Except in that case you shouldn't be teaching "ethnic studies", you should be teaching a more complete history (the good and bad of every group). To isolate such knowledge in individual courses that are probably an elective in any case you are saying it is ok that not everyone should know this history.
You should not judge what they know of history based upon just one course without seeing the entire curriculum. If "etnic studies" was the only history course those students got, your point would be valid, but it's very probably not the case.
Except in that case you shouldn't be teaching "ethnic studies", you should be teaching a more complete history (the good and bad of every group). To isolate such knowledge in individual courses that are probably an elective in any case you are saying it is ok that not everyone should know this history.You should not judge what they know of history based upon just one course without seeing the entire curriculum. If "etnic studies" was the only history course those students got, your point would be valid, but it's very probably not the case.
You misunderstood my point. I wasn't talking about the students taking these classes, but specifically the students that are NOT taking these courses. By keeping these "truths" locked up within "ethnic" courses, there is no reason to expose all students to them. If someone truly cared about getting the "other side" of history out there, they should be against "ethnic studies" and instead demand that all students get exposed to all sides of history when teaching it.
As someone mentioned, doing this may require school districts to make more materials required than the standard textbooks (which are written to match Texas and/or California standards primarily). I don't see that as a bad thing.
Oh, and before it was called "Mexican American Studies", it was called "La Raza Studies". "La Raza" stands for "the Race" in Spanish. And here's another video that shows the racist agenda they were teaching in this class.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-Ha5ZQGJ-w&feature=related
Your alarmist rhetoric has been debunked.
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(which are written to match Texas and/or California standards primarily
Huh. That would explain why in moses is bashing santa anna in the head with with the ten commandments while riding a brontosaurus* in chapter 5...
*
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I have not studied ethnic studies but the American history lessons from high school were very good and fair minded.
IF the native peoples had the north American continent for as long as they did. Which from my remembrance was estimated at around 10,000 years. They didn't do a whole lot with the place. We as a nation with only 400 years under our belts have touched outer space and have advanced in ways they could never have dreamed.
This has probably been rehashed many times since I refreshed this morning, but I doubt my points will have been made worse by preemption. I should also note that I am a white American of European descent, so you know where my loyalties lie.
"They didn't do a whole lot with the place." Actually, they built civilisations similar to those in Europe for thousands of years. When comparing time spent hunting and gathering with time spent building civilisations, Native Americans actually did better than Europeans. I find it hard to believe that Mesoamericans wouldn't have eventually spread their advanced tools northward had new migrants not intervened.
Your "outer space" measure of comparison is absurd. Americans today are largely European, and European settlers had many centuries of European technology to draw from. Essentially, the US and Europe/Russia developed tools to reach outer space at the same time (because of the hybridisation facilitated by intercontinental information travel). We did not go from (non-Clovis, inefficient) spearheads to nuclear energy in "400" years. We built on knowledge developed by Mesopotamian and successive cultures over thousands of years.
Even if it was just laziness or whatever, why do we have more right to land than them? Should we, since we're destined* for greatness, be allowed to take from others that we may fulfil our manifest** potential? If that's too far, should we ignore past wrongs, or paint them in a light that makes our ancestors look good? Should we ban f$#~ing Shakespeare?
*Hee hee.
**Haa haa.
You misunderstood my point. I wasn't talking about the students taking these classes, but specifically the students that are NOT taking these courses. By keeping these "truths" locked up within "ethnic" courses, there is no reason to expose all students to them. If someone truly cared about getting the "other side" of history out there, they should be against "ethnic studies" and instead demand that all students get exposed to all sides of history when teaching it.
As someone mentioned, doing this may require school districts to make more materials required than the standard textbooks (which are written to match Texas and/or California standards primarily). I don't see that as a bad thing.
Yes, I clearly misunderstood you. Sorry. As for what you are proposing, sure, I think every student should be informed about the history of minorities and racial issues.
