CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 2020, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“ETHNIC STUDIES PLAN: CLOSER, BUT STILL NO CIGAR”
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 2020, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“ETHNIC STUDIES PLAN: CLOSER, BUT STILL NO CIGAR”
The
ethnic studies curriculum now entering a public comment period before its
scheduled adoption by the state Board of Education next spring is improved from
last year’s rejected abomination, but remains a far cry from what it should be.
In
short, closer but still no cigar.
The
major improvement is that the new proposed curriculum this time recommends
teaching about more forms of historic prejudice than the prior version, sent
back to the drawing board almost exactly a year ago because it omitted so much.
For
example, the world’s oldest form of bigotry, anti-Semitism, didn’t get a
mention in the previous version. Now it’s on the list of just over a dozen
forms of historic discrimination and persecution.
Wow!
What good news for the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust before and during
World War II. They are at least recognized, but how many classrooms will see
anything about this actually taught? Yes, a few classes are visited each year
by Holocaust survivors telling their stories, but since most are in their late
80s and 90s, it’s questionable how long that can go on.
Here
are just a couple of the major weaknesses of the curriculum plan, which would
form the background for making ethnic studies a graduation requirement for
California public schools, as it recently became a requirement for any
California State University diploma:
The
plan instructs teachers to deal mostly with the history of whatever ethnic
group makes up the majority of their class. Since most public school students
for the foreseeable future will be Latino, that mandates a lot of teaching
about Hispanic history.
Perhaps
students will learn how smallpox brought to the New World by Spanish
adventurers allowed Hernan Cortez to conquer the powerful Aztec and Maya
civilizations in Mexico with a force that began with barely 200 men. Perhaps they will be taught how some
indigenous Mexicans turned against the Aztecs because of their brutality to
those they had previously conquered.
Maybe
they’ll be taught about the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in which Mexico ceded
55 percent of its prior territory to the United States after the
Mexican-American War, including
most of present-day Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Nevada
and Utah. Maybe they’ll learn that some Mexican-American activists since the
1970s have pushed the concept of Aztlan, a mythical nation that would take
former Mexican territory from America, and never mind who has lived there since
the mid-1800s.
It’s OK to teach about this, if done deftly and not as
propaganda making students feel victimized. But it would not educate students
about the other ethnic groups they will surely encounter while living in the
world’s most diverse society. This state, after all, features native speakers
of more than 80 languages.
Another weakness: the curriculum still divides Californians
into four basic groups, as demanded by the Critical Ethnic Studies Association,
an academic group focusing on “colonialism and conquest, racial chattel slavery
and white supremacist (doctrines).”
These folks also dominated the design of last year’s
rejected ethnic studies plan. It failed because rather than work toward racial
harmony, it focused falsehoods, divisive issues and longstanding grudges.
There was little concentration on achievements of any
ethnic group, especially leaving out all positives about European colonists and
other white immigrants who designed the country that became the most successful
on Earth, both economically and, often, in living up to its democratic ideals.
Ignore that history and students will get a warped
education on what it means to be American, how the nation was shaped and how to
get along with others who look different from them. Or as Williamson Evers, a
visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, said, “They’re
leaving out all kinds of ethnic groups…who had to work their way into success,
and how they did it. There may be important lessons there.”
It’s possible the new plan will get more revisions to make
it fairer and more accurate, while accomplishing state Schools Supt. Tony
Thurmond’s stated goal of promoting a “fairer, more just society.”
But the plan doesn’t get near that yet, so it should be
sent back for a second rewrite unless it’s improved considerably before next
spring.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It" is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
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