Black History Is American History, All Year RoundIt's that time of year again. Schools across the United States have dusted off their posters of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks in celebration of Black History Month, and soon they'll be coming down. This year, even Heineken jumped on the bandwagon. They released an advertisement in February that stated, "Come and Celebrate Black History Month with Heineken."
I doubt this is what historian Carter G. Woodson had in mind when he began Black History Week in 1926, in an effort to properly place the teaching of African-American history into the study of American history. As a child I remember February filled with stories of George Washington Carver and Jackie Robinson, told with enthusiasm by my well-meaning teachers. Peanuts, baseball, and dreams -- that was black history growing up. But now I'm a teacher myself. I teach AP United States History, and in spite of the encouragement from Heineken, I did not celebrate Black History Month in my classes this year. Nor will I celebrate Women's History Month in March, Asian Pacific Heritage in May, Hispanic Heritage in September, or even LGBT Month in October. We have an unfortunate tendency in this country to exclude the stories of various groups in our year-round teaching of the nation's history. The experience of African Americans, women, immigrants, workers, the poor, and gay and lesbian individuals isAmerican history. We should not need special months or laws signed by elected officials to commit ourselves to teaching an American history that is inclusive of all Americans. The American experience has been influenced by class, gender, race, sexual orientation, geography, and religion. To not teach this history year round is to do a disservice to our nation's rich, complicated past. So rather than wait for February to do some token lessons attempting to acknowledge the complex experiences of African Americans, why not, during a lesson on the Boston Massacre, examine why Paul Revere chose to omit African American Crispus Attucks from his powerful piece of colonial propaganda? Did Mr. Revere not think that the loss of a black man's life would be an effective force in mobilizing the colonial cause against the British? In discussing with students why Paul Revere chose to exclude the death of Attucks, we can not only have an honest conversation about the American Revolution, but also about why it was necessary for individuals such as Carter Woodson to introduce the idea of a Black History Week in the first place. It is also imperative that we move beyond the hero worship that is characteristic of these monthly celebrations. Certainly the stories of King and Parks are remarkable and deserving of attention and celebration. But my unit on the Montgomery Bus Boycott does not begin with the arrest of Rosa Parks. When students walk into my class, they are given two arrest reports, one of Parks and the other of Claudette Colvin. In analyzing these primary sources, students discover that nine months prior to Parks' arrest, Colvin, a fifteen-year-old African American,refused to give up her seat in the same busing system. As history teachers, we should remember to be inclusive of young people too, and celebrate the important risks they've taken throughout our nation's history. Education should be not only inclusive but also empowering. I would imagine that nearly every student knows that Martin Luther King had a dream, but it is imperative that we teach year-round about the tremendous contributions and sacrifices made by countless young, old, black, and white individuals in an effort to make that dream a reality. In moving beyond superficial hero worship, we will instill in students a sense of empowerment and foster in them the critical thinking skills that will allow them to have a more authentic view of American history. Meaningful discussions about black history, women's history -- indeed, all histories -- should not come and go with the passing of the calendar. Throughout the year, we as educators must recognize the important roles that race, gender, class, religion, and sexual orientation have on the American experience. To accomplish this goal should not be too difficult; it is after all American history. I'll drink a Heineken to that. Daniel Jocz teaches social studies at a public high school in Los Angeles. For the past two years, 97% of his students have passed the AP U.S. History exam. He is currently a Teach Plus Teaching Policy Fellow. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/teach-plus/black-history-is-american_1_b_1304220.html?view=print&comm_ref=false |
How to teach gay issues in 1st grade?
