Written by Miguel Palacios
The implementation of an ethnic studies curriculum has begun in Santa Clara County. As reported in March, California’s State Board of Education voted unanimously to pass an ethnic studies curriculum and the process of rolling in that curriculum is now in motion. The purported goal is to advocate “decolonizing” the United States and “liberating” students from capitalism, patriarchy, and settler colonialism.
The Santa Clara County Office of Education is just one example of how such curricula could prove to be negative instead of positive. Christopher F. Rufo investigated and reported on this issue for CAPoliticalReview.com. In his investigation, he obtained documents from the Santa Clara’s Ethnic Studies Initiative. The documents revealed that the county had held training sessions for teachers within the district on how to implement and inject liberal politics into the curriculum and directed them to conceal this information from parents. The leaders of this initiative include district staff, a state advisor of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, and a professor from San Jose State University.
According to Rufo, the training begins with the teachers telling their students that the United States is an “illegitimate colonial power that should return the land to the Native American tribes.” Jorge Pacheco is the president of the California Latino School Boards Association and advisor for the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. He states that the curriculum that will be taught to the children is based on the works of Brazilian Marxist, Paulo Freire. Freire’s work includes the “pedagogy of the oppressed,” which states that students must be taught to understand that they are under oppression, and that they need to develop the skills necessary to first challenge and then overthrow their oppressors.
Pacheco followed that by emphasizing that the United States is a government of oppression. How else can this be construed other than inciting revolution, teaching America’s children to hate their country, and to question every form of authority? This is the curriculum which will be implemented around the state. Pacheco makes no qualms about it, stating that schools need to start indoctrinating children in these beliefs as early as first grade.
Though Pacheco believes children are never too young to learn these horrific ideals, he is wrong. Children are very impressionable, especially in their early years, and setting a precedent that early for disobedience and subversion, not to mention teaching the scarring history of our country’s troubled past to innocent minds who know no evil, can prove to be detrimental to how they develop into adulthood. Of course, Pacheco and the other initiative members know that, which is why they are implementing such a plan.
Photo by Bruce Peterson
