Weblog 3

"We Have a Story to Tell" vs. "History Is a Weapon"

In comparison of “We Have a Story to Tell” from theNational History of the American Indian to “History Is a Weapon” by Howard Zinn, the notions of ideology, sentiment and historiography play completely different roles. Although both of these articles are dealing with the same time period they are completely different in the content they imply. “We Have a Story to Tell” states the facts point blank about what happened. Its not that Zinn does not do the same thing, he just adds in more gruesome facts and examples to paint a better picture for his audience of what life was like for the Indians.
I think that Zinn explains ideology and historiography perfectly when he compares it to a map maker. When a cartographer is making a map there are a lot of area’s left out or slightly strewn. This is due to the fact that the world is round and it has to be put onto a flat piece of paper. When is historian is writing about what has happened in history, the same thing happens. There is no way that we can know all of the facts about what has happened, so many things are either left out or the truth is stretched.
It is not that either one of these articles are wrong. They are just telling the story from different perspectives so inevitably each article will have varying facts and examples. I think that each of these articles have great facts and are very truthful. Depending on what I was trying to teach to my students would be the determinant of which article I used.

Weblog 2

Deculturalization and the Struggle for Equality: Chapter 2
Dear Kristina,
Greetings future educator and role model. You already know that many of your future students will look up to you and the decisions that you make in your classroom. I would like to share with you my history and the way many have looked up and respected me in the decisions I have made toward the educational future of our country. The only way for the republic to survive was for the United States to be a homogenous “white” society, and for this reason Native Americans were not granted the right for an education at first. I believed that it would be wise choice for the Natives to be educated so they could become more “American.” As time went on societies views began to change. If the Native Americans were educated then we could cultivate them into the cultural beings they wanted them to be. United States citizenship was finally given to the Native Americans in 1924 by the Citizenship Act. I was the first to begin the process of educating the Natives and became head of the Office of Indian Affairs. I was able to get the United States to believe that if they educated the Natives they could culturally mold them into the way we wanted and it worked. This was they key to humanizing them. We were granted $10,000 by the president to be used for this schooling. The picture I included is a product of a group of Cherokee Indians that have successfully been culturized to the American standards. So my advice to you as an educator is, if you believe strongly in something set your mind to it and things are always possible.

Sincerely,
Thomas McKenny

Weblog 1

Solidarity, courage, and Heart: What teacher educators can learn from a new generation of teachers.
By and large I strongly agree with most of what Sonia Nieto has researched in this article and many of the things she talked about I had never even thought of before to be honest. I had realized that there were a lot of segregation and diversity was growing in many schools but I did not know that it was growing to this degree. Even smaller rural schools are facing this new element in schools and many do not know how to react.
I came from a small middle class farming area in Ohio. I went to school with on African American student. Since I have graduated there have been many new housing developments and the area has grown numerously, bringing in much more diversity. Just like Nieto has explained, the diversity is eventually going to be just as much part of smaller towns and rural areas as inner city schools. Also just like she explained, many people are not going to know how to react, not because they are prejudice, but because we have not grown up around it and are not used to it.
I agree that teachers need to be trained and be comfortable working with many different students in many different socio-economic backgrounds to better prepare themselves for the future and their career of teaching.


Class Goals
- To be able to work with many different types students with different ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds and at the same time be comfortable doing it.
- Learn how to incorporate these different backgrounds into my teaching and lessons.
- Learn not only about these ethnicities but from them to better prepare myself for the future.