This summer was busy, to say the least, but in a lovely way. I took two classes: Case Study and Geographic Education. Part of the latter class was to teach GeoTech camp for 4-H on the Mizzou campus, which rocked. Can I PLEASE say that middle school boys are A+, and that geocaching and caving with them are guaranteed to be both hilarious and fun?

This semester things have been going well: another scholarship from the College of Education, two classes: Global and Multicultural Studies (with Tony) and Overview of Higher Education, teaching my normal two classes (Orientation to Education and Elementary Social Studies Methods) and service on only a couple of part-time committees. Free time is an amazing thing.

I DO have to say that this semester, my Eled Social Studies class is bang on. We’re looking at Social Studies through a Social Justice perspective, and they are inquisitive, thoughtful, and great critical thinkers. I’m so proud.

My beau is staying with me for a little while; he’s done more traveling than I could currently dream of. The furthest we’re going at the moment is St. Louis, though.

I’m going to get back to regularly updating, trying for at least Tuesday-Thursday or Monday-Wednesday sort of updates.

The Texas Curriculum Massacre

Where to start? It’s times like these that not even a facepalm can adequately express my annoyance and exasperation with the state of Texas. I’ll let Picard and Riker express it for me:

The white-washing of Texas curriculum is downright horrific, as well as racist and sexist. If conservatives want to give their children a well-rounded education, ADD in different perspectives, but don’t cut anything out. The goal of Social Studies is to teach students how to take many opposing pieces of information, and to determine what is important, and what is superfluous, and to make a decision based on those facts. Removing opposing viewpoints will only harm developing minds, and will leave students unable to think critically when based with conflicting facts.

The impact that African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, women, etc. have had on our history, our culture, our politics, our economy, has been huge, and to ignore these contributions is downright ignorant. And how better to understand what is going on today, than by understanding the impact that different groups have had over the course of our history? To understand gay rights, we need to not only understand the Christian background of our founding fathers, but also the struggle for human rights that have been faced by all minority groups at different times in our history.

Furthermore, minorities and women are on the lower end of civic efficacy. Removing women and minority positive role models who have made a different on the national, state, and community level is a further attack against these groups. Who are our children going to hold up as role models, if we don’t give them responsible figures in the classroom? I’m not asking for George Lopez, I’m asking for Cesar Chavez.

And what’s going on with the hate on Thomas Jefferson? Church and state SHOULD be separate, for the protection of all different people. We see what happens in a theocracy–the rights of minority groups are trampled on in often vicious ways. It’s unacceptable. Jefferson was a brilliant man who was the primary author of many of our founding documents. The elimination of him from the curriculum is dangerous and troubling– for people who demand that we stick to a strict interpretation of the Constitution–they hate one of the writers of said document a great deal.

And that whole Arizona law that prohibits Latino studies? Don’t get me started. Again, promoting tolerance and diversity in the classroom? Empowering traditionally vulnerable students with low self-efficacy and low civic efficacy? OH THE HORROR.

They just don’t want Hispanic children growing up thinking that they can make a difference in their communities and government. Keep the white people in power, and the Hispanics suppressed, both politically and culturally.

Diversity makes us stronger. Diversity has made us an amazing country, where people from across the world come to start a better life. Diversity has given us a thousand viewpoints, a thousand different narratives from which we can study our country. We should be celebrating it, not rewriting history, not suppressing those stories, or ignoring them.

We are made better by our differences.

This is going to be a two-part interview. I hope it was as interesting to you as it was to me.

Emily: I suppose the first thing to ask is where you went, and what brought you to each of those places?

RC: Both of my parents are Pakistani and we try to visit family in Pakistan as often as we can. It’s been getting increasingly difficult since 9/11 and the more recent conflict in Pakistan, but I think seeing family is worth risking it. Most of them live in Lahore, a relatively peaceful city that is the second largest in Pakistan. I stayed there this June for about a month. The year before that we traveled to a place called Cherat, which is located in the North West Frontier Province, to visit my cousin who works for the Pakistani services. It’s probably too dangerous to go up there anymore.

Emily: How have your relatives been impacted by the changes post-9/11?

RC: Well to be honest, I feel that I’ve probably been more affected than they have because I live in America where most people don’t really understand the complex cultural/religious issues that have created the conflicts that area is seeing these days (growing up in America, a lot of that is past even my understanding). But the only thing I can think of is that they’ve been affected the same way most other people of South Asian and Middle Eastern backgrounds have all over the world — by prejudice and discrimination. My cousin who is 16, for example, was held at an American airport for hours for questioning and was asked ridiculous questions like “have you ever held a gun?” “have you ever killed someone?” “do you want to kill anyone?” In the grand scheme of things, things like that are pretty minor inconveniences but I guess they add up. If someone has never had any interaction with America other than the bias that he has heard through the local media in his country, treating foreigners with complete mistrust only confirms those preconceptions and is not a very good first impression at all.

