachers a variety of resources on the Arab world at the Virginia Conference for the Social Studies in Richmond. Resources at VCHR’s exhibit table included teaching materials from the Arab American National Museum and Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. Most popular was VCHR’s new publication: an annotated MENA Resource Guide for Secondary Teachers.

VCHR Endorsement of Teach Central America Week (October 2023)

VCHR supports the teaching about ethnic communities that have been marginalized or excluded from Virginia public school curricula. VCHR has reached out to its coalition partners with the following statement.

The Virginia Coalition for Human Rights (VCHR), a coalition of 19 organizations that advocates for Palestinian human rights, enthusiastically endorses the Teach Central America Week from October 2–6, 2023, to support teaching about Central America during Latinx Heritage Month.

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VCHR Participation in VFHL Film Salon: Erasing Palestine from U.S. School Curricula

On September 10, 2023, VCHR’s presentation titled, “The Fight against Israeli Propaganda in Virginia Textbooks,” was featured in a Voices from the Holy Land Film Salon titled “Erasing Palestine from U.S. School Curricula.”

Shown together with “Between the Lines,” the films reveal how Israeli affinity groups erase Palestine from the curricula of both U.S. public schools and U.S. Jewish day schools  to maintain U.S. support for Israel. Participants in the Salon included the following.

  • Kathy Drinkard, host and co-chair of VCHR Education Committee
  • Faedah Totah, moderator and Associate Professor, School of World Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University
  • Ali Kriegsman, filmmaker, author, entrepreneur, and small business leader
  • Ezra Beinart, Jewish day school senior and facilitator of on-line discussions between US Jewish teens and Palestinians
  • Susan Douglass, educator, author, and outreach director for the CCAS at Georgetown University