We're still trying to work our way through the mailbag, a Sisyphean task indeed for the Insider staff. Even for those of us stranded here in the digital realm, time is always a factor, and sometimes the email volume can be daunting.
As one might expect, we received a number of comments regarding the Indian-Pilgrim Wars. Here are couple from two Claremont expatriates, writing to us from far-off Not-Claremont:
DATE: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 8:11 AM
SUBJECT: Pilgrim/Indian" Flap
TO: Claremont Buzz
Loving your coverage of the "goings on" in Claremont. We lived/taught there about 40 years and it is good to see it hasn't changed. We had missed keeping up with all the "teapot-tempests" mainly because we don't subscribe to the Courier. We still have a grandson there so we visit from time to time.
It was good to see Devon Lingenfelter-Frietas again and her role in the Kindergarten-ish capers. What a great leader she and her husband have been for CUSD over the years. I remember when she first led at Condit school with her unique "Lollipop" Center concept. Very innovative at the time. Her rise in the district from then on was phenomenal. Chuck, her husband, was a great administrator and mine at one time. He was very understanding and kind. CUSD was/is a wonderful educational institution, especially in "hindsight". Our school districts have had to change to survive...sometimes not for the better, in my opinion.
And:
DATE: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 8:56 AMThe counter-argument suggested by some of the pro-tradition folks is that we're dealing with 5-year-olds (the kindergartners, not the parents), so historical events are introduced in a kind of caricature. The details get fleshed out in subsequent years.
SUBJECT: indians
TO: Claremont Buzz
Maybe this is just a sign that I'm turning into a pointy-headed academic, but I think it's a shame that the CUSD's pilgrims and Indians thing has turned into a contest between political correctness and tradition. The problem with dressing children in fake leather vests and headdresses to be "Indians," and having them jump around going "woo woo woo" with their hands over their mouths, is that actual Indians mostly didn't wear leather vests and headdresses and jump around going "woo woo woo" with their hands over their mouths. Should schools teach crazy shit like "factual reality," or engage in bullshit, faked-up, make-believe Hollywood versions of reality? Which one of those choices constitutes education?
For black history month, the CUSD can dress children like characters from Gone With the Wind, and have them run around campus saying that "Ohhhh, Miss Scarlett, I don't know nothin' about birthing no babies." It would be just as historically accurate as having children jump around going "woo woo woo" to celebrate American Indian history.
In short, the issue is not "political correctness" versus "tradition." It's "factual historical reality" versus "lazy ahistorical tradition." Schools should teach. "Oh, but it's our *tradition* to make up ahistorical bullshit that isn't supported by fact!" Silly. And yet another reason my child will never, ever, ever go to a public school.
If the supporters of the leather vest/woo woo woo tradition can show that it's based in valid historical fact, game over. If it's not, then their argument is that they want their schools to teach their children things that aren't true. "Sure, it's wrong -- but we've been wrong for a long time! It's tradition!"
Which, come to think of it, is a very Claremont kind of argument....
On Wednesday, Clarmeont Courier publisher Peter Weinberger had an opinion piece on the matter that seemed to pick up on this. Weinberger suggested keeping the kindergarten Pilgrim event but trying to keep the costumes authentic and by trying to introduce more factual material in higher grades.
The Courier also received a number of reader letters on the subject, which you can find here (these will fall off the Courier's website over time).
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