Saturday, March 5, 2011

Precious Knowledge: A Trailer

In case you are wondering what the vilified Ethnic Studies Program in Arizona is all about, here is a trailer for a documentary called Precious Knowledge. Pay special attention to the excerpts from classes that are part of the program. Talented, energetic teachers are talking to students about Magical Realism and the Civil Rights Movement. In what weird universe can this be considered seditious and in need of being banned?


Precious Knowledge Trailer from Ari Palos on Vimeo.

Thank you, Canukistani, for sending me the trailer!

4 comments:

Pagan Topologist said...

This is wonderful. Thank you.

I admit, though, that seeing such things makes me feel instinctively that people like these legislators are personifications of pure unmitigated evil. Many people continue to tell me that this is a dangerous attitude, but it surely is hard to shake.

Clarissa said...

I often feel that too. They are sitting there, looking at these bright, articulate kids who are getting educated and keep screeching "sedition"!

J. said...

You guys think this is a no-brainer good thing because y'all are products of, and IN, the dangerous and seditious university system. :-)

Newsflash: public education is not supposed to awaken young minds, help them achieve fullest potential, and teach them that they are uniquely gifted to change and reshape the world they live in. Public education is supposed to initiate young people into the cultural status quo of the prevailing culture (under the pretense of putting facts and figures into their heads)--it's suppose to make them into "Americans." You know, white, wealthy, and capitalist.

This Ethnic Studies program seems to NOT be with the program in that regard. :-)

The fat wealthy white senators are right to be afraid of programs like this. Because they represent the ultimate demise of their top-down, racist, classist, dying system. (These same guys should be, and are, suspicious of the University Folk as well. As you noted in another post I just read.)

What a FABULOUS, AMAZING, WONDERFUL program. Wish we could get this into some Chicago schools. We could use some less-American Americans in this country. ;-)

Clarissa said...

'What a FABULOUS, AMAZING, WONDERFUL program. Wish we could get this into some Chicago schools. We could use some less-American Americans in this country. ;-)"

-Hear, hear!