But, again, taking into acount you never can have a nation-wide curriculum that would teach everything to everyone, I think a school as a right and a duty to reserve a part of its curriculum to classes adressing the historical specificities of the socio-cultural milieu in which the education is dispensed. The other option I can see is cultural colonialism and the slow destruction of cultural identities that often leads to violence.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mean these issues should not talked about outside the curriculum specific to those schools, but there is a material limitation (you just have so many hours of teaching to dispense to each student in high school) that means you have, at some point, to accept each school have to tailor part of its teaching to suit the needs of the local students.
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"They didn't do a whole lot with the place." Actually, they built civilisations similar to those in Europe for thousands of years. When comparing time spent hunting and gathering with time spent building civilisations, Native Americans actually did better than Europeans. I find it hard to believe that Mesoamericans wouldn't have eventually spread their advanced tools northward had new migrants not intervened.Even if it was just laziness or whatever, why do we have more right to land than them? Should we, since we're destined* for greatness, be allowed to take from others that we may fulfil our manifest** potential? If that's too far, should we ignore past wrongs, or paint them in a light that makes our ancestors look good? Should we ban f~%&ing Shakespeare?
*Hee hee.
**Haa haa.
The whole "they didn't do what the Europeans did, so they were inferior" argument is a popular one on certain sites, but it holds no water. Different cultures value different things, and even among the native peoples, that varied a lot.
At the time of Columbus, most of them lived rather primitively and close to the land. Columbus himself remarked on their generosity and lack of materialism. He thought they were fools to be exploited. The Taino had their own culture and hierarchies. Within a century they were wiped out by disease and forced assimilation. Most of what we know about them comes from archaeologists and what little the Europeans noted about them at the time.
Were the Europeans "better," or was it, as already mentioned, their guns, germs and steel that did the natives in?
From a moral standpoint, it wasn't the Indians killing, robbing, torturing and enslaving the Europeans.
Oh, and before it was called "Mexican American Studies", it was called "La Raza Studies". "La Raza" stands for "the Race" in Spanish. And here's another video that shows the racist agenda they were teaching in this class.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-Ha5ZQGJ-w&feature=related
Ok, so I asked myself, who made this video? AgapeMedia it says at the end. Here what the website says: "AgapeMedia.net regularly conducts news and feature interviews. Our main focus is Conservative political issues as well as Christian testimonies."
Sorry, I don't buy this. Conservatives christians are always taxing everything that is not WASPY enough of marxism without any basis (or any understanding of Marx's theories, but that is another thing).
Ok, so I asked myself, who made this video? AgapeMedia it says at the end. Here what the website says: "AgapeMedia.net regularly conducts news and feature interviews. Our main focus is Conservative political issues as well as Christian testimonies."
Sorry, I don't buy this. Conservatives christians are always taxing everything that is not WASPY enough of marxism without any basis (or any understanding of Marx's theories, but that is another thing).
Sorry I didn't expound on my earlier remark, but that's the gist of it.
Propaganda masquerading as "fair and balanced" reporting is still propaganda. It seems that many people aren't really good at spotting it.
As to the history issue, I have a hard time sitting here typing on a computer in the US on a website for a company here in the US and suggesting that how history played out is absolutely badong. Could things have been done better, perhaps, but if they had, would be sitting in the same situation if they had? I just feel if I look back on history and totally crap on every person that had existed then while benefiting from the consequences their acts, both good and bad, is ultimately hypocritical.
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As to the history issue, I have a hard time sitting here typing on a computer in the US on a website for a company here in the US and suggesting that how history played out is absolutely badong. Could things have been done better, perhaps, but if they had, would be sitting in the same situation if they had? I just feel if I look back on history and totally crap on every person that had existed then while benefiting from the consequences their acts, both good and bad, is ultimately hypocritical.
History is what it is, regardless. Trying to pretend it's something it never was, or editing out the parts you find objectionable due to your fantasy history, is what offends me.
(Or anyone else with a desire to know facts over fantasy.)
As to the history issue, I have a hard time sitting here typing on a computer in the US on a website for a company here in the US and suggesting that how history played out is absolutely badong. Could things have been done better, perhaps, but if they had, would be sitting in the same situation if they had? I just feel if I look back on history and totally crap on every person that had existed then while benefiting from the consequences their acts, both good and bad, is ultimately hypocritical.History is what it is, regardless. Trying to pretend it's something it never was, or editing out the parts you find objectionable due to your fantasy history, is what offends me.