(The title was not created by me) A new law requiring California schools to have lessons about LGBT Americans raises tough questions. October 16, 2011|Teresa Watanabe At Wonderland Avenue Elementary School in Laurel Canyon, there are lesson plans on diverse families -- including those with two mommies or daddies -- books on homosexual authors in the library and a principal who is openly gay. But even at this school, teachers and administrators are flummoxed about how to carry out a new law requiring California public schools to teach all students -- from kindergartners to 12th-graders -- about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans in history classes. "At this point, I wouldn't even know where to begin," Principal Don Wilson said. Educators across the state don't have much time to figure it out. In January, they're expected to begin teaching about LGBT Americans under California's landmark law, the first of its kind in the nation. The law has sparked confusion about what, exactly, is supposed to be taught. Will fourth-graders learn that some of the Gold Rush miners were gay and helped build San Francisco? Will students be taught about the "two-spirited people" tradition among some Native Americans, as one gay historian mused? "I'm not sure how we plug it into the curriculum at the grade school level, if at all," said Paul Boneberg, executive director at the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco. School districts will have little help in navigating this sensitive and controversial change, which has already prompted some parents to pull their children out of public schools. The Legislature suspended all adoptions of instructional material through eighth grade until 2015 to save money. Any new textbook with LGBT content is not likely to land in schools until at least 2019 because that process usually takes a minimum of four years, according to a state Education Department spokeswoman. The transition should be easier in L.A. Unified, which has been a pioneer in LGBT education. The Los Angeles school board passed a resolution directing students and school staff to refrain from slurs about sexual orientation as far back as 1988. Then, in 2003, allegations of adult school staff members bullying LGBT students prompted the district to step up its educational efforts, according to Judy Chiasson, coordinator for human relations, diversity and equity. In 2005, L.A. Unified debuted the nation's first chapter in a high school health textbook on LGBT issues covering sexual orientation and gender identity, struggles over them and anti-LGBT bias. A section on misconceptions says sexual orientation is not a choice -- a statement many religious conservatives disagree with. Those topics, educators say, are clearly inappropriate at the younger ages, raising tough questions about how to carry out the new law in elementary school. So sensitive is the subject that a children's picture book about a same-sex penguin pair is one of the most controversial books in America today. "And Tango Makes Three" -- based on a true story about two male penguins at New York's Central Park Zoo that bond, hatch a surrogate egg and raise a baby together -- has drawn the most complaints and requests for removal from library shelves nearly every year since its 2005 publication, according to the American Library Assn. Chiasson said LGBT topics are controversial because people conflate them with sex -- and, for religious conservatives, sin. "People sexualize homosexuality and romanticize heterosexuality," she said. The Safe Schools Coalition, an educational support group for LGBT youth, says the only age-appropriate lessons in elementary school involve family diversity, gender stereotypes and anti-bullying. Which is pretty much what happens at Wonderland. On a recent morning, teacher Jane Raphael invited her two dozen kindergartners, first-graders and second-graders to sit in a circle and tell a story about their family. The students described a cross section of modern-day America: moms and dads and athletic siblings, crazy dogs, a cat named Lulu, a fish that died, divorced parents, a girl with two mommies. There was no discussion about sex or gay lifestyles. The exercise simply underscored that families come in all sizes, shapes and configurations. Wilson, the principal, said such lessons are about as far as the school would take any LGBT instruction. "The issue is never going to move beyond the diversity of family," he said. "If it were to move beyond that, we would address it as a breach of developmentally appropriate instruction." Middle and high schools are a different matter. Sex education begins in fifth grade, so more specific LGBT instruction is considered appropriate -- and necessary, experts say, as bullying steps up in these years. That happened at Downtown Magnets High School, where a lesbian student was beaten up on a school bus in 2005. The school responded by launching an anti-bullying poster campaign, a Gay-Straight Alliance club, staff sessions about inclusiveness and a conscious effort by some teachers to integrate LGBT issues into instruction. An art history teacher includes portraits of same-sex couples in