Well done kid.
Edit: also, well done district, music teacher, and superintendent. See, folks; there are valid responses other than “because reasons!”
“There is but one secret to success: never give up.”
― Ben Nighthorse Campbell
A Wonderful Thing.
However, Alex has a lot of additional work ahead of him…
» Lying to Children About the California Missions and the Indians Zinn Education Project
Wait a minute; addressing the problem that night, bringing it up at the meeting the next day, then a face-to-face apology and guarantee that the change is permanent?
That’s not how bureaucrats are supposed to work, listening to complaints and making decisions without taking it under advisement for an extended period of time, then just changing the curriculum without dragging their feet. That just makes everyone else in the system look bad.
Next thing you know, his Social Studies teacher will be giving him extra credit for applying what he learned in class.
“MEN OF FAITH, THE GOOD NEWS PREACHING/ PRAYING, TEACHING, SEARCHING, REACHING/ OUT TO THE RED MAN’S SOUL/ OH, WHAT A NOBLE GOAL.”
AND “COME LITTLE INDIAN DANCE WITH ME.”
Holy shit, this was a public school?
That’s in 2015. Imagine the program before we became so enlightened. I remember being taught about the good great works of the CA mission as if the native Californians were thrilled to be killed off with diseases and famine as they’d discovered Jesus. Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District.
It must be a regional thing, sanity, because on the east coast, a protest mob would have shown up to defend their Christian heritage.
Don’t look so surprised.
I’m having difficulty finding the complete lyrics to the song.
This article on the Missions is from 1978. It cites sources from the 18th century reporting on ill-treatment and abuse.
Yet the excerpts from the song seem to reflect willful blindness to the historical record. Yes, the missions were important. It would be difficult to understand California history without them.
But “MEN OF FAITH, THE GOOD NEWS PREACHING/ PRAYING, TEACHING, SEARCHING, REACHING/ OUT TO THE RED MAN’S SOUL/ OH, WHAT A NOBLE GOAL” sounds like things to be unlearned and deconstructed, rather than educational goals.
Maybe the song teaches the names of the missions-- a useful tidbit of knowledge to have when reading historical narratives of California. But it sounds like it’s from 1930, not from 2015.
Same here, 4th grade, 1974 - Union School District, San Jose.
Apologies are oh so cheap to perform in the face of the illegal colonization and multi staged Ireland-accidental genocide.
Nearly all treaties, documents with force of law just below the constitution, are in obvious breach not unlike the Asian unequal treaties were; meaning that even the legally the insanely good deal provided to the illegal settlers has been throw out and the territory reverts to indigenous ownership.
People will cry that it is racist to demand that settlers find a way to appease in a court of law the legal owners of the land.
Manifest destiny has no legal weight, and at this point only rifles, tanks, and ICBMs provide any place for the US government to hide from native claims to the land.
Shit. I never realised that the Buffy episode where a Chumash vengeance spirit kills (amongst others) the priest at the local mission was so controversially political.
Wasn’t Buffy known for being very forward on social issues?
Oh absolutely, especially on lesbian & gay matters. But I thought the theme of this episode (“Pangs”, fourth season) was simply “killing the Native Americans and taking their land was wrong” – reasonable enough, but hardly original; until I read this post, I didn’t realise it was subverting a particular Californian myth.
Nice work, kid. It would be interesting to see what sort of reaction he received from his school friends, both from within first nations and otherwise. As our kids grow up I continue to believe that they are well ahead of where I was at that age in terms of understanding and good, ethical and moral positions on issues such as this. I’d like to think they’d stand with this kid in support. I’m not sure my reaction as a 12 year-old would have been as admirable. It gives me hope.
Before we west-coasters get too smug, it’s worth noting that all the activism (reported, at least) came from within first nations groups. We’ll really be getting somewhere when everyone else realises what is wrong with things like this song, and takes action accordingly.
How presumptuous.
Whoa that is a way worse song than the one I thought it was - there’s one that’s basically just the names of the missions set to music. Which I can still imagine him not wanting to sing.