(Or anyone else with a desire to know facts over fantasy.)
This. The truth can be brutal, but it's still the truth, and it doesn't diminish how great we are. For example, the fact that the American Revolution was more a war of idiots against bigger idiots than the legend we grew up with doesn't make America less great. America is an awesome country regardless of how it was founded. Acknowledging the stupidity and cruelty in our past doesn't make us bad people who have no right to be proud of ourselves and where we are. We DO have the right to be proud of where America is as a nation today. It just means we understand our history and how we got where we are today.
This. The truth can be brutal, but it's still the truth, and it doesn't diminish how great we are. For example, the fact that the American Revolution was more a war of idiots against bigger idiots than the legend we grew up with doesn't make America less great. America is an awesome country regardless of how it was founded. Acknowledging the stupidity and cruelty in our past doesn't make us bad people who have no right to be proud of ourselves and where we are. We DO have the right to be proud of where America is as a nation today. It just means we understand our history and how we got where we are today.As to the history issue, I have a hard time sitting here typing on a computer in the US on a website for a company here in the US and suggesting that how history played out is absolutely badong. Could things have been done better, perhaps, but if they had, would be sitting in the same situation if they had? I just feel if I look back on history and totally crap on every person that had existed then while benefiting from the consequences their acts, both good and bad, is ultimately hypocritical.History is what it is, regardless. Trying to pretend it's something it never was, or editing out the parts you find objectionable due to your fantasy history, is what offends me.
(Or anyone else with a desire to know facts over fantasy.)
Of course, just remember that despite what some might think, all groups of people have their good and bad sides. No group of people is all bad or all good.
Personally, I think history should be taught with a lot of dry facts and figures to remove bias.
Too boring. If it's really dry, nobody will pay attention, and nobody will learn.
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Personally, I think history should be taught with a lot of dry facts and figures to remove bias.
You are aware, of course, that that would put the US in a bad light. I was raised to think that all we did was for the good of the world.
Getting all fact-y with your "facts" might shake up some perceptions. History is a dangerous thing in the wrong hands. There are some inconvenient facts out there that could cause people to question the empire...
Those dry facts and figures would still have to be interpreted, which can lead a lot of different places, many of them diametrically opposed.
Oh, this. A million times this.
I have to throw this out there; I'm learning Spanish, but anytime I practice it on the net with other students, I'm trolled with all sorts of terrible names. I've seen my local Puerto Rican exchange students ostracized and taunted.
That's not even going into my regions hatred for the natives...
Or the brutal beating of a Saudi exchange student at a local party...
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Those dry facts and figures would still have to be interpreted, which can lead a lot of different places, many of them diametrically opposed.
Historians do that routinely. History's meaning varies with the observer, but it still is what it is.
For the most part, it's about people forming groups that kill and subjugate other groups in the most brutal ways possible, in order to get and maintain more wealth and power. One man's hero is another man's murderer.
Returning to the original issue of the thread, though, I think that walking into classrooms and pulling textbooks off the shelves and telling kids they can no longer study the subject because certain people don't want them to is not good for the country, or the kids.
I will again not name the governmental systems that do that. They are in no way democracies.
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Beating around the bush is not cute.
Let's just come out and say it. Venezuela.
The "dangerous and radical" La Raza website.
[heavy snark]We definitely don't want kids being taught the anti-American ideals espoused by this group.
Ideals like equality between the races, Hispanic and Native American empowerment and history told from a Hispanic and Native American view point.[/heavy snark]
Yes, because a group called 'The Race' is such an open and tolerant name. Why if the KKK just called themselves 'The Race' they'd seem much lighter and fuzzier.
Let's look at their afilliate, MEChA whose members The Race has endorced for Mayor, and allowed to address the Keynote convention.
