Through an investigation of one of the most controversial figures in Mexican history, "La Malinche," explore across Mexico themes of colonialism, feminism and indigenous history to engage students of different backgrounds and support their academic achievement.
I have learned an incredible amount not only about myself but the history of Mexico. Having to interview a number of strangers in a foreign language was a very new task for me. It allowed me to see different historical perspectives and understand that everyone operates truly has their own story.
I will use the all the sources we collected to highlight different historical perspectives as well as the surveys we took to support the learning target "understanding different historical perspectives." I think it's important for students to see that history is made up of artifacts and that history truly changes with time and perspective.
My personal accomplishment was truly pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. Having to talk in a foreign language and interact with everyday people in Mexico, as well as travel in a foreign land truly helped develop my own perspective and push my comfort limits. I felt like Anthony Bourdain out there.
We hope that by showing the students the interviews, images, artifacts, and videos, it will bring history and learning to life. We believe that for them to see that these debates are happening now and that these resources aren't totally abstract will raise engagement. We hope this will make all student learning more authentic in the classroom.
We hope to make our curriculum public when we finish it to encourage other teachers and schools to use and give their students a different perspective on this time period in history. Hopefully we can move away from the European-centric view of telling indigenous history.
The final assessment will be for the students to argue for the legacy of La Malinche using all of the resources we have gathered. We would really like for this to be a big event where kids dress up, role play, play different roles in court, and present it to a large audience after having researched and prepared their sides.
Indigenous history is still very minimal in our curriculums yet many still face issues and oppression such as the Standing Rock protests, and the Zapatistas in Chiapas. It is important to show different perspectives and narratives other than the colonial one. We want students to not only be aware of indigenous history, but know that it matters, and that much can be done to help.
Having to live in the history that we were teaching gave us a different perspective because now with a personal connection to the communities a different value has been placed on teaching and implementing this curriculum.
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