(NAME-MCE) Mississippi schools to roll out civil rights curriculum

Sat Aug 22 09:14:58 CDT 2009

Fantastic!
I would like to review a copy of this curriculum.

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 01:06 PM, Anselmo Villanueva
<anselmo.villanueva at gmail.com> wrote:

> Mississippi schools to roll out civil rights curriculum
>
>Mississippi education officials have announced a plan to test a civil rights
>curriculum in K-12 instruction and make the instruction mandatory in the
>future. Four school systems have requested to participate in a pilot
>program, and the state Department of Education will name the selected
>schools in September. Mississippi, the setting for many pivotal events of
>the civil rights movement, may be the first state to offer specific
>instruction on the topic.
>
>http://wjz.com/wireapnewsmd/From.kindergarten.to.2.1137108.html
>
>
>
>Aug 20, 2009 2:53 pm US/Eastern
>Miss. Making Civil Rights Part Of K-12 Instruction
>
>*SHELIA BYRD, Associated Press Writer*
>JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- In Mississippi, where mention of the civil
>rights
>movement evokes images of bombings, beatings and the Ku Klux Klan, public
>schools are preparing to test a program that will ultimately teach students
>about the subject in every grade from kindergarten through high school.
>
>Many experts believe the effort will make Mississippi the first state to
>mandate civil rights instruction for all k-12 students.
>
>So far, four school systems have asked to be part of a pilot effort to test
>the curriculum in high schools. In September, the Mississippi Department of
>Education will name the systems that have been approved for the pilot. By
>the 2010-2011 school year, the program should be in place at all grade
>levels as part of social studies courses.
>
>Advocacy groups such as the William Winter Institute for Racial
>Reconciliation and Washington-based Teaching for Change are preparing to
>train Mississippi teachers to tell the "untold story" of the civil
>rights
>struggle to the nearly half million students in the state's public schools.
>
>"Now more than ever we are engaged in national debates about race and so
>much of those debates are impoverished in their understanding of history,"
>said Susan Glissen of the Winter Institute. "We want to emphasize the
>grass-roots nature of civil rights and the institution of racism."
>
>The program is the outgrowth of a law passed in 2006 by the Legislature. The
>state moves forward with statewide implementation in the 2010-2011 school
>year, despite an unsuccessful legislative effort to eliminate the plan this
>year.
>
>Education officials looked to other states for a model, but couldn't find
>one that included anything as comprehensive as what Mississippi has in mind,
>said Chauncey Spears, who works in the curriculum and instruction office of
>Mississippi's education agency.
>
>The Education Commission of the States didn't know of any other state with a
>such a program, although it does not specifically track social studies
>curriculum.
>
>Some states, including Alabama, Georgia and Arkansas, have placed an
>emphasis on civil rights instruction. New Jersey created an Amistad
>Commission to ensure the history of slavery is taught in schools.
>Pennsylvania's Philadelphia school district requires students to complete an
>African-American history course before graduation.
>
>"We're behind time. Students don't know about what blacks did. They're not
>taught anything about culture, about our history," said Ollye Shirley, a
>member of the commission created to research the Mississippi curriculum and
>a former Jackson Public School board member.
>
>History classes will be the proving ground this fall, and the state Board of
>Education is expected to approve expansion of the curriculum to other grade
>levels in spring 2010, said Spears.
>
>Deborah Menkart, executive director of Teaching for Change, said it's
>important to help students understand that Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther
>King Jr. weren't the only important figures in the civil rights movement.
>
>"The traditional version would be that it started in 1954, thereby leaving
>out the fact that a lot of groundwork had to be done before that," Menkart
>said. "The other part that gets left out is the struggle for economic
>justice, like Martin Luther King's support of the sanitation workers in
>Memphis."
>
>Menkart said classrooms activities can include role-playing in which
>students act out civil rights protests such as the Montgomery bus boycott,
>improving their critical thinking and social interaction.
>
>Those are the types of lessons being taught in Vickie Malone's "Local
>Cultures" class in the McComb School District, which began civil rights
>studies before the law was passed. The state's curricula will be modeled, in
>part, after the district.
>
>Classroom assignments for Malone's students, who sit around tables rather
>than desks, include interviewing local activists, questioning their
>relatives about their role in the fight for integration, or studying the
>plight of migrant workers. The students are reading "Mississippi Trial,
>1955," a fictionalized account of the murder of Emmett Till, a Chicago
>youth
>who was mutilated in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman.
>
>Kindergartners in McComb are introduced to the subject through lessons on
>diversity, discussing differences such as hair texture and skin tone, Malone
>said.
>
>"It helps kids understand that however you are that's a great way to
>be,"
>Malone said.
>
>Spears said the curriculum changes don't require new textbooks and teachers
>will be allowed to develop their own lesson plans. There will be added
>achievement goals for students. For instance, high school students should be
>able to evaluate the impact of the civil rights movement in expanding
>democracy in the U.S.
>
>Spears said teachers can also call upon people in their community who lived
>through these historic events.
>
>"There are people in local communities who can give great insight into the
>civil rights movement. There are various things that teachers can do to
>incorporate this into their classrooms."
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