"For La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada." Why that's positively heartwarming! cite
" Nearly every racial and ethnic group has some shady characters and positions in its past and some unbalanced individuals today claiming racial superiority and demanding separatism. But this is coming straight from the official MEChA sites at Georgetown University, the University of Texas, UCLA, University of Michigan, University of Colorado, University of Oregon, and many other colleges and universities around the country."
The journal you cited also believes that Obama was born in Kenya and is part of a socialist plot to overthrow the USA. Using a hyper-conservative journal that not only misquotes la Raza spokesmen but puts words in their mouths and makes no distinction from La Raza and MEChA is not the best way to make your argument.
I can't summon up the intestinal fortitude to contribute to this thread.
But, yeah, the USA stole, what? half? of Mexico and then paid out some blood money to assuage their consciences. It's pretty uncontroversial.
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They even banned Shakespeare. Anything that discusses oppression, racism or culturalism as a central theme. Talk about pots and kettles!
It sounded like they only banned the tempest, but not the merchant of venice or The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice, which just seems weird. I mean, do they just not know their shakespeare or something?
Except in that case you shouldn't be teaching "ethnic studies", you should be teaching a more complete historyI'd agree 100%, but if the curriculum's following the textbooks, which are modeled after Texas' (hell, even Thomas Jefferson got removed because he wasn't Christian enough for them), then the history being taught is a long way from being complete unless you add a bunch of supplements. Ideally, we'd bulldoze the curriculum and start over, making sure it's more or less complete to begin with (and some states have done that -- this is interesting reading -- Arizona gets a "C").
Which to me poses the simple question. Why on earth do you not set out your school curriculum at the national level, rather than letting texas basically set the standards because of it's book buying powers.
It sounded like they only banned the tempest, but not the merchant of venice or The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice, which just seems weird. I mean, do they just not know their shakespeare or something?
Perhaps none of those books were in stock for classes* (you know, the stacks of books ordered in bulk), so they didn't NEED to ban them. I mean, it is Arizona: Texas of the West.
Personally, I think history should be taught with a lot of dry facts and figures to remove bias.You are aware, of course, that that would put the US in a bad light. I was raised to think that all we did was for the good of the world.
Getting all fact-y with your "facts" might shake up some perceptions. History is a dangerous thing in the wrong hands. There are some inconvenient facts out there that could cause people to question the empire...
Quite. I don't live in South America, but I guess that the Banana wars and other brutal applications of the Monroe doctrine made a lot to tarnish the US reputation in latin america.
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IF the native peoples had the north American continent for as long as they did. Which from my remembrance was estimated at around 10,000 years. They didn't do a whole lot with the place. We as a nation with only 400 years under our belts have touched outer space and have advanced in ways they could never have dreamed.
400 years that followed on from a firm foundation of science and engineering developed by people of every race, scattered across the whole face of the Earth.
Since social and technical development occurs in surges, there is no way that we will ever know what the destroyed civilisations of the world would have developed if they had existed even a short time longer. I don't believe that we have the full records of the things that they did develop and have since been lost.
IF the native peoples had the north American continent for as long as they did. Which from my remembrance was estimated at around 10,000 years. They didn't do a whole lot with the place. We as a nation with only 400 years under our belts have touched outer space and have advanced in ways they could never have dreamed.400 years that followed on from a firm foundation of science and engineering developed by people of every race, scattered across the whole face of the Earth.
Since social and technical development occurs in surges, there is no way that we will ever know what the destroyed civilizations of the world would have developed if they had existed even a short time longer. I don't believe that we have the full records of the things that they did develop and have since been lost.
Your right there is no way to know what could have happened if this or that had been different.
The previous comment you quoted was a lot snarky and not really just but I get tired of the whole "we did so and so" to this supposed paradise the native peoples had before the evil Europeans came and destroyed their Eden like existence.I guess my frustration with what I perceive as reverse racism from the previous arguments made me a little more snarky than intended.
To me it seems like the overwhelming majority of the opinions are very quick and easy to condemn the evil state or local government while completely discounting even the most remote possibility that racism could be being taught by non-Anglo teachers. When anyone tried to point out that this could be going on it was instantly discounted as utter rubbish instead of being given even the slightest consideration.
