An
interesting and valuable
publication was released today, “Opportunities and Challenges for Youth Civic
Engagement”, by the California
Civic Engagement Project of the Center for Regional Change at U.C. Davis and
funded by the California Endowment, among others. The Civic Engagement Project describes itself as a “new, nonpartisan data
repository and research initiative
for the State of California.
Thanks for the good work. If these organizations are indeed interested in improving
youth engagement, they should look at the 48% of public school youth who are Latino or descendents of
Latinos. As CCEP Policy
Brief #1 says, “ the proportion of
state registration that is Latino and Asian has remained far below the
proportions of these groups in the state’s overall population. “ Now, that is not new news.
Public schools,
more than any other institution, reach these students. Unfortunately due to past decisions and
current budget restraints, the public schools are not usually promoting civic engagement. How does that happen?
When the 48.72 % of students who are Latino , and the 11.5 % who are
Asian do not see themselves as part of history, for many their sense
of self is marginalized. Marginalization
negatively impacts their connections with school and their success at school.
School marginalization contributes directly to low level civic engagement.
It contributes to an nearly 50% drop out rate for Latinos and some
Asian students. An accurate history would provide some
students with a a sense of self, of direction, of
purpose. History and social science classes should help
young people acquire and learn to use the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that
will prepare them to be competent and responsible citizens throughout their
lives. Instead, the current history textbooks tell a fairy
tale of what happened here in the Southwest.
As
a consequence of the outdated History Social Science Framework for California Public
Schools, most schools, most teachers,
fail to teach an accurate, complete, history of the Chicano- Latino
people and of Asian Americans. This essentially means that the
writers are choosing not to recognize reality. – not to tell the full
story. This a problem created in part by
the failure to revise the history/social science framework.
Textbooks for California schools are
selected by the State Board of Education based upon recommendations of their
Curriculum Committees and the state frameworks and standards. The current
Framework was written in 1986 by neo conservative scholars. It needs revision. It is urgent that
the History-Social Science Framework be revised to provide an accurate history
of the contributions of Mexicans, Mexican Americans, Latinos and Asians to the
history of the state and of the nation.
For this reason, further work on the frameworks for history-social science,
science, health, and mathematics has been stopped. On July 17, 2009, the
Curriculum Development and Supplemental Materials Commission (Curriculum
Commission) approved the draft update of the History-Social Science Framework for California Public Schools for
field review. The draft framework has been posted on the CDE Web page at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/hs/cf/, but the actual field review and online survey will not occur at this
time. For more information go to the Curriculum Frameworks and Instructional
Materials Web page at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/index.asp.
When students
do not seem themselves as a part of history, their sense of self is limited. Marginalization negatively impacts
their connections with school and their success at school. It dis-empowers.
An accurate history
provides a sense of self, of direction, of purpose.
Lack of history of
self, does not commit students to democratic participation in the society.
An
outline of Latino history is on the Chicano/Latino Digital History Project. Here. https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/chicano-mexican-american-digital-history-project.
I urge teachers to teach
your students the truth- Yes, some inconvenient truths, not just
myths. For example, if a person is going to understand
our society and the economy, they need to understand
immigration. The history of Chicano/Mexicano people in
California exists – but it was ignored by the writers of the current
State Framework and the current textbooks.
History classes should help young people acquire and learn to use
the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that will prepare them to be competent and
responsible citizens throughout their lives. History classes should encourage civic engagement. They can’t do this if they ignore half
of the students.
So, we can begin to respond to civic engagement. But, first we will need to teach the students an honest history of this region.
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