Why California Students ( and most teachers) don't know Chicano History

Workshop: Teaching Chicano/ Latino History in Grades 8-12.  Curriculum ideas for teaching about César Chávez, Dolores Huerta, Civil Rights Movement, and economic justice.  With Duane Campbell, Director of the Education and Democracy Institute. Dolores Delgado Campbell.  Professor. American River College

Presented  as a part of the  annual conference of The Bilingual Multicultural Education Department (BMED)  Sat . Nov. 5, 2011.  8:30 Am. In the University Union, at  Sacramento State.

 California has the largest population of any state, with more than 6,252,000 students  in school in 2008.   California students make up more than 11 percent of the United States total. California, along with some 16 other states, adopts textbooks for the entire state instead of district by district purchasing.  This makes the California adoption the largest single textbook sale in the nation.

California has failed to revise its k-12 history curriculum since 1987.  Since 2008, the failure was caused by the state’s budget crisis.

       When the 48.72 % of students who are Latino , and the 11.5 % who are Asian do not see themselves as part of history,  for many their sense of self is marginalized.   Marginalization negatively impacts their connections with school and their success at school.  It contributes to an over 50% drop out rate for Latinos and some Asian students.  An accurate history  would provide some students with a  a sense of self, of direction,  of purpose. History and social science  classes  should help young people acquire and learn to use the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that will prepare them to be competent and responsible citizens throughout their lives.   Instead, the current history textbooks tell a fairy tale of what happened here in the Southwest.

The presentation will provide teachers with ways to use the Chicano/ Mexican American Digital History materials of history in the Sacramento region.  The materials were created by local teachers and historians to provide materials for students to make up for the failure of California to update  its history curriculum since 1987.

 Workshop: Curriculum ideas for teaching about César Chávez, Dolores Huerta, Civil Rights Movement, and economic justice. Use of Chicano Digital History Project .

The Institute for Democracy and Education is an independent, non partisan research and advocacy  organization  established in Sacramento in  2009  to promote debate on the important issues of democracy, education and schools.