For my part the ethnic studies should be removed and regular American History used in it's place instead of focusing on one ethnicity. If you want to learn Mexican history or central American history then take a course in world history as well. I did.
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For my part the ethnic studies should be removed and regular American History used in it's place instead of focusing on one ethnicity. If you want to learn Mexican history or central American history then take a course in world history as well. I did.
While i agree that you shouldn't teach ethnic history , the problem is that the standard history IS ethnic history: The WASP view of the white man as the bringer of civilization, order, and Christianity to the lazy, indolent hunter gatherer heathens who never made anything.
While this plays well with a white audience, it really, REALLY turns off other ethnic groups. The gap in achievement scores between ethnicities in math is smaller.
Trying to redress that balance by introducing a fact based history where Texas rebelled from mexico so they could keep their slaves , sends little Johny Smith running home crying to his dad (who grew up on Disney's Davey Crocket) who calls the school board and either gets the teacher fired or changes the curriculum to get some ra ra sis boom ba GOOoooo mighty whitey! history books back in the classroom. (if you're wondering WHY the teachers legitimately made themselves so hard to fire? This is the reason)
So they thought they'd split the difference and maybe the kids who weren't in the class wouldn't complain. It didn't work and they're back to square one.
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To me it seems like the overwhelming majority of the opinions are very quick and easy to condemn the evil state or local government while completely discounting even the most remote possibility that racism could be being taught by non-Anglo teachers. When anyone tried to point out that this could be going on it was instantly discounted as utter rubbish instead of being given even the slightest consideration.
I wasn't there, so I'm in no position to judge what was taught in those classrooms or whether the actions of the officials in charge were correct - I understand your frustration.
However, if a teacher has been pushing a personal agenda rather than teaching from the facts, then swift action was necessary. That's an unacceptable abuse of position.
The thing that has amused me in the thread has been the comments along the lines of "Racism! Just what you would expect from Arizona"...
Which to me poses the simple question. Why on earth do you not set out your school curriculum at the national level, rather than letting texas basically set the standards because of it's book buying powers.Except in that case you shouldn't be teaching "ethnic studies", you should be teaching a more complete historyI'd agree 100%, but if the curriculum's following the textbooks, which are modeled after Texas' (hell, even Thomas Jefferson got removed because he wasn't Christian enough for them), then the history being taught is a long way from being complete unless you add a bunch of supplements. Ideally, we'd bulldoze the curriculum and start over, making sure it's more or less complete to begin with (and some states have done that -- this is interesting reading -- Arizona gets a "C").
FREE MARKET! How dare you question it's ability to rule and correct everything!
</tongue in cheek>
Sorry cheap shot I know but it does illustrate my biggest concern over deregulation and "allowing the market to solve it all".
Beyond that:
Trains would be a great option but I don't think it would be a big savings. Trucks can get the goods to market faster and cheaper than the rails. With a truck from North Carolina going to say Texas you go from point A to point B. With a train you have depots, stations and other delays due to possible passengers or other concerns. With trucks you go from the factory to the Walmart in no time.
Please explain what you mean by Reorganizing? reorganizing what exactly?
I never said trains would be faster or cheaper. I said they'd use less fuel and thus less pollution (per mile per ton of freight), which was the original point.
As for reorganizing, I meant reorganizing everything. Our entire society is based around the car. The car, and the massive subsidies in terms or road construction that go along with it, make suburban living possible. More dense urban centers allow for more use of public transit which is far more efficient and cheaper than the automobile.
We'd still have large rural areas, probably more of them. We couldn't give up cars entirely, but we could cut far back.
This kind of change won't (and can't) happen quickly, but it could be encouraged. It will happen eventually as the price of energy grows, but the better we've prepared for it the less trouble it will cause.
It isn't that our entire culture is based around the car, it's that our entire culture from the point of colonization on has been able to simply get up and move. If you look at Europe you see a land with crowded towns (compared to the USA) walls, and short distances. They've had all of western history to settle in without cars, and with few to no other means of transportation.
