TUSD'S ETHNIC STUDIES PROGRAM

This is a big fuss locally and I noted before that on purely academic grounds it is suspect and on The Inside Track, a local wignut talk show, today I heard a state representative describe the program as "Marxist."  She didn't give any examples to prove her claim but she did refer to John Munger, a local wingnut activist, who wrote (here and here) that aspects of the program were Marxist:  Here are some excerpts from his post:

2) What they did provide was a showpiece of classical Marxist oriented indoctrination of cultural and political oppression, incessant deprecation of anything not “Chicano,” including the US Constitution, capitalism, and European culture. Students are taught that they are part of an oppressed minority of “indigenous” people (how those who are principally Mexican in background are “indigenous to the Southwestern US is not explained), whose lands (California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas) have been stolen by the Europeans and should be taken back as a separate “Chicano” nation they call “Atzlan.”

They want political separation from the US based almost entirely on race and based on a Marxist economic model.

In the meantime they should recognize that capitalism is corrupt and they should work towards complete redistribution of wealth; that everyone is entitled to a home, healthcare, reasonably equal income, etc. Presumably Atzlan would be a place where Communism would finally, and happily, flourish.

Second, the concepts and language in the materials is, frankly, classic Marxist indoctrination based on oppression and inculcation of hatred of anyone European or who might identify themselves as an American.

He expressly highlights the teachings of the “higher phase of communist society” which would solve this inequality. He adds that “we don’t have to get into complicated arguments about exactly how all things will be distributed. It would be an enormous accomplishment to get agreement that the fundamental requirements of existence —food, housing, medical care, education, and work—be distributed according to need.” In his opinion, the “drive for profit is ruthless,” and such concepts have created “terrible human consequences.”

He states that the better alternative is the “ideal of communism—a classless society of equal abundance for all . . . .”

If these quotes are accurate, Munger has something to his argument against the program. I think that these ideas are a bit too sophisticated for high school students but they could be taught in college.

This excerpt from the ethnic studies site confirms my suspicions:

Influenced by the work of scholar Paulo Freire, our lessons follow the framework of critical pedagogy, popular education, and the related participatory action research. The key premise holds that students should be equal partners in the construction of knowledge, identification of social problems, and implementation of solutions to these problems. Freire's concept of "critical literacy" encourages students to adopt "an attitude of creation and re-creation, a self-transformation producing a stance of intervention in one's context" (Freire, 1998, p. 86. [Freire, P. (1998). Education for critical consciousness. New York: The Continuum.]

I read Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed in graduate school back in the late 70s and I didn't think it had much relevance to students who were not in fact real peasants.