THE CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION HAS CALLED FOR A CEASE-FIRE IN GAZA  
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Dave Stieber
January 20, 2024
Jacobin
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_ A Chicago Teachers Union member explains why his union voted
overwhelmingly to demand a cease-fire in Israel’s war on Gaza —
and why teachers must stand up for children everywhere. _

Members of the Chicago Teachers Union stand in solidarity on October
18, 2019, in Chicago, Illinois., Max Herman / NurPhoto via Getty
Images

 

If you teach, your absolute worst nightmare is that something tragic
happens to your students. Teachers don’t just think about students
when they are in front of us; we think about them throughout each day
and night. They are a central part of our lives.

When a young person steps into our classroom, the first thing we do is
work to connect. That’s the best way students learn. When a student
doesn’t live up to their own potential, we take it personally. We
obsess about what went wrong.

Caring about students also means deliberately caring about the world
we are helping them grow into. It has never been enough to only teach
students when they are in the classroom; we have to advocate for them
all the time.

For too many of us teachers, we have also had to wrestle with how to
respond when something tragic happens to our students. And tragedy
strikes at a devastatingly regular pace. Losing one student is
unbearable; I’ve lost damn near a classroom
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over my seventeen years, from intracommunal violence, police violence,
and tragic accidents. Thinking about and seeing the pain their
families experience is soul-shattering.

Fundamentally, educators are really only in this profession because we
care so deeply about young people and the promise they
hold — not in our communities, but across the globe.

Watching what is happening in Gaza has been soul-shattering too. Some
ten thousand
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children have been killed since October 7; many are now without
parents; some have been held hostage. Every one of them is someone’s
child, someone’s loved one, someone’s student.

I’ve been told directly that teachers need to stick to teaching
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international matters aren’t something we should talk about and that
educators don’t have any clue or right to comment on issues that may
seem so far away.

But we know what it is like to lose students, to see young people
suffer. Whether that child is in Chicago, Israel, Palestine, or
anywhere in the world, we don’t want anyone else to experience this
pain. My partner encouraged me to finally start therapy because I lost
so many students that I was no longer able to cope with seeing the
empty desks, the social media eulogies, the funerals.

That’s why, for the first time in the history of the Chicago
Teachers Union (CTU), we approved a resolution
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November 1 to improve how we support students during world
conflicts. That’s why we also approved another resolution, to add
our name to a letter
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unions calling for an immediate cease-fire in Israel and Palestine.
This decision wasn’t impulsive; our members met and thoroughly
considered and discussed the various angles and issues. Our hundreds
of delegates, all educators, further discussed and voted
democratically. The support was nearly unanimous.

But I also need to note that, even though there was so much support,
this decision wasn’t easy. Union leadership is in agreement with the
resolution at its core, but it is naturally concerned about potential
blowback — blowback we have seen come to so many people and
organizations who have called for an end to the violence, blowback
that our union has received because many on the Right are upset with
what we’ve been able to achieve.

The son of our president, Stacy Davis Gates, has become a target
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and her parents’ home is under police supervision because of
threats. Jackson Potter, our vice president, who is Jewish, has
received antisemitic threats.

There’s also concern about how the CTU might be looked at going
forward. Would elected officials stop supporting us in Springfield?
Would they no longer endorse legislation we put forward? We had these
internal discussions and thought about our values. As Potter said at
a rally in Chicago in November, organized in part by Jewish Voice
for Peace [[link removed]] and IfNotNow
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dedicated to the adherence of human rights, our most important
representative body voted overwhelmingly in favor of a cease-fire to
stop the senseless bloodshed of innocents and call for the return of
all hostages.”

A big part of our motivation is that we know our students are watching
the same videos and seeing the same news
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on TikTok and Instagram as we are. We can’t pretend like the issue
is not affecting their lives, and we can’t pretend like youth in the
United States don’t overwhelmingly want
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the violence to end. As always, our students are watching us and
seeing if we will teach about what is happening. They know we’re not
robots, and they wonder what our values are.

For me, too, it’s personal. My dad is a Vietnam combat veteran who
was often emotionally unavailable growing up. Only after the Iraq War
started, in 2003, did he meet and work with other veterans who were
speaking out [[link removed]] against
wars; when my own kids were born, he finally started sharing more
about his experiences. When my kids played, screamed, or were loud, it
took him back to a place he does not want to remember.