The USA started close to the same, however with several key differences: The people that formed the original settlements came here -- it became home but it didn't start as home, and in many cases that was precisely the point. Find out you didn't like your new neighbors when you got here? You could try moving again.
In fact the whole of USA history has been "move, move, and move some more" and our entire culture reflects this.
We rarely build in stone, he have little 'loyalty' to the land, we are very willing to up and move again or suggest someone else does (don't like it? MOVE!) and we expect and give more personal space than is 'normal'. The car made this easier yes, but it's always been at the heart at our country.
Are we growing out of it (and the resources to maintain it)? Quite possibly, but I doubt we'll let it go easily.
Finally on the topic at hand:
Honestly history and much more importantly civics, debate, and a love of facts has been sorely lacking in our (the USA's) educational system for quite a while now. I would rather see my son in school more (and longer in the day) in order for these vital necessities be taught than what is currently happening.
Our history is a very complex and frequently ugly thing, and it has moments we should be ashamed of. Our children need to know this -- because it comes with a second even more vital lesson: That we are not perfect, but we can strive to be so and can move past our mistakes. We can't change history -- we can't 'correct it' but we can do our part to make things right again and resolve not to make a pattern of our past failures. Our children need to see our mistakes so they can also see us striving to overcome them and set things right again so that when our children make mistakes they too can do so.
As I said before, two sides to every story. That said, this sounds a bit too perfect to me -I would like more from other sources. Also, how to do you explain the elimination of Shakespeare?
You guys should stop taking headlines at face value and look a little deeper. Just from the headline, it makes it seem that Arizona schools are trying to deny these children the chance to learn based on some fascist agenda.
What you don't understand is that the teachers who were teaching these Mexican Studies programs were actually teaching these kids to hate based on cultural differences instead of giving them a proper education about Mexican culture. Unfortunately, the only fair way to stop these whacko teachers from delivering their message to impressionable youth is to suspend ALL ethnic studies so no one can claim MExican Studies was unduly singled out. You can't fire the teachers because the teacher's union wont let you. Here's a few of the topics being taught under the guise of "Mexican Cultural Studies":
1. Hispanic students refuse to say the Pledge of Allegiance
2. Hispanic students accuse America of stealing Mexican land (claiming Nex Mexico and Arizona are stolen Mexican lands)
3. Hispanic students calling White Americans racists
4. Hispanic students refusing to speak EnglishDo these seem like healthy topics to teach impressionable children? These facts of the curriculum are not in dispute. Here's also a video link to testimony from a teacher in an Arizona school who witnessed these behaviors.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT4FHUet988
You see, they gave the class a benign name (Mexican Cultural Studies), but they are actually teaching more than just Mexican Culture, they are teaching a political agenda geared dividing people through racial hatred. Its no different than if I started a class called "White Cultural Studies" and then taught that Jews were the cause of white folk's problems. So before you all jump up and down and swear that Nazism is sweeping back into style, you may be surprised to learn that the people preaching racial hatred are actually some of the teachers in this class and not the administration. WHat you are seeing is the administrations attempt to stop...
To me it seems like the overwhelming majority of the opinions are very quick and easy to condemn the evil state or local government while completely discounting even the most remote possibility that racism could be being taught by non-Anglo teachers. When anyone tried to point out that this could be going on it was instantly discounted as utter rubbish instead of being given even the slightest consideration.
If a teacher teaches to hate, you take his arse in court as it's a criminal offense (incitation to hate). You then replace him with a good teacher.
You don't ban books and punish the kids by removing a class that could be used to teach them about their history.
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Just FYI: Elimination of the Tempest, not Shakespeare.
To me it seems like the overwhelming majority of the opinions are very quick and easy to condemn the evil state or local government while completely discounting even the most remote possibility that racism could be being taught by non-Anglo teachers. When anyone tried to point out that this could be going on it was instantly discounted as utter rubbish instead of being given even the slightest consideration.If a teacher teaches to hate, you take his arse in court as it's a criminal offense (incitation to hate). You then replace him with a good teacher.
You don't ban books and punish the kids by removing a class that could be used to teach them about their history.
