Essay On Precious Knowledge

The movie “PRECIOUS KNOWLEDGE” is about the state of Arizona banning ethnic studies. The movie’s main focus is on Tucson High school, specifically the class known as the Mexican American/Raza Studies. They learned about the honest truths about America along with their own culture. However, many politicians saw this class as un-American and “Stalinist”. This movie showed that the students became thriving adults because they were able to learn about their own cultures. During a political meeting, many politicians felt like this was an unnecessary class that was wasting their tax dollars. One law maker goes as far to say that if Mexican Americans want to learn about their culture, they should go back to Mexico. Many people saw these Mexican American students as lazy and disinterested. This is related to the “canary in the mind pit” analogy because

The improvement in their education that these Mexican American students with the Raza Studies is very similar to the affect that Afterschool programs had for the students in “Pass or Fail in Cambodia Town”. When students from both films were taught about their culture/ history they did better in school. The main point of “Precious Knowledge” is that students thrive when learning about multicultural education, especially students who are underrepresented by mainstream Eurocentric education. However, due to a history of systemic racism and a general lack of knowledge or understanding, many leaders choose to suppress the voices of underrepresented communities. When looking at the main point of “Precious Knowledge”, one must consider teaching strategies that deal with “difference” in the classroom. A difference that was extremely prevalent in “Precious Knowledge”, was dealing with different races/ethnicities and cultures within the class room and outside of the classroom. A teaching method that I think is good at dealing with different races