The killing of children and civilians, the bombing of cities,
hospitals, and schools is not honorable. Death no matter where it
takes place is unforgivable and destroys generations. A family
doesn’t ever really come back from tragically losing a loved one.

We remember that Palestinians expressed solidarity and showed support
for black Americans during various points in the Black Lives Matter
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movement, and now we see more historically marginalized groups
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America unequivocally standing up for Palestinians.

It’s beyond time our elected officials and President Joe Biden call
for a cease-fire and stop
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military funding to Israel until that cease-fire holds. After the
historic United Auto Workers (UAW) strike, Biden told the union
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want to thank you for your commitment to the solidarity, for
exercising your right to bargain collectively. . . . You made this
happen.” But unions are not simply concerned with pay and benefits;
we worry about everything that impacts the lives of our members. This
includes housing, schools, safety, and life. More than a decade ago,
the CTU helped inspire unions around the country to bargain
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for the common good of our communities and humanity. This shift, to
bargain for the common good, forced Chicago politicians to not only
bargain over our pay and benefits, but to bargain about housing
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for our students, hiring social workers and nurses, and
creating green schools
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and asbestos.

It is in this same vein that we look to events that impact students
around the world. The labor movement is responding to the violence in
Israel and Palestine. The UAW signed
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onto the same cease-fire letter as the CTU, and we are now
collectively using our voices to call for an end to the fighting.

When the violence started, the overall response from labor was modest.
Many rank-and-file members were vocally against the violence, but only
a smattering of locals and only a couple of nationals — like the
United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America and the
National Writers Union — came out forcefully against the war.
With pressure from the rank and file, that chorus has grown
louder — and continues to grow.

The American Postal Workers Union joined the call for a cease-fire
and a whole host of local organizations — including several
teachers unions
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like the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel and
the Massachusetts Teachers Association — have joined the call.
We’re now finding it critical to put real action behind our words
and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other social and economic justice
movements to end the violence.

Many elected officials are listening
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though not nearly enough. Biden and members of Congress must listen to
unions and the vast majority
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of the American public and demand a cease-fire.

Our union represents all races, genders, nationalities, and
ethnicities. We teach Jewish and Palestinian students
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and have Jewish and Palestinian members. We didn’t just decide to
call for a cease-fire and get involved in global events haphazardly.
We have long been working with and inspired by parents, community
organizations, students, and educators to improve our city. We know
that, to be there for our city, we need to be there for students
everywhere. We are inspired, too, by the youth who push for
legislation to help Chicago and our young people, like the Peace Book
[[link removed]], Treatment
Not Trauma
[[link removed]] and Bring
Chicago Home [[link removed]].

Educators are always inspired by, led by, and encouraged by our
students, and it is for these reasons that educators who represent the
CTU voted nearly unanimously to endorse a letter
[[link removed]] calling for
a cease-fire in Gaza.

The American Postal Workers Union joined the call for a cease-fire
and a whole host of local organizations — including several
teachers unions
[[link removed]],
like the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel and
the Massachusetts Teachers Association — have joined the call.
We’re now finding it critical to put real action behind our words
and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other social and economic justice
movements to end the violence.

Many elected officials are listening
[[link removed]],
though not nearly enough. Biden and members of Congress must listen to
unions and the vast majority
[[link removed]]
of the American public and demand a cease-fire.

Our union represents all races, genders, nationalities, and
ethnicities. We teach Jewish and Palestinian students
[[link removed]]
and have Jewish and Palestinian members. We didn’t just decide to
call for a cease-fire and get involved in global events haphazardly.
We have long been working with and inspired by parents, community
organizations, students, and educators to improve our city. We know
that, to be there for our city, we need to be there for students
everywhere. We are inspired, too, by the youth who push for
legislation to help Chicago and our young people, like the Peace Book
[[link removed]], Treatment
Not Trauma
[[link removed]] and Bring
Chicago Home [[link removed]].

Educators are always inspired by, led by, and encouraged by our
students, and it is for these reasons that educators who represent the
CTU voted nearly unanimously to endorse a letter
[[link removed]] calling for
a cease-fire in Gaza.

Violence and murder anywhere is the same everywhere. If we are not OK
with kids dying in Chicago, in our country, and other countries like
Ukraine, then we should not be OK with kids dying in Palestine.

Cease-fire now. Solidarity forever.

Republished from In These Times
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* Chicago Teachers Union; Cease Fire in Gaza;
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