Removing a teacher is a lot more difficult than you may think but that's a different subject.
The kids don't need any class other than a true broad overview of U.S. History with all the mistakes and triumphs included.
If a teacher teaches to hate, you take his arse in court as it's a criminal offense (incitation to hate)
That's not a crime in the us, in fact its protected speech as far as criminal charges go. (what the school districts want taught on their dime is another mater)
About the only thing you can be criminally charged with for speech in the us is "Go kill that guy!" . "That guy killed your dog , took your job, and wants to BBQ your children on a spit!" is very hard to prosecute even AFTER someone has taken the obvious steps to remedy the situation.
The Tucson Unified School District has stated that it did NOT ban any books: The texts in question have not been removed from the school libraries. They were removed from classrooms and placed in storage because Mexican-American Studies (the course that used them) is not currently being taught.
According to the AZCentral news website (Quoting a statement from TUSD spokeswoman Cara Rene):
Rene said the seven books removed from the classrooms were: "Critical Race Theory" by Richard Delgado; "500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures" edited by Elizabeth Martinez; "Message to AZTLAN" by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales; "Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement" by Arturo Rosales; "Occupied America: A History of Chicanos" by Rodolfo Acuña; "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by Paulo Freire; and "Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years" by Bill Bigelow.
Shakespeare's play, The Tempest, was not banned either.
The kids don't need any class other than a true broad overview of U.S. History with all the mistakes and triumphs included.
I think a broad overview won't really handle it. When viewed 'top down' so to speak some of the mistakes can look not only understandable but worthy of commendation as someone, "Took a stand against (x) and even if they got some of it wrong they had their hearts in the right place."
I mean there is much more to Sherman's March for example than simply defeating the Confederacy and the details of what that entailed shouldn't be glossed over, just as the details of what the Confederacy did and how it went about organizing (or not) itself and the effects this had on the war as a whole.
Perhaps you meant something more than a simple overview and I'm over analyzing what you are saying, and I am sorry (on my end) if that is true -- but I felt that a bit more detail should be provided.
On a side note I would also suggest that following other countries histories would be important as well.
Of course ultimately teaching all of history would get to the point of ridiculousness -- you can't cover every single life or even all the deeds of just the 'major players' of each event that ever happens... it certainly is a balancing act.
Thank you for your input, sir wulf. I am glad to hear the books are still in the school library, at least, although I'd like to see some evidence. I am wondering how Shakespeare got involved, however.
The Tucson Unified School District has stated that it did NOT ban any books: The texts in question have not been removed from the school libraries. They were removed from classrooms and placed in storage because Mexican-American Studies (the course that used them) is not currently being taught.
According to the AZCentral news website (Quoting a statement from TUSD spokeswoman Cara Rene):
Rene said the seven books removed from the classrooms were: "Critical Race Theory" by Richard Delgado; "500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures" edited by Elizabeth Martinez; "Message to AZTLAN" by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales; "Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement" by Arturo Rosales; "Occupied America: A History of Chicanos" by Rodolfo Acuña; "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by Paulo Freire; and "Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years" by Bill Bigelow.
Shakespeare's play, The Tempest, was not banned either.
Things start to get ugly once people start speaking of what is needed and deemed unnecessary.
To me it seems like the overwhelming majority of the opinions are very quick and easy to condemn the evil state or local government while completely discounting even the most remote possibility that racism could be being taught by non-Anglo teachers. When anyone tried to point out that this could be going on it was instantly discounted as utter rubbish instead of being given even the slightest consideration.If a teacher teaches to hate, you take his arse in court as it's a criminal offense (incitation to hate). You then replace him with a good teacher.
You don't ban books and punish the kids by removing a class that could be used to teach them about their history.
Removing a teacher is a lot more difficult than you may think but that's a different subject.
The kids don't need any class other than a true broad overview of U.S. History with all the mistakes and triumphs included.
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The kids don't need any class other than a true broad overview of U.S. History with all the mistakes and triumphs included.
Yes they do.
As you did not bother explaining why, I wont either. :-)
