Film: Precious Knowledge
Filmmakers: Ari Luis Palos and Eren Isabel McGinnis
Precious Knowledge tells the stories of students in the Mexican American Studies Program at Tucson High School where 100% of the enrolled students graduate from high school and 85% go on to college. Currently, the dropout rate for Mexican American students is over 50%. Tucson High’s Mexican American Studies Program has become a “national model of educational success”. The filmmakers spent an entire year in the classroom filming the social justice curriculum, documenting the life-changing impact on students who become engaged, informed, and active in their communities.
In May 2010, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer banned classes designed for students of a particular ethnic group. You can read the full law: House Bill 2281. Based on that law, Tucson shut down its Mexican American Studies program and banned a long list of books in January. Among the extensive list of forbidden books, The Tempest by William Shakespeare and Ten Little Indians by PEN/Faulkner Award-winner Sherman Alexie were nixed from Tucson classrooms. In a school district founded by a Mexican-American in which more than 60 percent of the students come from Mexican-American backgrounds, the administration also removed every textbook dealing with Mexican-American history, including "Chicano!: The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement" by Arturo Rosales, which features a biography of longtime Tucson educator Salomon Baldenegro. Other books removed from the school include "500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures," by Elizabeth Martinez and the textbook "Critical Race Theory" by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic.
Quotes from the film
“An indigenous concept called Xinachtli: Plant the seed…...the seed will grow”-Jose Gonzalezao
Xinachtli is a Nahuatl term (the language of the Mexica) that means 'seed that germinates'. It is in the precise moment when the seed bursts, it is neither a seed nor a plant, but infinite possibilities. According to the Mexica, this is the time of true learning. Gonzalez was referring to the students and the growth and impact he saw on his students through the Mexican American Studies courses.
“I’ve never met a kid with a dysfunctional relationship to learning…..I have met plenty of kids with a dysfunctional relationship to school” -Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade
In these courses, Tucson students learned the values of love, respect, and self-reflection through lessons centered on Chicano and Latino culture and tradition- students understood social justice pedagogy. They were empowered to express themselves and went on personal journeys of self-exploration and philosophical discovery. The teachers of these courses changed the dysfunctional relationship most students have with school into a positive, supportive, familial relationship.
"It’s about the freedom to ask the questions that are the most pertinent about the way they view the world. That’s freedom."
This quote not only talks about freedom as an ideal that we value in America but also our ability to criticize and question the status quo is a crucial part of true freedom. By removing ethnic studies classes in high schools, the government was essentially censoring the education of the students. The state senators accused the classes of being anti-American when freedom is one of our most prized virtues. Censorship of education is contrary to ideas of true freedom and true Americanism. This teacher was pointing out the flawed and contradictory argument that was put forth by the government officials. Ethnic and race studies gave students the freedom to ask questions about their world, to ask questions about America, and to get answers that help them grow and develop as a person.
Xinachtli is a Nahuatl term (the language of the Mexica) that means 'seed that germinates'. It is in the precise moment when the seed bursts, it is neither a seed nor a plant, but infinite possibilities. According to the Mexica, this is the time of true learning. Gonzalez was referring to the students and the growth and impact he saw on his students through the Mexican American Studies courses.
“We continue to perpetuate an educational experience that has been inadequate a best for Latino children”-Dr. Augustine Romero
A Critically Compassionate Pedagogy for Latino Youth
By: Julio Cammarota and Augustine Romero
Cammarota and Romero argue that incorporating the values of critical pedagogy, authentic caring, and a social justice-centered curriculum will “foster the liberation of students and breaks the mechanisms of silence at work in schools today.” Students need to feel valued. They need a place where they can be heard. Acknowledging and showing that you value what students are already bringing to the classroom is an important step in creating a classroom for social justice. It is so important to create opportunities for students' voices to be heard. They need to be taught how to participate in a discussion. As teachers, we can encourage both sharing one's own ideas and respond to the ideas of classmates. It is my job to use questioning that can help students make connections. One of my biggest goals as a teacher is to build a community within our classroom and that starts with building strong and trustworthy relationships. By opening ourselves up with one another about deeper personal and societal issues/strengths, I believe the students will thrive academically and socially.
This article also discussed the difference between authentic caring and aesthetic caring. “Authentic caring,” are the teachers who embrace students as individuals in a nurturing, mutually respectful, and caring relationship. On the other hand, teachers that only practice “aesthetic caring,” care primarily about students performance on academic tasks and risks not appreciating students as individuals full of experiences, wants/needs, and lives that need to be individually nurtured.
The social-justice centered curriculum is grounded in students’ lived realities and their experiences of oppression and resistance. It is the practice that states the importance of engaging issues and concerns that impact the very communities we’re teaching in. Practice and pedagogy need to reflect what those students know, feel, experience and are seeking to learn as they are encouraged to resolve the injustices they face. The curriculum gives an urgency to learning that is often missing from traditional classrooms by studying resistance to oppression both past and present. This gives students a sense of hope that change is possible. It's important to give students opportunities for seeing how positive change happens and how they can be both actors and leaders in creating change. Students are continually encouraged to form their own critical contextualization of the world.
A Critically Compassionate Pedagogy for Latino Youth
By: Julio Cammarota and Augustine Romero
Cammarota and Romero argue that incorporating the values of critical pedagogy, authentic caring, and a social justice-centered curriculum will “foster the liberation of students and breaks the mechanisms of silence at work in schools today.” Students need to feel valued. They need a place where they can be heard. Acknowledging and showing that you value what students are already bringing to the classroom is an important step in creating a classroom for social justice. It is so important to create opportunities for students' voices to be heard. They need to be taught how to participate in a discussion. As teachers, we can encourage both sharing one's own ideas and respond to the ideas of classmates. It is my job to use questioning that can help students make connections. One of my biggest goals as a teacher is to build a community within our classroom and that starts with building strong and trustworthy relationships. By opening ourselves up with one another about deeper personal and societal issues/strengths, I believe the students will thrive academically and socially.
This article also discussed the difference between authentic caring and aesthetic caring. “Authentic caring,” are the teachers who embrace students as individuals in a nurturing, mutually respectful, and caring relationship. On the other hand, teachers that only practice “aesthetic caring,” care primarily about students performance on academic tasks and risks not appreciating students as individuals full of experiences, wants/needs, and lives that need to be individually nurtured.
The social-justice centered curriculum is grounded in students’ lived realities and their experiences of oppression and resistance. It is the practice that states the importance of engaging issues and concerns that impact the very communities we’re teaching in. Practice and pedagogy need to reflect what those students know, feel, experience and are seeking to learn as they are encouraged to resolve the injustices they face. The curriculum gives an urgency to learning that is often missing from traditional classrooms by studying resistance to oppression both past and present. This gives students a sense of hope that change is possible. It's important to give students opportunities for seeing how positive change happens and how they can be both actors and leaders in creating change. Students are continually encouraged to form their own critical contextualization of the world.
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