her studies. An English teacher has discussed writer Langston Hughes, who is widely believed to have been gay. And in 11th-grade U.S. history, Daniel Jocz covers LGBT issues, especially during the unit on 20th century civil rights movements. Using video clips of Kanye West, Tyra Banks and other celebrities, Jocz engages his students in lively discussions about language -- including the taunt "that's gay." His students study the LGBT resistance to police arrests in the Stonewall riots alongside Rosa Parks' refusal to sit in the back of the bus. And the murder cases of Emmett Till, an African American teenager, and Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, are examined in the class segment on hate crimes. "I'm a history teacher, and this is history," Jocz said. "It's part of the narrative. You can't remove it." Students say such efforts have created a safe and nurturing environment. David Columbus, a senior and president of the school's Gay-Straight Alliance club, said he remembers being pushed around and called names since he was 3 because he liked Barbie dolls. When he realized he was gay in eighth grade, he said, he wanted to die and wished he had cancer instead because that was more acceptable. At school, however, Columbus said he has thrived under the support. "This law's going to educate kids about LGBT people, and once you get education, you'll respect them, and nobody's going to bully them anymore," said Jennifer Vanegas, a straight member of the club. But the new law, which added LGBT Americans, European Americans and the disabled to groups whose contributions to California and U.S. history should be studied, has sparked open rebellion from some teachers and families. Sixty miles east of Wonderland, Calvary Chapel Corona -- an evangelical Christian church of 1,200 congregants in western Riverside County -- is an active opponent. At least seven families pulled their children from public schools in protest. "This law teaches children that it's OK to be gay, and that's not my Christian values," said Bryan Breuer, who withdrew his children from public schools. "I don't understand trying to force this on my children." Grace R. Callaway, a public school teacher near Yuba City, said she will refuse to teach LGBT issues to her fifth- and sixth-graders because she believes homosexuality is a "destructive lifestyle." She has also taken issue with a short biography recently presented in her daughter's high school history class that described John Berry, director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, as the "highest-ranking openly gay federal employee in U.S. history." She and some other religious conservatives want to remove their children from such lessons as they can do with sex education. How administrators plan to handle "conscientious objectors" like Callaway is unclear. For now, L.A. Unified, along with school districts in south Orange County, Elk Grove and elsewhere, has started meeting with staff members to figure out lesson plans. "We're looking for places of natural fit," Chiasson said. "We're not going to shoehorn in something gratuitous just to make a point." [email protected] http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/16/local/la-me-gay-schools-20111016 |
LA TImes November 25, 2011
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/25/local/la-me-adv-occupy-teach-20111126
Occupy L.A. offers a hands-on civics lesson for students, teachers
Some youths visit the City Hall encampment to get a firsthand look at the movement while others learn in the classroom about what is seen as history in the making.
November 25, 2011|By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times
Who says history has to be about dead men and a dreary assortment of dates and names?
For countless students and teachers, the Occupy L.A. encampment at City Hall has become a living classroom, a place to put a contemporary twist on topics such as the causes of the Great Depression and the limits of the 1st Amendment.
On a recent afternoon, students from at least three schools joined the colorful milieu of protesters — playing ball, posing with pet roosters and sounding off about corporate greed — to interview them about their aims.
PHOTOS: Occupy protests
Cleveland High School student Ryan Janowski, for instance, asked hard questions about whether the movement's leaderless structure would impede its progress.
Classmate Christopher Berry sniffed the aroma of marijuana and wondered whether a few "dignified leaders" might help protesters gain wider public acceptance.
The students are part of Cleveland's humanities magnet program, which is exploring class differences in America and comparing the Occupy movement with 19th century transcendentalism.
"It fits in with everything we're doing," said Rebecca Williams, an English literature teacher at the Reseda school. "It's a real-life movement — history in the making."
Educators across the nation have taken up the Occupy movement as a teaching opportunity for civics, history, government and even geography classes. Organizations such as C-SPAN, the Bill of Rights Institute and the Annenberg Classroom have developed lesson plans for mass consumption.
