A Class With Culture : School Starts Expanded History Curriculum

Monica Herrada, 13, hasn’t studied much Mexican-American history in school. Most of what the Glendale eighth-grader knows about her heritage comes from talking to her grandmother, who is from Zacatecas, Mexico.

But in history class this year at Toll Junior High, Monica is going to learn a lot about events like the Mexican-American War. She will also learn about how other cultures have influenced U.S. history.

By next June, Monica should be able to rattle off names like Susquehanna, Chickasaw and Shoshone and discuss the lifestyles of various American Indian tribes. She will also learn how American settlers interacted with the indigenous people they found and eventually brought about the demise of many tribes.

“We used to spend more time on pre-Columbus,” says Monica’s history teacher, Bill Sanderl. “Now we’re taking a closer look at cultural conflicts and how Native Americans interacted with settlers in the Old West.”

Like most school districts throughout California, Glendale has adopted a new state-approved social studies curriculum that stresses multicultural themes and uses literature--including creation myths, diaries, speeches and political cartoons--to tell the story of history.

As the school year starts, Sanderl is introducing the themes with the help of fat new textbooks published by Houghton Mifflin Co. and a slew of supplementary materials, including maps, paintings and photos of museum artifacts.

This will be a learning process for teachers as well as students, says Sanderl, who chairs the social studies department at Toll. In September, he spent several days training other Toll teachers on the new curriculum.

But Sanderl, 49, a mentor teacher with 24 years of experience under his belt, says many ideas in the new social studies framework fit in with what he and other socially conscious teachers have been doing all along.

As a number of Glendale teachers have done, Sanderl has always accompanied whatever text he used with excerpts of books, diaries and poems that illustrated the historical eras and concepts he was teaching.

“For me, the new framework isn’t threatening at all,” he says. “I’ve always tried to make social students lively and ask head-scratching questions.”

Many teachers did this to enhance history texts that were boring, out-of-date or told from a Eurocentric perspective that they felt did not adequately address the contributions of women and minorities. Now, the state Department of Education is validating these ideas.

And although some of the eighth-graders may still be dreaming of summer during these first few weeks of class, Sanderl jumps right in on one of the most sweltering fall mornings anyone can remember.

“I’d like you to take a look at the pictures on page 6,” Sanderl says, as students open their hefty tomes to an explanation of geographical regions and photos of the local flora and fauna.

Most of the pictures on the following pages show idyllic nature and wildlife scenes. But in the last photo, which features the Alaskan Arctic, oil storage tanks mar the pristine beauty of icy blue lakes and mountains.

Sanderl asks the eighth-graders which picture is different and why. A discussion on humanity’s interaction with the environment ensues.

“We need to take a look at what America looked like before human beings came in and changed it,” Sanderl tells the class.

The longtime teacher--who has a master’s in American history from UCLA and has participated in several National Endowment for the Humanities programs--has a bag of tricks to get students involved in critical thinking. He also has ways to underscore key points.

“That’s a real good answer,” Sanderl tells one girl. “It’s so good I’m going to have someone on the other side of the room repeat it.”

Sanderl then breaks the students up into groups to describe key features of the Coastal Plain, the Appalachian Highlands and the Piedmont, three distinct geographic areas of the United States. Each group will then put its findings up on the board.

The teacher likes these interactive games because they force students to think about the data they are learning. The next day, after his students understand the geography of the United States, he can introduce human beings into the equation and talk about the lifestyles of American Indians and settlers.

With a student body that is 34% Middle Eastern, 24% Anglo, 22% Latino, 14% Asian and 6% other ethnic groups, a number of children are immigrants themselves, and Sanderl tries to relate their personal experiences today to those of the early settlers.

Sanderl is already setting the groundwork for such a discussion when he asks students to look at a photo of waves crashing along Northern California’s craggy coast.

“What kind of livelihood would people who lived in this area pursue?” he asks. “Would it be farming?” he continues, raising his eyebrows.

The talk meanders until the bell rings. After class, some students explain why their new text, called “A More Perfect Union,” is a big improvement over previous models.

Whereas the last book was less interesting, “this history book is fun,” says Monica, who adds that her heroes are Pancho Villa and Paul Revere. “I like learning about events from the people who lived through them.”