Posted on 06/09/2005 1:59:34 PM PDT by americaprd
Three decades after students demanding African-American studies in city schools clashed with police, the district will require all high schoolers to take a full-year course on the subject.
Philadelphia, whose public schools are two-thirds black, may be the first U.S. school district to require the class.
"I think it's a promise that we are many, many years late in filling," said Cecilia Cannon, an assistant superintendent for curriculum. "We have the opportunity ... to do something under our watch that is really going to do right by our students. To say, 'We've come from some pretty great places.'"
The course in African and African-American studies, now offered as an elective at 11 of the city's 54 high schools, has captivated students who have taken it, teachers say.
At nearly all-black Strawberry Mansion High School, a top student in the African-American studies class was chosen as the subject of a $360 genetic test designed to help blacks trace their roots back to Africa. James Sullivan, a senior, learned the bittersweet news that his maternal family descends from the Ibo tribe in Nigeria, and that they came to the U.S. as slaves.
"There were tears in his eyes, but joy also," said Principal Lois Powell Mondesire, who said other students are now interested in genetic testing.
National education groups said they did not know of other districts that require black studies, now a high-profile academic field on college campuses such as Harvard and Cornell.
But urban school leaders will no doubt be watching the Philadelphia experiment. School districts in California, Massachusetts and elsewhere have called to ask for details, Philadelphia officials said.
"School districts all across the country try all kinds of different things to engage the kids and improve student performance," said Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, which represents 65 large urban school districts. "So this will be of interest, but it won't necessarily create a stampede in this direction."
Philadelphia students must take three other social studies courses to meet state requirements and five electives to graduate. The new class, designed for 10th graders, will be mandatory and reduce the number of electives to four.
"I think if we have to take African-American history as a mandatory class, that we should have it open to other cultures: Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans," said Briggitte Rodriguez, 14, a freshman at Philadelphia High School for Girls, which is 62 percent black. "It's a big world. You have to think about everyone else, too."
Some schoolmates disagree.
"They usually just focus on African-American history in February, and it should be all year-round," said Victoria Pertell, who is black.
The push for African-American studies in the city dates back to at least November 1967, when a few hundred students demonstrating outside a school board meeting clashed with police. Under the direction of then-Police Commissioner Frank L. Rizzo, officers clubbed some of the singing students after a few climbed atop cars.
The district's 210,000 students are about 67 percent black, 14 percent Latino, 14 percent white and 5 percent Asian. Three years after a state takeover that brought reform-minded schools chief Paul Vallas from Chicago, test scores are up and new buildings are planned to replace crumbling schools, although violence continues to erupt.
School leaders hope the course will not only keep black students interested in their academic work, but also give other students a more accurate view of history.
"It has an impact on our African-American children, but it also affects children from other cultures. Their perception is often skewed," said Sandra Dungee Glenn, a member of the five-person School Reform Commission that unanimously approved of the requirement this spring.
With a better understanding of each other and history, students will have the "opportunity for better understanding in schools and in the community."
There used to be a consensus on what was important in American history. Unfortunately, no such consensus exists today. I have no faith in a curriculum proposed by liberals and leftists.
Typical liberal thinking: to reach racial harmony, we must take every opportunity to point out differences between the races and put down one of them (guess which one).
I remember taking my Daddy's Ecyclopedia Britannica and just reading it. I was surprised how many famous men were from Scotland. A lot of them not famous enough that you would have heard of them but famous because of what they accomplished.
To clarify: the Scots have had a tremendous historical impact. Scottish history arguably has not. The Wars of the Roses and the internecine warfare of the Italian city-states had a widespread impact on European history, but a great many Kings of Scots came and went without ever influencing much outside Scotland.
If Scotland produced Scots who had a tremendous impact on the world then the country by definition had a tremendous impact on the world.
You misunderstand the distinction I draw between the Scots and the history of Scotland. Neil Armstrong had an important impact on world affairs, but that doesn't mean that Wapakoneta, Ohio did.
I doubt if many people know of Einstein"s parents, but they definitely had an impact on the world.
Just because it is indirect does not make it not so.
The people Scotland produced are as much a part of her history as the wars she fought.
As an aside I remember when they were making lists of the 100 greatest people in history. I thought that no one would say "Sir Alexander Fleming" yet his discovery of penicillin lead indirectly to saving more lives than probably any thing in history. Before 1900 over 90% of people died of infectious disease. After 1950 the number had fallen to less than 10%.
That is a tremendous impact on world history.
That was a nice post.
And by reductio ad absurdum, some aboriginal Pictish ancestor of the Scots was the most important of them all. This approach, however, does not assist our understanding of history.
As an aside I remember when they were making lists of the 100 greatest people in history. I thought that no one would say "Sir Alexander Fleming" yet his discovery of penicillin lead indirectly to saving more lives than probably any thing in history.
Then why not, by your logic, cite Fleming's crucial parents?
In other words you don't have to go back very far before one of your ancestors can claim only 1/128th credit for you.
Same goes for countries. Scotland may not be able to claim full credit for Alexander Graham Bell but they can for Alexander Fleming.
As for whatever town that was for the first man on the Moon, I would bet if you went there and asked what that little town had ever contributed to world history, someone would say "Have you never heard the first man on the moon?.
Someone just told me Bell was in fact born in Scotland.
It will be another milestone in the victimology curriculum.
Sounds great.
Not so. No. 3 will be: Cushy high-paying racial preference job at any number of large corporations or government agencies. The "You want fries with that" jobs, if they even get those, will go to those who fail to complete steps 1 and 2. And to think that there are some who actually believe that America isn't a land of opportunity!
Booker T. and the MG's?
I would, too. I'm old enough so that my History education concentrated on important civilizations (Greeks, Romans, etc), important eras (Dark Ages, Renaissance, etc.), and the now discredited Western "white guys" (like George Washington, Ben Franklin, etc.)
There were dark skinned people in the lessons (esp. in this country - Douglas, Booker T., G. W. Carver, etc.)
It might be my age and education, but I don't know of an era or civilization where world history was changed by a group united only by their skin color.
As I recall, the Ibo were the folks who tried to break free of Nigeria in the 1970s and form their own nation of Biafra. The predominantly Muslim Nigerian army crushed the attempt with horrific slaughter inflicted upon the Animist and Christian Ibo.
SHHHH...you're telling the truth...it'll never fly in "Social Studies" class...
It's probably a very easy class. Such classes usually are in college.
....I would love to see the curriculum."......
"Now, class, before we do the higher math studies on the amount of reparations each of us are due; we'll spend the next month de-constructing the poetry of Maya Angelou"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.