One such teaching tool put together by Ben Bohmfalk, a Colorado social studies teacher, features video clips and articles intended to help students evaluate the movement's aims.
The lesson plan on C-SPAN's Classroom Deliberations website offers material for three reading levels and a vocabulary list that includes such words as bailouts, deregulation and meritocracy.
Bohmfalk said the link to the Occupy lesson plan was sent out to more than 40,000 teachers nationwide. A handful of them, he said, protested that teaching about the movement implies supporting it. But Bohmfalk, who also has taught about the politically conservative "tea party" movement, disagrees.
"For a movement to gain so much public attention, teachers have a responsibility to teach about it," he said. "This cracks open all of the issues. It takes them out of dusty textbooks and makes them very current."
Bohmfalk has used the material in his classes to discuss issues such as the role of government in regulating the marketplace, the limits of free speech and assembly rights and even U.S. parallels to inequitable living conditions in Mexico City.
But, he said, a major challenge has been helping students understand the complex economic issues underlying the movement's simple slogans.
Catchphrases such as "99%" require understanding of income distribution and tax systems. "Corporate personhood" involves looking at campaign financing systems and a related Supreme Court decision. Add to that references to bank bailouts, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Cairo's Tahrir Square, and the issues get very complicated very quickly, he said.
"What a lot of adults forget is how little background knowledge about current events 16-year-olds have," Bohmfalk said.
At Downtown Magnets High School, 11th-grade AP history teacher Daniel Jocz has videotaped the Los Angeles encampment for use later in the year when he will ask students to compare and contrast the Occupy movement with the economic forces that drove the Great Depression.
Jocz said he plans to ask students to take a position on whether more government or less would best alleviate the problems — similar questions faced by Presidents Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1920s and '30s.
But, Jocz said, it may be difficult for many teachers to fit the Occupy movement into an already crowded curriculum.
"At the end of the day, students won't be tested on any of this and I'll be evaluated on their content knowledge demonstrated through standardized tests," he said. "There is no value to doing this in the current climate. In this whole test-driven culture, teachers are terrified to step away from their regular schedule."
Students, however, said they see great value in the lessons.
For Jerry Liang, a Cal State Long Beach student and immigrant from China, a sociology class assignment to interview an Occupy L.A. protester gave him the chance to witness a people's movement that he said would not be allowed in his homeland.
He considers himself part of the 99% — his family of garment workers earns a combined $28,000 annually — and said he would join the protests were it not for his parents' admonition to stay out of trouble.
"Here in America we can express our ideas and participate in a movement to do something for ourselves," Liang said. "In China, it's impossible to do this. If you do it, you'll go to jail."
Eighth-grader Brenda Reyes was one of several students from the Los Angeles Leadership Academy, a Lincoln Heights charter school, to visit the Occupy site to hand out milk and bread to protesters.
Later in their classroom, the students viewed video clips of protesters and wrote a compare-and-contrast response about the difference between media coverage of the movement and what they directly experienced at the encampment.
"It's cool that they don't just complain about things, like a lot of people do," she said. "They're trying to change things."
Cleveland student Berry said that visiting both the Occupy L.A. and Oakland sites was "really neat and cool."
The student, who described himself as the middle-class son of a Democratic mother who supports the movement and a Republican father who is indifferent to it, said he generally backs protesters' demands for more economic equality. But he said he thinks they need to organize more effectively and purge any anti-Semitic and anarchist elements.
FULL COVERAGE: 'Occupy' protests
Whether any of that happens or not, Berry said, he is thrilled to be a witness to it all. In fact, he picked up an art piece from a protester featuring a city backdrop spray-painted with "Occupy LA" — a memento of the historical moment.
"Whether they accomplish anything, I feel this is history in the making that will be recorded and talked about in the future," Berry said.
[email protected]
Occupy L.A. offers a hands-on civics lesson for students, teachers
Some youths visit the City Hall encampment to get a firsthand look at the movement while others learn in the classroom about what is seen as history in the making.
