Precious Knowledge: Book Banning, Censorship, and Ethnic Studies in Urban Schools

• In Event: Roundtable Session 23
  In Roundtable Session: Reel Education: Exploring Issues of Learning, Teaching, and Schooling in and Through Film

Abstract

Precious Knowledge (2011) is a documentary that showcases the transformative impact of the Mexican American Studies (MAS) Program in the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD), and the struggle to the save the program from ending due to legislative order HB2281. Precious Knowledge portrays the plight and struggle dimensions of Mexican Americans for educational equality in the United States by contextualizing the historical and social conditions that led to the creation and establishment of the MAS program in TUSD. Contrary to most education-focused films about urban Youth of Color, rather than portraying the teachers in MAS as saviors, the documentary examines the purposes and processes of their teaching philosophy and pedagogy based on Mesoamerican knowledge systems. Using also Paulo Freire’s notion of praxis, action and reflection, the documentary illustrates how the Latina/o students and teachers constantly reflected and acted in communion to transform their realities and struggle to maintain the MAS program. In our essay we argue that this film can help students 1) to appreciate how sociocultural knowledge influences learning and 2) to hone their critical lenses. As we demonstrate, a critical perspective is crucial for foregrounding the power of white supremacist discourse in legislating the kinds of educational policy that led to the demise of MAS in TUSD.

We contend that Precious Knowledge can be an instructional tool for helping students contextualize and observe a transformative and effective teaching and learning pedagogy at work. We have found that, after reading Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968/2000), students often wonder how Critical Pedagogy, and approaches such as Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Funds of Knowledge, look in practice. Precious Knowledge not only shows how these teaching and learning approaches come together in Ethnic Studies knowledge and practice, but also documents the transformative effects it has in the lives of students, teachers, and the overall Latina/o community. Throughout the documentary, students and teachers reflect on how social, cultural, economic, and political conditions influence their identities, their communities, and their schooling experiences, thereby providing for a base for better understanding how and why sociocultural contexts of schooling matter. Finally, the portrayal of the white supremacist discourse’ calls to defend “American values” and “traditional education” by legislating the legal demise of Ethnic Studies and eventually the banning of books, the limiting of academic freedom, and ultimately teacher censorship, is fundamentally important to future educators.

This potent portrayal of the legislative attack on MAS underscores that teaching and learning in schools is indeed not neutral, and is influenced by education policy that is often disconnected and unconcerned with students’, families’, and communities’ cultural and social needs. Precious Knowledge, presented in the context of the plight and struggle of Mexican Americans for educational equality, along with transformative pedagogical approaches, provides the opportunity to center the discussion of teaching and learning on wider sociocultural contexts of education, and the purposes and processes of teaching practice for diverse learners.

Authors

• Jose Garcia, University of Texas - Austin

• Luis Urrieta, The University of Texas - Austin