Re: REPLY: Nov and Native Americans

["Aleene B. Nielson" <ablanca@BIGPLANET.COM>]

> Susan Grigsby wrote:
>
>> Didn't someone suggest to the list that January be National Native =
>> American History Month? It seems like "first people, first month" works =
>> well and would open many doors to studying the current status of Native =
>> Americans rather than strictly focusing on the past.
>

I think the point that Brian was making is that perhaps we shouldn't focus on a
particular group for a month and then ignore them for the rest of the school
year.  Do you have an English-American month, German-American month, an
Egyptian-American month, or a Danish-American month?  Of course not!

We tend to focus our "months" on groups of people that have been identified as
"disadvantaged" in some way.  Thus, the result is reinforcing stereotypes
rather than respecting differences and celebrating our similarities as human
beings.

Perhaps if we used broad themes such as justice, ecology, systems, connections,
patterns, relationships, etc., we could celebrate every child every month and
help them to learn about important concepts and generalizations at the same
time.

Aleene Nielson
Retired L-M Coordinator, Teacher, Prof
LearningOpportunitiesUnlimited
Tucson, AZ
ablanca@bigplanet.com

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