Komrade Zarkof wrote:Speaker Nancy,
Who will be the first to receive this symbol of your appreciation for service to you and The Children™? What need a comrade do to warrant receiving The Order of Nancy? Will Barack Hussein Obama be one of the first to be so honored?

Commissarka Pinkie wrote: Someone else must've mistaken them for "treats."

Commissarka Pinkie wrote:Oh, crud. I put those in the dish next to the basin. I thought they were "guest soaps."

And now they're gone. Someone else must've mistaken them for "treats." Or had really, really dirty hands.

I have commissioned my own order to be awarded to those who serve me day and night in my struggle to help the Children™ free themselves from the oppressive shackles of work, personal responsibility and family values (yuck!).

Mexican American/Raza Studies


Augustine Romero
Director
(520) 225-6229
[email protected]

Hispanic Heritage Month
TUSD and Mexican American/Raza Studies celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month! We've collected a wealth of Internet resources that illustrate our rich cultural tradition. For more information, see Hispanic Heritage Month Resources.

Our Vision
The Mexican American/Raza Studies Department is dedicated to the empowerment and strengthening of our community of learners.

Students will attain an understanding and appreciation of historic and contemporary Mexican American contributions.

Students will be prepared for dynamic, confident leadership in the 21st Century.

Our Goals
The department is firmly committed to the following with an academic focus:

Advocating for and providing culturally relevant curriculum for grades K-12.
Advocating for and providing curriculum that is centered within the pursuit of social justice.
Advocating for and providing curriculum that is centered within the Mexican American/Chicano cultural and historical experience.
Working towards the invoking of a critical consciousness within each and every student.
Providing and promoting teacher education that is centered within Critical Pedagogy, Latino Critical Race Pedagogy, and Authentic Caring.
Promoting and advocating for social and educational transformation.
Promoting and advocating for the demonstration of respect, understanding, appreciation, inclusion, and love at every level of service.

Adelante Conference
February 2, 2008
Rincon High School


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9th Annual Mexican American/Raza Studies K-12 Summer Institute

This four-day conference will provide Chicana/o studies-based lessons and units to implement at all grade levels. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in discussion with leading scholars in the areas of Chicana/o studies, multicultural education, ethnic studies, critical pedagogy, and critical race theory. In-district employees will earn 30 hours of salary increment credit.

Dates: Monday, July 23-Thursday, July 26, 2007
Cost: $85 (TUSD certified & classified employees)
$150 (non-TUSD, package A)
$120 (non-TUSD, package B)
Click here for more information NEW
Registration Form: Word | PDF

Contact Us
Mexican American/Raza Studies
1010 E. Tenth St.
Tucson, AZ 85719
(520) 225-6229

[email protected]

'Revolution' one of the R's taught in Tucson<br>http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... n0217.html

Augustine Romero, director of Tucson Unified School District's ethnic-studies department, is nothing if not candid about his program.

Traditional history and civics courses, Romero argues, have "been highly ineffective to children of color." He has a better way.<BOXAD>

That better way, as presented to students in Romero's increasingly influential program, is, effectively, revolution. Or, if that "R-word" strikes you as too edgy, resistance - a resistance against history and civics as traditionally taught, which Romero considers the product of "ultraconservatives."

"With the ultraconservative orientation, people want to believe that if you offer a naive, simplistic, color-blind orientation, that's the only truth.

"We transcend indoctrination because we offer multiple perspectives. It's a higher level of thinking."

If Romero's words sound politically anchored, they should. Romero happily acknowledges that he and all his instructors are "progressives," and he is contemptuous of teachers who resist admitting that all history instruction is political.

"Our teachers are left-leaning. They are progressives. They're going to have things (in their courses) that conservatives are not going to like," he told me.

"Their concern is that it's not their political orientation. To sit here and say teachers don't walk into the classroom with a political orientation, that's the furthest (thing) from the truth."

Romero is a confident man. Not unlike that self-assured aide-de-camp of Fidel Castro, Ché Guevara, whose romantic portrait has been hung in Romero's ethnic-studies classrooms.

Ché, too, believed the world was divided between progressives and ultraconservative reactionaries, many of whom he imprisoned and shot.

In one of Romero's TUSD classrooms, in fact, a video posted for a time on the Internet Web site YouTube showed at least four separate posters of the beret-capped Ché decorating the classroom walls. And a poster of Pancho Villa. And, yes, one poster of the godfather of the revolution himself, Fidel.

Romero's confidence about his program and its future at TUSD is justified. It is growing rapidly.

The $2.6 million "ethnic studies" program in the Tucson school district is an umbrella program for four separate departments: "raza" (Hispanic) studies, African-American studies, Pan-Asian studies and Native American studies. Raza studies are by far the largest.

At Tucson High School, the department offers 12 separate literature and history courses. Districtwide, it offers 25 course sections in four high schools, all at junior and senior levels. According to Romero, TUSD may offer an "intercultural proficiencies" course next fall to freshmen. And, he adds, it may be a required course.

Romero's program has raised some eyebrows. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, who had a devil of a time even learning about the program's curriculum, has seen the program's texts (at last). He concludes they are steeped in leftist ideology and race-based resentment.

But the real horrors of Romero's program are closer to home.

In the past several weeks, messages have filtered out from teachers and other TUSD employees (some directed to Horne; others who have contacted me, following two previous columns on this subject) about what an officially recognized resentment-based program does to a high school.

In a word, it creates fear.

Teachers and counselors are being called before their school principals and even the district school board and accused of being racists. And with a cadre of self-acknowledged "progressive" political activists in the ethnic-studies department on the hunt, the race transgressors are multiplying.

One school counselor, who wrote to Horne, described an entire counseling department being decried as a racist after one of Romero's activists saw an "innocuous notation" on a draft paper drawn up from a department brain-storming session.

The ethnic-studies teacher "grossly misinterpreted" the notation to have racist meaning, the counselor said. The teacher wrote a letter to the parents of his students "telling them the school's counselors are racist" and encouraged his students to sign the letter.

"I can tell you that the weeks that followed were difficult ones for the counselors," the TUSD school counselor wrote.

"There were many tears. Most of us lost sleep. All of us experienced heightened levels of anxiety. Through no fault of our own, we were being perceived differently by our students and their parents."

Ethnic-studies director Romero points to the confidence his program instills in its students. And, allegedly, the better grades they get, once imbued with his program's "multiple perspectives."

But to every revolution - or, if you must, every resistance to oppressors - there is a dark side. There are victims.

Ché would understand.

Nancy wrote:That video is wonderful, Most Merciful and Benevolent Kim Jong-Il. It really goes to show that the Children are adapting to Socialism even without Universal Pre-K – although Universal Pre-K is still very, very much on the agenda.

Commissar Pupovich wrote: Do you know how embarrassing it is to be the only one without any jewelry to wear?

The Gluttonous Comrade Betinov wrote:...fresh Ciabatta, tossed some shrimp with garlic, etc., etc...