As far as effects from events that are not necessarily directly related to 9/11 but have impacted my family in Pakistan, they’ve avoided most violence since they live in Lahore which has always been very peaceful. There have been several attacks on the city in the past year though, mostly random car bombings. The city has had to tighten security by creating checkpoints and blocking off everything but main roads. When I was there this summer, we’d wake up and a brick wall had been built overnight blocking off a street, and we’d be stopped for security checks every few minutes. It was definitely a very different experience from the peaceful life I’ve been used to during visits ever since I was young.

Emily: What was Cherat like? (landscape, the people, the experience, etc.)

RC: It’s a mountainous area, but the terrain isn’t quite as rugged as more northern regions such as the Karakoram range where K2 is. I unfortunately can’t talk much about my experience inside the base because that area is off limits to the public and because of that, my interactions with the people were very limited. I basically enjoyed myself as a vacationer would because it was an extremely secluded area with beautiful views and trails. Outside the base, I did notice some changed from the other places I visited in Pakistan. I was told to avoid appearing too Western (no skinny jeans, t-shirts, etc.), and my aunt who had been driving us at one point switched with a male family member just to be on the safe side. I could definitely tell that it was a more conservative area.

The most memorable thing, however, was probably the last day. My cousin woke us up early and kind of hurried us out of the house and into the car. We started our journey without me noticing anything out of the ordinary until about half an hour later, I asked if we could stop for a snack or to use the restroom. My cousin refused, which I found a bit odd. Later, I found out that a “miscreant” (I always find the term a bit humorous, but that’s what they call terrorists or suicide bombers) had gotten past one of the checkpoints at the base and it had been a really close call. I guess my parents hadn’t told me because I would have only been 15 at the time and they wanted everyone to remain clam. The experience really caught me off guard because the area a year ago was nowhere near as conflicted as it is now, so I wouldn’t have expected it at all.

This post is because my mom and my Uncle John have pestered me, pointing out that I haven’t posted in quite awhile.

What’s new?

Oh gosh, what isn’t new? I’m now officially a second year PhD student at Mizzou. I watched my 2010 College of Education undergraduate students graduate tonight. I finished my year-long role as the National Issues Coordinator with the Graduate Professional Council.

I will be 26 in a few weeks. I’ve been quite sick this semester, and was diagnosed at the beginning of March with an inflammatory disease, Eosinophilic Esophagitis, as well as allergy-induced asthma in May. Most importantly, I lost my cousin April Hacker after a life-long battle with Cystic Fibrosis on January 25th.

It has been a very, very long semester, and I’m looking forward to summer, and to a new school year.

What’s going on this summer and next year?

You mean, am I going anywhere? Nope. I’m consigned to the boredom of Missouri and of classes for the foreseeable future. I’m taking a Case Study class with the awesome Dr. Tony Castro this summer, and working with the amazingly talented head of the Missouri Geographic Alliance, Shannon White, to do a Geography camp. This will accompany a Geographic Education class, so I’m psyched.

Next fall we have an AMAZING new full-time doc student, Ms. Sarah Shear, who is moving in across the hall from me in my apartment complex. We will be posting happy hour pictures towards the end of the summer.

What’s up with grad school?

I decided about a month ago that I would be doing a fourth year, giving myself extra time to take classes that I need, and work on publications. That pushes my graduation date from May 2012 to May 2013. C’est la vie.

I presented Visions of powerful integrative elementary social studies. with Linda at the National Council for Social Studies national conference in November in Atlanta, GA.

The College and University Faculty Assembly conference is a smaller conference for (you guessed it) college and university faculty, and I presented Are there roots running underground? Examining the nature and extent of powerful integrative elementary social studies with Linda and researchers from other universities.

I presented at the Consortium for Research in Teacher Education at the University of Texas-Austin in March. Tony and I did Exploring perspectives of global citizenship in 21st century preservice teachers, which we’ve really been focusing on recently. It’s just the first part in a larger look at our study. He’s been putting in some global citizenship questions for me. It makes me happy, since this is my dissertation area.

Tony and I are presenting Challenges in Preparing 21st Century Teachers for Citizenship Education at the Association of Teacher Educators conference in Kansas City in August.