November 25, 2011|By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times
Who says history has to be about dead men and a dreary assortment of dates and names?
For countless students and teachers, the Occupy L.A. encampment at City Hall has become a living classroom, a place to put a contemporary twist on topics such as the causes of the Great Depression and the limits of the 1st Amendment.
On a recent afternoon, students from at least three schools joined the colorful milieu of protesters — playing ball, posing with pet roosters and sounding off about corporate greed — to interview them about their aims.
PHOTOS: Occupy protests
Cleveland High School student Ryan Janowski, for instance, asked hard questions about whether the movement's leaderless structure would impede its progress.
Classmate Christopher Berry sniffed the aroma of marijuana and wondered whether a few "dignified leaders" might help protesters gain wider public acceptance.
The students are part of Cleveland's humanities magnet program, which is exploring class differences in America and comparing the Occupy movement with 19th century transcendentalism.
"It fits in with everything we're doing," said Rebecca Williams, an English literature teacher at the Reseda school. "It's a real-life movement — history in the making."
Educators across the nation have taken up the Occupy movement as a teaching opportunity for civics, history, government and even geography classes. Organizations such as C-SPAN, the Bill of Rights Institute and the Annenberg Classroom have developed lesson plans for mass consumption.
One such teaching tool put together by Ben Bohmfalk, a Colorado social studies teacher, features video clips and articles intended to help students evaluate the movement's aims.
The lesson plan on C-SPAN's Classroom Deliberations website offers material for three reading levels and a vocabulary list that includes such words as bailouts, deregulation and meritocracy.
Bohmfalk said the link to the Occupy lesson plan was sent out to more than 40,000 teachers nationwide. A handful of them, he said, protested that teaching about the movement implies supporting it. But Bohmfalk, who also has taught about the politically conservative "tea party" movement, disagrees.
"For a movement to gain so much public attention, teachers have a responsibility to teach about it," he said. "This cracks open all of the issues. It takes them out of dusty textbooks and makes them very current."
Bohmfalk has used the material in his classes to discuss issues such as the role of government in regulating the marketplace, the limits of free speech and assembly rights and even U.S. parallels to inequitable living conditions in Mexico City.
But, he said, a major challenge has been helping students understand the complex economic issues underlying the movement's simple slogans.
Catchphrases such as "99%" require understanding of income distribution and tax systems. "Corporate personhood" involves looking at campaign financing systems and a related Supreme Court decision. Add to that references to bank bailouts, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Cairo's Tahrir Square, and the issues get very complicated very quickly, he said.
"What a lot of adults forget is how little background knowledge about current events 16-year-olds have," Bohmfalk said.
At Downtown Magnets High School, 11th-grade AP history teacher Daniel Jocz has videotaped the Los Angeles encampment for use later in the year when he will ask students to compare and contrast the Occupy movement with the economic forces that drove the Great Depression.
Jocz said he plans to ask students to take a position on whether more government or less would best alleviate the problems — similar questions faced by Presidents Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1920s and '30s.
But, Jocz said, it may be difficult for many teachers to fit the Occupy movement into an already crowded curriculum.
"At the end of the day, students won't be tested on any of this and I'll be evaluated on their content knowledge demonstrated through standardized tests," he said. "There is no value to doing this in the current climate. In this whole test-driven culture, teachers are terrified to step away from their regular schedule."
Students, however, said they see great value in the lessons.
For Jerry Liang, a Cal State Long Beach student and immigrant from China, a sociology class assignment to interview an Occupy L.A. protester gave him the chance to witness a people's movement that he said would not be allowed in his homeland.
He considers himself part of the 99% — his family of garment workers earns a combined $28,000 annually — and said he would join the protests were it not for his parents' admonition to stay out of trouble.
"Here in America we can express our ideas and participate in a movement to do something for ourselves," Liang said. "In China, it's impossible to do this. If you do it, you'll go to jail."
