NLA Discussion: EFF & the underside of history

[Loren McGrail]

[Cross-posted from NIFL-ESL]

Dear colleagues and friends,

I would like to thank people for their responses to my posting about 
civic education or civic participation. I have heard from a few of you 
both on and off the list. There seems to be agreement that the 
citizenship/community role map should be used from EFF.The sourcebook 
from World Education will be a useful resource also.

Martha has picked out another thread in my post which I would like to  
comment on question, and expand and that is the thread of  "whose 
history?" She calls it "the underside of history" as in the the 
unofficial story,the history we are not told about or that is not 
highlighted in our children's textsbooks,the history of the people not 
just the history of white mean and major events.Howard Zinn's book A 
People's History of the US is a wonderful resource. And now there is a 
revised edition. My daughter and I are actually using it right now to 
gather information about US involvement in Central America for a 
history report she has to do for school. Her history book doesn't talk 
about how US military aid was or has been used to support military 
dictatorships or how we have trained and continue to train soldiers 
from Latin America to assassinate,torture,and maim civilians at the 
School of the Americas (SOAs). We had to go to other sources---a Latin 
American history professor at UNC Chapel Hill, a former soldier 
stationed at the emmbassy, and her own step father who left EL 
Salvador after Oscar Romero was murdered and he feared for his own 
holy life. 

>From the facts she has gathered and the stories she has heard,she has 
pleaded with me to be allowed to go to the Vigil this weekend at the 
SOA to close it down. She understands why people with conscience like 
Pastors for Peace want to close this source of human rights abuse. She 
knows her history from both sides now and wants to voice her concern 
along with thousands of others including the Pastors in our community.

As a child of the 60s and 70s, I am proud of her conviction but it is 
difficult to sit there night after night trying to explain how and why 
our democractic governement supports such activities and it is 
difficult for Luis to have to keep reliving the nightmare and face the 
extraordinary contradiction of finding asslym and amnesty in the same 
country that supported such flagrant abuse.

So what's the point of this long story? What does my daughter's 
history report and now desire to "take action" at the ripe age of 13 
have to do with teaching the "underside of history?" and what does one 
political refugee's exile and now nightly nightmares have to do with 
teaching what really happened? How does it work when you have lived 
the experience like Luis or the thousands of Southeast Asian refugees 
who have resettled here in this country?

I ask these questions seriously and earnestly because to tell the 
underside or the otherside requires both knowledge and skills on our 
part as educators.We have to come to terms with the sometimes bloody 
contradictions.Books like Zinn's History or Dangerous Memories: 
Invasion and Resistiatnce since 1942 do give you another perspective. 
An easier to read format or simplified language would help get the 
message out but there is still the message or the historical facts 
that are unsettling at best. 

I am interested in hearing other people's perspectives about this 
teaching of the underside and how it connects or doesn't to EFF. I am 
interested in discussing with people the best way to go down this 
road.I think we need each other's advice, recommendations and support.      

Loren McGrail  
-- 
Loren McGrail
Executive Director, Literary South
lmcgrail at mindspring.com
www.literacysouth.org