Exploring Education with Courtney

This week, we watched Precious Knowledge, by Ari Palos and Eren Isabel McGinnis , a documentary about Mexican-American students and their Ethnic Studies courses in school. It definitely took me a few minutes to pull myself together after watching this documentary, because to me, it ended on a sad note for these students when the law was passed to ban Ethnic Studies. Although the ban was passed, the students and teachers were also hopeful. It showed students during their last days of school talking about how their revolution for change is just beginning. As educators, what more would we want for our students than for them to have a good relationship with school? The documentary followed Crystal, Priscila, and Gilbert, three Mexican-American students in Tucson and initially displayed their lack of interest in school, explaining how they were disengaged and bored, finding little to no reason to attend. Crystal had to care for her siblings while Priscila did not ev...

School-to-Prison Pipeline? I prefer the Cradle-to-College Staircase. In our readings this week, we see clear evidence of the school-to-prison pipeline for both Latino and LGBTQ students. We must ask ourselves, what can we do better to ensure this is not the outcome of schools? In “Messy, Butch, and Queer: LGBTQ Youth and the School-to-Prison Pipeline”, Snapp, Hoenig, Fields, and Russell study LGBTQ students and how they are treated in schools.  They explain how “automatic and punitive discipline policies and practices often result in student entrance into the juvenile justice system, a process referred to as the ‘school-to-prison pipeline.’” (58)  They examine how these punitive types of punishments and “zero-tolerance” policies do not serve to help this type of population of students, but yet, have a negative impact on their view of school and their futures, eventually pushing them out of school all-together. The article examines how LGBTQ ...

This week’s readings remind me of a question that I ask my classes each year on Columbus Day... who was writing the History books? Who’s side of the story do we really have? I shine light on what some other places celebrate on this day such as Dia de la Raza… Indigenous People’s Day… and we have a rich discussion about these questions. All three readings this week have a common theme: Assimilation has seemingly trumped diversity in America. Colonization pushed out “foreign” languages while forcing assimilation to “their” way of life: English and Christianity. The authors draw our attention to the fact that those who do not speak standard English were and are looked at as “outsiders” or “marginalized.”  But who were the real outsiders? It is in the name Native American that their language and culture came first.  Unfortunately, from the very early stages of colonization, native languages, cultures, and practices were pushed out. In How Hawaii...