We have another paper in for submission for AATC, called Preparing Teachers for the world within the classroom: Investigating preservice teachers views on multicultural and global citizenship. .

This post is beginning to awkwardly sound like a longer version of my CV.

What is the future of the blog?

WELL, I’ve been asking myself that. I’ve got an interview that I’ll be putting online soon, and might start looking at doing other interviews. I would LOVE to go back to Malawi for my dissertation with World Camp, so let’s cross our fingers, shall we? At this point, I’m not sure. I do promise to update more, though.

What would you like to see?

I would like to say that I believe that the committee got it wrong, however. The Nobel Peace Prize is meant to celebrate someone who has given a great deal and dedicated their life to the advancement of peace and human rights.

Greg Mortenson was a nominee, and it was an utter heartbreak when he didn’t win.

If you are unfamiliar with Greg Mortenson, he is a humanitarian who has dedicated his life to building schools for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan. To him, education is the path to peace and freedom.

He came to the forefront of the American consciousness with his novel Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace, One School At A Time. If you have not read it yet, I recommend it highly. You are brought along with him for the highest of highs and the lowest of lows as he struggles to fulfill his promise to one village to build a school for their children. From there, he began to seek out, and was approached by other villages to build schools for their girls, and career centers for their women. Below, he talks about the novel and the process of building relationships in villages

Mortenson is the co-founder of CAI, the Central Asia Institute. It focuses on education–particularly for girls, but not solely. He started with one school in Korfe, Pakistan. CAI’s establishment is better explained here:

I had the incredible experience of meeting Dr. Greg at the National Council for Social Studies conference in Atlanta last month. He is the most humble man I have ever met, and yet you can’t help but be overwhelmed by the beauty of his intense love for education and for the people in Central Asia. He does this not for fame and glory, but because he fervently believes in what he is doing. He has placed his life in danger many times over the past decade, but the payoff has been exponential.

Education for girls to at least the fifth grade reduces infant mortality and population explosion, and improves quality of life. In terms of the ever present ‘war on terror’ that people are so focused on in the United States, it can be put this way: young men are less likely to go on jihad if they have an educated mother. [Edited for clarification after advice from someone who spent time in northern Pakistan. Thanks!]

You can donate to CAI with your classrooms using Pennies for Peace, a program made BY and for children who wish to help. Many students have gone on to make their own nonprofit foundations for other purposes.

Or, you can make an individual donation to the organization. The money goes directly to building schools. It costs “$15,000-$20,000 to build a school. $35,000-$50,000 to build a school after to fund it with teachers afterwards.” [source]

Dr. Greg has endangered his life, sold all of his worldly belongings, been reduced to begging for money for other people, and selflessly giving precious time that could be spent with his young family. I honestly believe that it was Mortenson who should have won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Please donate to CAI. At the very least, sign up for Alima the free newsletter of CAI.

You can purchase both of Mortenson’s books: Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace, One School At A Time in the adult or young readers version and Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The AAG has set them up with a blog, so you can follow them as they attend: Geography, Climate Change, and the Copenhagen Negotiations

Maathai is the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner from Kenya. She has worked tirelessly to promote human rights, women’s rights, and combat deforestation in her home country. Her Green Belt movement fought corruption in the Kenyan government during the reign of President Daniel arap Moi, many times at the risk of her own personal safety. She was arrested many times, but led non-violent demonstrations and promoted peaceful civil disobedience in order to get political prisoners released from jail, to prevent the government from selling public lands, and to preserve important public parks.
From a simple tree-planting movement, she became one of the most important humanitarians to come out of Kenya. Please take the time to

Please take the time to watch the full documentary, and to spread the word about the Green Belt movement and Maathai’s works.

Such is the case with the Maneater’s article about MSA/GPC sponsoring t-shirts and petition over the university’s decision to close Reactor Field parking lot to tailgating on game days.

I remember Nick, the photographer, taking photos…and accusing him of taking them of my butt, because of the angle he was shooting at, but I honestly didn’t think he’d put one of me in there, when the fabulous and gorgeous Lauren Zima was standing right next to me.

I just wanted to share my amusement with all of you. And the photo:

Freshman Andrew Gates buys a “Rally for Reactor” T-shirt from Emily VanCourt, Graduate Professional Council national issues coordinator, Thursday afternoon in front of the University Bookstore. Sponsored by GPC and the Missouri Student Association, students could sign a petition and buy the T-shirts in an effort to bring back Reactor Field as a place for students to tailgate.

A lovely story, in a beautiful place. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I have.