Tucson Unified School District Not So UNIFIED: Ban Rethinking Columbus

Levi Rickert, editor-in-chief in Native Challenges. Discussion »

Will wake people up?

TUCSON - Last Tuesday the governing board of the Tucson Unified School District voted by a vote of four to one to do away with ethnic studies programs, which dismantles immediately the Mexican American Studies.

Subsequently, the vote banned the award-winning "Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years" book from being taught in the Tucson school system.

The vote, reportedly part of a state mandate that forbids ethnic study programs.

"Rethinking Columbus" was first published in 1991 and revised in 1998. The book was originally published just prior to the 500th observance of Christopher Columbus coming to America. "Rethinking Columbus" contains an essay by award-winning Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko (who lives in Tucson), and works by Buffy Sainte Marie, Winona LaDuke, Leonard Peltier and Rigoberta Menchu.

"Hopefully this action will wake people up so that they realize the suppression of critical thought should not take place. Teachers should be able to have students to think critically about the world - especially about the lives of those who are marginalized,"

Bigelow told the Native News Network on Monday afternoon.

For the record, "Rethinking Columbus is Rethinking Schools' top-selling book, having sold well over 300,000 copies. And over the years many school districts have not banned, but have purchased "Rethinking Columbus" for use with students, writes Bill Bigelow, editor of curriculum of the Rethinking Schools and co-editor with Bob Peterson of "Rethinking Columbus."

These include: Portland, Oregon, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, Ontario, Atlanta, New York City, Anchorage, Alaska, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Chicago, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Oakland, San Diego, Portland, Maine, Washington DC, Cincinnati; Rochester, NY, Cambridge, Mass., Missoula, Montana, and the state of Maryland, as well as smaller towns like Stillwater, Minnesota; Athens, Ohio; Eugene, Oregon; and Estes, Colorado…,"

continued Bigelow on the Rethinking Schools blog.

posted January 16, 2011 4:50 pm est