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‘We Need to Know Our History’
areas of accomplishment.
The struggle to develop and
deliver a curriculum that recognizes
the existence of the various cul
tures, races and ethnicities that
make up our student populations,
and that values and honors those
groups did not begin within the last
The New York Times asked the decade. Recognition that the popu
Oregon Dept. of Education to de lation of our state was growing
scribe why cultural competence has increasingly diverse, that succeed
risen to the level that it has in the ing in acompetiti ve marketplace of
state. The department invited Sen. ideas, services and products that
Avel Gordly who represents north would become ever more interna
east and southeast Portland and tional in scope, and that our state’s
others to respond to the question. euro-centric curriculum was not
This is Sen. Gordly’s essay:
meeting the short or long-term needs
I will begin my answer with a of our students is also not a new
statement recently made by a high phenomenon.
school student at a community fo
Some 25 years after Brown v.
rum in Portland. The meeting was Board o f Education, the Black
one of several convened by com United Front was battling in Port-
munity members in the wake of the
shooting of a 14-year old girl and a
spate of other gang-related violent
crimes.
The girl was an innocent victim,
walking home with her friends,
struck by a stray bullet. There was
no warning. Suddenly she was ly
ing on the sidewalk with a terrible
head wound. The suspect in police
custody is 16 years old. This trag
edy is about much more than two
people, much more than a neigh land for an end to busing, for the
borhood, much more even than a hiring of more black teachers and
community.
administrators, and for a curricu
Adults at the community meet lum that addressed the multicultural
ing asked the young people present needs of students, using tactics
to speak about their needs. The including boycotts and demonstra
youth responded with statements tions. A North Portland Middle
about their needs for encourage School, named after Harriet S.
ment and emotional support, about Tubman, stands because of those
the lack of love, of caring adults in years o f struggle and as a reminder
their lives.
of the slave past that the student
One student stated, speaking spoke to. It was not— and is not—
words that resonated within us, enough.
young and old alike: “We need to
In 1991, as a Member of the O r
know our history. We don’t know egon House of Representatives, I
who we are. All we know is that we began preparation to introduce leg
once were slaves. We need to know islation addressing the needs of
our history.”
our student populations and re
The statements of these stu quiring Oregon schools to put
dents were rooted in their lack of multicultural curricula in place. This
self-esteem, a burden they bore in would take multiple sessions to
common, and in thejj desire to accomplish. The bill was denied a
achieve academically and in other hearing in the 1993 and 1995 ses
A struggle to
bring our
culture into the
classroom
sions.
In 1996,1 was elected to the Or
egon Senate. 1 reintroduced the bill
in the 1997 session, where it re
ceived a “courtesy” hearing, a pro
cedure where a committee permits
limited testimony and discussion,
but has no intention of acting on
the bill, lnthe 1999 session, with the
bipartisan assistance of Sen. Tom
Hartung, we were able to move the
bill and see it signed into law.
SB 103 required that the Superin
tendent of Public Instruction direct
the education department to in
crease efforts to evaluate the distri
bution of ethnic, racial and cultural
backgrounds of Oregon’s public
school students and advance the
use of demographic data for cur
ricula and program planning.
It required strategies to inform
The 2001 and 2003 legislative
sessions passed without an SB 103
compliance report from the Super
intendent o f Public Instruction.
Multicultural curricula and compe
tency were clearly on the back burner
at the state level, but at the local and
community level, there was much
frustration and increasing calls for
action.
Last year, I introduced a budget
note requiring the Dept. of Educa
tion to conduct an evaluation of the
law’s requirements and report its
findings to the 2005 Legislative
Assembly. I —along with many,
many community members across
the state— look forward to seeing
that report, from our new Superin
tendent of Public Instruction, Su
san Castillo. 1 expect it to be a
progress report.
The struggle to know and
understand the history of our people
continues. We owe it to our young
and to future generations to deliver
that knowledge.
- Sen. Avel Gordly, D-Portland
school district boards, administra
tors, teachers, parents and the pub
lic about multicultural and diver
sity laws and policies. It called for
the identification and review of ex
emplary multicultural curricula for
different grade levels based on the
needs of students; strategies to
integrate multicultural curricula
with other educational program; and
evaluations on how current laws
on diversity and multicultural edu
cation are being implemented and
applied throughout the public
school system.
The passage of SB 103 identified
some key issues and necessary
steps, but represented only part of
the scope of work we need to ac
complish in order to serve the needs
of our students and state. These
efforts are fundamental invest
ments in our shared futures.
Also in 2003, at the urging of my
office, the Teachers’ Standards and
Practices Commission began de
veloping cultural competence stan
dards for the certification o f teach
ers and administrators. We expect
to see those standards im ple
mented.
I recall a conversation I had in
1999 with a young, bright law stu
den t from the U n iv e rsity o f
Oregon. I asked the student if she
knew the story of Shirley Chisholm.
She was not familiar with the name.
Shirley Chisholm, descendant of
slaves, was elected to the United
States Congress from the state of
New York, serving the nation for
many terms. Among her many ac
complishments as a lawmaker, she
stands as the first African-Ameri
can woman to run for the Presi
dency of the United States of
America.
How can we graduate a student
from the University of Oregon Law
School, and not reach that stu
d e n t— som ew here in the c u r
ricula— with the history of our great
nation, with the history that re
flects the multiplicity of cultures,
ethnicities and races that inhabit
our land?
The absence of inform ation in
our public schools that mirrors
the respective images o f minority
students m agnifies the struggle
our students make to find them
selves as they learn and mature.
This is a great and tragic failing
directly related to how students
gain self-esteem and achieve aca
demically.
That cultural com petence has
risen to the level that it has in
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2004 is not because the many
issues represented by that label
are timely. Many people have
been working on this for decades,
some heroically and at great per
sonal sacrifice. It is the result o f
that w ork— their w ork— bearing
some fruit— but not all the fruit—
that brings the issue to the fore
front today. The institutional and
social lethargy that has blocked
recognition and progress in cul
tural com petency is still with us
today.
The struggle to know and un
derstand the history o f our people
continues. We owe it to our young
and to future generations to d e
liver that knowledge, and to do
so with com petence and integ
rity. They need their history. We
must deliver it.
W W W .E B O N Y F A S H IO N F A IR .C O M