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I’m sure someone’s got to have asked this before….
As I’ve been reading, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” and concluding my last couple months here in Las Vegas, I’ve been thinking about the purpose of and need for ethnic studies.
Although I cannot claim to fully understand it, nor do I consider myself adequately immersed in it, I do know that Las Vegas is a very interesting/unique community. While there are always “new people moving in” wherever you live, Las Vegas is that concept and multiplied tenfold. Because of the state of the economy and the low cost of living here, I would venture to say that at least half of the folks that live here did not originate here. Between 1990 and 2000, the population here has almost doubled. While population growth has slowed, in 2010 Las Vegas saw and average of 2,501 new residents per month. Most of the parents in my classroom have come from out of state - ranging from Ohio to Mexico.
The one person I’ve met here that grew up here can remember a time when most of the housing developments did not exist - there was simply land, dirt, basically the desert. A lot of the change here has been rapid, recent, and in the words of my roommate, “quick and dirty.” Take for example, the housing developments, there are more homes right now than people willing and able to occupy them. Where was the foresight? She’s the one person who has been able to tell me anything about the history of Las Vegas. One of the parents in my classroom said, “I just feel lost here, like there’s no sense of community.” And elections? I feel like that’s the shortest line to vote I have ever been in.
So I bring this up because as I was thinking about ethnic studies, I started thinking about the purpose of education in general and what the curriculum looks like. There’s been a lot of talk about the need for education reform. (I also just recently watched “Waiting for Superman.”). There’s talk about how we are so behind in math in science, how there are jobs in the technology industry but we haven’t been preparing our citizens to work in those jobs - basically how we need our children to be educated so that they can be leaders in the community and in the world at large. Yet, as I reflect upon my own education and my conversations with people throughout my life, and especially here in Vegas, how many of us know the history of our own cities? I remember having to learn about the history of California in fourth grade, which was also the first/only time in my K-12 education in which Filipinos were even mentioned and it was for a paragraph. If we’re trying to prepare our folks to be leaders in the community/country/world, shouldn’t they learn about it?
For UCLA, wouldn’t it just make sense to have a history of LA course (at least one) by part of the general ed requirements (and I mean full on history, let’s study how the populations have changed, race relations, immigration, ALL of it, including UCLA’s history). Doesn’t that just seem practical? And I mean, while it’s great that we studied California in fourth grade, wouldn’t it make sense to study all these things in high school. I feel like courses like US Government and Economics would have more relevance/make more sense if during senior year we had to apply these concepts to what happened/what’s going on in the city in which we live. Heck, every thing would have more relevance (engineering, architecture, etc.) if part of our education involved applying these concepts to where we live. And while, I realize that this praxis is what I should be doing, and am trying to do, in my life now, if one of the purposes of education is to prepare future community/national/world leaders, heck..citizens, why aren’t we learning about these things in school? Am I asking a stupid question here? Someone please enlighten me.