Eighth-grader Brenda Reyes was one of several students from the Los Angeles Leadership Academy, a Lincoln Heights charter school, to visit the Occupy site to hand out milk and bread to protesters.
Later in their classroom, the students viewed video clips of protesters and wrote a compare-and-contrast response about the difference between media coverage of the movement and what they directly experienced at the encampment.
"It's cool that they don't just complain about things, like a lot of people do," she said. "They're trying to change things."
Cleveland student Berry said that visiting both the Occupy L.A. and Oakland sites was "really neat and cool."
The student, who described himself as the middle-class son of a Democratic mother who supports the movement and a Republican father who is indifferent to it, said he generally backs protesters' demands for more economic equality. But he said he thinks they need to organize more effectively and purge any anti-Semitic and anarchist elements.
FULL COVERAGE: 'Occupy' protests
Whether any of that happens or not, Berry said, he is thrilled to be a witness to it all. In fact, he picked up an art piece from a protester featuring a city backdrop spray-painted with "Occupy LA" — a memento of the historical moment.
"Whether they accomplish anything, I feel this is history in the making that will be recorded and talked about in the future," Berry said.
[email protected]
Occupy L.A. offers a hands-on civics lesson for students, teachers
Some youths visit the City Hall encampment to get a firsthand look at the movement while others learn in the classroom about what is seen as history in the making.
November 25, 2011|By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times
Who says history has to be about dead men and a dreary assortment of dates and names?
For countless students and teachers, the Occupy L.A. encampment at City Hall has become a living classroom, a place to put a contemporary twist on topics such as the causes of the Great Depression and the limits of the 1st Amendment.
On a recent afternoon, students from at least three schools joined the colorful milieu of protesters — playing ball, posing with pet roosters and sounding off about corporate greed — to interview them about their aims.
PHOTOS: Occupy protests
Cleveland High School student Ryan Janowski, for instance, asked hard questions about whether the movement's leaderless structure would impede its progress.
Classmate Christopher Berry sniffed the aroma of marijuana and wondered whether a few "dignified leaders" might help protesters gain wider public acceptance.
The students are part of Cleveland's humanities magnet program, which is exploring class differences in America and comparing the Occupy movement with 19th century transcendentalism.
"It fits in with everything we're doing," said Rebecca Williams, an English literature teacher at the Reseda school. "It's a real-life movement — history in the making."
Educators across the nation have taken up the Occupy movement as a teaching opportunity for civics, history, government and even geography classes. Organizations such as C-SPAN, the Bill of Rights Institute and the Annenberg Classroom have developed lesson plans for mass consumption.
One such teaching tool put together by Ben Bohmfalk, a Colorado social studies teacher, features video clips and articles intended to help students evaluate the movement's aims.
The lesson plan on C-SPAN's Classroom Deliberations website offers material for three reading levels and a vocabulary list that includes such words as bailouts, deregulation and meritocracy.
Bohmfalk said the link to the Occupy lesson plan was sent out to more than 40,000 teachers nationwide. A handful of them, he said, protested that teaching about the movement implies supporting it. But Bohmfalk, who also has taught about the politically conservative "tea party" movement, disagrees.
"For a movement to gain so much public attention, teachers have a responsibility to teach about it," he said. "This cracks open all of the issues. It takes them out of dusty textbooks and makes them very current."
Bohmfalk has used the material in his classes to discuss issues such as the role of government in regulating the marketplace, the limits of free speech and assembly rights and even U.S. parallels to inequitable living conditions in Mexico City.
But, he said, a major challenge has been helping students understand the complex economic issues underlying the movement's simple slogans.
Catchphrases such as "99%" require understanding of income distribution and tax systems. "Corporate personhood" involves looking at campaign financing systems and a related Supreme Court decision. Add to that references to bank bailouts, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Cairo's Tahrir Square, and the issues get very complicated very quickly, he said.
