This story was originally published March 13, 2024. It has since been revised and updated for information accuracy.
At the beginning of the 2024-25 school year, Archie Williams, along with Tam High School, Redwood High School, and Tamiscal, plans to fully integrate the new upper-division English class, Ethnic Studies. The schools offer the class as an English elective centered around exploration of identity and the immigrant experience as it relates to systems of power.
The incoming English Ethnics Studies curriculum covers four main disciplines: Latino/Chicano, Indigenous, Black or African American, and Asian American and Pacific Islanders, which includes SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African).
The English Ethnic Studies course utilizes English Common Core outcomes including writing, reading, listening, and speaking. The class will use supplemental learning materials such as literature, art, and poetry to help facilitate a deeper understanding of the experiences of the four ethnicities covered by the course.
The first semester of the class focuses on ethnic identities, systems of oppression surrounding them, and the marginalization of communities of color. For the second semester, Ethnic Studies discusses furthering change in these marginalized communities, with the end goal of completing an op-ed piece concerning change that still needs to occur.
Archie Williams junior Noble Peter-Frank looks forward to the addition of Ethnic Studies, and believes it will positively impact the school and community, and expose students to underrepresented cultures.
“In Marin, a lot of people don’t get much first-hand experience of other cultures, so learning about them even in a classroom setting may give people more diverse perspectives on race and ethnicity. I believe it is a valuable topic that needs to be covered,” Noble said.
The long-winded approval process for the class began with approvals from the Archie Williams English department, the Curriculum Council, and the TUHSD Board of Trustees in May of 2023. The class was then approved by the University of California (UC) system, to make sure it met the UC “B” English requirements. Although approved by TUHSD, dispute surrounds the Ethnic Studies course.
An anonymous Archie Williams English teacher pushed for offering the class within the district, and watched much controversy erupt from it.
“The fight is ongoing…. Ethnic Studies continues to be under attack all the time, and teachers especially right now, are very much under attack. We’re always fighting to have Ethnic Studies,” the English teacher said.
Separately, TUHSD began a required Community and Consciousness, a state-wide Ethnic Studies graduation requirement beginning in the 2024-25 school year. Select Archie Williams Small Learning Communities (SLCs) are currently piloting the course, and the course will become offered to all TUHSD schools at the beginning of the 2024-25 school year.
Unlike English Ethnic Studies, which is an elective for upperclassmen, Community and Consciousness is a required semester-long underclassmen course that meets the new California State requirements for Ethnic Studies. The class will focus on the history of race, nationality, ethnicity, and the culture of marginalized groups. The hope is for students to deepen their understanding of these topics and promote respect and empathy for different communities through the Community Consciousness course.
The upper-division English Ethnic Studies class will become a way for students to elect to further their cultural, racial, and ethnic learning received in the newly required Community Consciousness class. Starting next year, Archie Williams students are able to elect to study the background of a variety of cultures and gain awareness they can carry on past high school.
“Even though this is a local class… in the Tam District… my hope is that when people graduate they don’t stop doing that work… and continue to make changes in families and career[s],” the English teacher said about the new elective. “That’s the ultimate hope and dream.”
Archie Williams students await the addition of English Ethnic Studies, coming to the school district in the fall semester of 2024.
