Ethnic Studies Forum filled with heavy hitters

by David Safier

Last night's Ethnic Studies forum was not intended to present both sides. It featured a lineup of speakers who explained the philosopy behind the Mexican American Studies program, what it teaches and why it's valuable to the students — also why it doesn't violate the state law designed to bring it down.

It was quite a lineup. Three PhDs — Augustine Romero, TUSD Director of Student Equity, Nolan Cabrera, a statistician who is in the UA College of Ed, and Andrea Romero, a social psychologist at UA. Then there was Sean Arce, MAS Director, Maria Federico Brummer, an MAS teacher, and a student, Asia Amir (I hope I spelled that right).

About that student. Ms. Amir is Pakistani-American. It might surprise people who complain that MAS teaches "ethnic solidarity" (as if having an understanding of and pride in your ethnicity is a bad thing!) that this non-Hispanic student is well accepted by teachers and classmates, is a member of the student group UNIDOS and was among those who chained themselves to the Board members' chairs and delayed the vote on Board President Mark Stegeman's resolution to make the MAS social studies courses into electives rather than core classes.

And can this young woman talk! Ms. Amir commented at the beginning of her presentation that she never imagined she would be speaking to a room full of adults, but there she was, because of her activism which was a result of her involvement in MAS. I thought, "How many of these students 'never thought' they would be having the life-altering experiences they've had by becoming involved in this program?" I've seen other MAS students speak publicly, and their poise and forthrightness made this retired high school teacher go weak in the knees and moist in the eyes. Many of them have attended multiple School Board meetings. Some have gone to the state legislature. Lots of them possess a reasonably intimate understanding of how their school district and the state legislature work. For the rest of their lives, whenever someone talks about government in action, they're going to have a personal understanding of what goes on behind the scenes which will surpass anything I learned in my high school Civics course — or in college, for that matter. To me, that's education, combining classroom learning with real life experience and giving students a sense that they belong at a School Board meeting or talking in front of a room filled with strange adults — and maybe they even belong in college and in professional careers, because the adult world is less of a distant, frightening mystery to them than it is to many of their fellow students, especially those who have been told by society they won't amount to much.

[Notice, by the way, how I sped past all the PhDs and focused on the student? That's the teacher coming out. For me, that poised, competent young woman is where the rubber meets the road. All those high school and college instructors with their fancy credentials don't impress me with all their talk and erudition unless there is a payoff like these students I have seen.]

In the audience were at least two TUSD Board members who had planned to vote for the resolution to turn some MAS courses into electives — Mark Stegeman and Miguel Cuevas. (Stegeman, to his credit, tries to make it to events like these.) Both of them can say, with justification, that the forum gave a one-sided view of MAS without giving equal time to its detractors. True enough. But they cannot help but come away impressed by the quality of the people who are directly and indirectly involved with Ethnic Studies. These aren't a bunch of slouches who have thrown together a ragtag curriculum. Far from it. Agree or disagree with the MAS approach, you have to respect that this has been a conscious, well thought out effort to give students something they can benefit from personally and academically. In my estimation, they have succeeded admirably.