"What a lot of adults forget is how little background knowledge about current events 16-year-olds have," Bohmfalk said.
At Downtown Magnets High School, 11th-grade AP history teacher Daniel Jocz has videotaped the Los Angeles encampment for use later in the year when he will ask students to compare and contrast the Occupy movement with the economic forces that drove the Great Depression.
Jocz said he plans to ask students to take a position on whether more government or less would best alleviate the problems — similar questions faced by Presidents Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1920s and '30s.
But, Jocz said, it may be difficult for many teachers to fit the Occupy movement into an already crowded curriculum.
"At the end of the day, students won't be tested on any of this and I'll be evaluated on their content knowledge demonstrated through standardized tests," he said. "There is no value to doing this in the current climate. In this whole test-driven culture, teachers are terrified to step away from their regular schedule."
Students, however, said they see great value in the lessons.
For Jerry Liang, a Cal State Long Beach student and immigrant from China, a sociology class assignment to interview an Occupy L.A. protester gave him the chance to witness a people's movement that he said would not be allowed in his homeland.
He considers himself part of the 99% — his family of garment workers earns a combined $28,000 annually — and said he would join the protests were it not for his parents' admonition to stay out of trouble.
"Here in America we can express our ideas and participate in a movement to do something for ourselves," Liang said. "In China, it's impossible to do this. If you do it, you'll go to jail."
Eighth-grader Brenda Reyes was one of several students from the Los Angeles Leadership Academy, a Lincoln Heights charter school, to visit the Occupy site to hand out milk and bread to protesters.
Later in their classroom, the students viewed video clips of protesters and wrote a compare-and-contrast response about the difference between media coverage of the movement and what they directly experienced at the encampment.
"It's cool that they don't just complain about things, like a lot of people do," she said. "They're trying to change things."
Cleveland student Berry said that visiting both the Occupy L.A. and Oakland sites was "really neat and cool."
The student, who described himself as the middle-class son of a Democratic mother who supports the movement and a Republican father who is indifferent to it, said he generally backs protesters' demands for more economic equality. But he said he thinks they need to organize more effectively and purge any anti-Semitic and anarchist elements.
FULL COVERAGE: 'Occupy' protests
Whether any of that happens or not, Berry said, he is thrilled to be a witness to it all. In fact, he picked up an art piece from a protester featuring a city backdrop spray-painted with "Occupy LA" — a memento of the historical moment.
"Whether they accomplish anything, I feel this is history in the making that will be recorded and talked about in the future," Berry said.
[email protected]
Occupy L.A. offers a hands-on civics lesson for students, teachers
Some youths visit the City Hall encampment to get a firsthand look at the movement while others learn in the classroom about what is seen as history in the making.
November 25, 2011|By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times
Who says history has to be about dead men and a dreary assortment of dates and names?
For countless students and teachers, the Occupy L.A. encampment at City Hall has become a living classroom, a place to put a contemporary twist on topics such as the causes of the Great Depression and the limits of the 1st Amendment.
On a recent afternoon, students from at least three schools joined the colorful milieu of protesters — playing ball, posing with pet roosters and sounding off about corporate greed — to interview them about their aims.
PHOTOS: Occupy protests
Cleveland High School student Ryan Janowski, for instance, asked hard questions about whether the movement's leaderless structure would impede its progress.
Classmate Christopher Berry sniffed the aroma of marijuana and wondered whether a few "dignified leaders" might help protesters gain wider public acceptance.
The students are part of Cleveland's humanities magnet program, which is exploring class differences in America and comparing the Occupy movement with 19th century transcendentalism.
"It fits in with everything we're doing," said Rebecca Williams, an English literature teacher at the Reseda school. "It's a real-life movement — history in the making."
Educators across the nation have taken up the Occupy movement as a teaching opportunity for civics, history, government and even geography classes. Organizations such as C-SPAN, the Bill of Rights Institute and the Annenberg Classroom have developed lesson plans for mass consumption.
One such teaching tool put together by Ben Bohmfalk, a Colorado social studies teacher, features video clips and articles intended to help students evaluate the movement's aims.
The lesson plan on C-SPAN's Classroom Deliberations website offers material for three reading levels and a vocabulary list that includes such words as bailouts, deregulation and meritocracy.
Bohmfalk said the link to the Occupy lesson plan was sent out to more than 40,000 teachers nationwide. A handful of them, he said, protested that teaching about the movement implies supporting it. But Bohmfalk, who also has taught about the politically conservative "tea party" movement, disagrees.
"For a movement to gain so much public attention, teachers have a responsibility to teach about it," he said. "This cracks open all of the issues. It takes them out of dusty textbooks and makes them very current."
Bohmfalk has used the material in his classes to discuss issues such as the role of government in regulating the marketplace, the limits of free speech and assembly rights and even U.S. parallels to inequitable living conditions in Mexico City.
But, he said, a major challenge has been helping students understand the complex economic issues underlying the movement's simple slogans.
Catchphrases such as "99%" require understanding of income distribution and tax systems. "Corporate personhood" involves looking at campaign financing systems and a related Supreme Court decision. Add to that references to bank bailouts, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Cairo's Tahrir Square, and the issues get very complicated very quickly, he said.
"What a lot of adults forget is how little background knowledge about current events 16-year-olds have," Bohmfalk said.
At Downtown Magnets High School, 11th-grade AP history teacher Daniel Jocz has videotaped the Los Angeles encampment for use later in the year when he will ask students to compare and contrast the Occupy movement with the economic forces that drove the Great Depression.
Jocz said he plans to ask students to take a position on whether more government or less would best alleviate the problems — similar questions faced by Presidents Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1920s and '30s.
But, Jocz said, it may be difficult for many teachers to fit the Occupy movement into an already crowded curriculum.
"At the end of the day, students won't be tested on any of this and I'll be evaluated on their content knowledge demonstrated through standardized tests," he said. "There is no value to doing this in the current climate. In this whole test-driven culture, teachers are terrified to step away from their regular schedule."
Students, however, said they see great value in the lessons.
For Jerry Liang, a Cal State Long Beach student and immigrant from China, a sociology class assignment to interview an Occupy L.A. protester gave him the chance to witness a people's movement that he said would not be allowed in his homeland.
He considers himself part of the 99% — his family of garment workers earns a combined $28,000 annually — and said he would join the protests were it not for his parents' admonition to stay out of trouble.
"Here in America we can express our ideas and participate in a movement to do something for ourselves," Liang said. "In China, it's impossible to do this. If you do it, you'll go to jail."
Eighth-grader Brenda Reyes was one of several students from the Los Angeles Leadership Academy, a Lincoln Heights charter school, to visit the Occupy site to hand out milk and bread to protesters.
Later in their classroom, the students viewed video clips of protesters and wrote a compare-and-contrast response about the difference between media coverage of the movement and what they directly experienced at the encampment.
"It's cool that they don't just complain about things, like a lot of people do," she said. "They're trying to change things."
Cleveland student Berry said that visiting both the Occupy L.A. and Oakland sites was "really neat and cool."
The student, who described himself as the middle-class son of a Democratic mother who supports the movement and a Republican father who is indifferent to it, said he generally backs protesters' demands for more economic equality. But he said he thinks they need to organize more effectively and purge any anti-Semitic and anarchist elements.
FULL COVERAGE: 'Occupy' protests
Whether any of that happens or not, Berry said, he is thrilled to be a witness to it all. In fact, he picked up an art piece from a protester featuring a city backdrop spray-painted with "Occupy LA" — a memento of the historical moment.
"Whether they accomplish anything, I feel this is history in the making that will be recorded and talked about in the future," Berry said.
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