May 14, 2008
Fourth grade
students in California are taught about the role which the missions played in the state's development. Many students create a multiple-medium project, such as writing a paper or building a model.
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Congratulations on acing the project.
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They're proud of Junipero Serra in Mallorca: probably second only to Ramon Llull in the mighty rollcall of Mallorcans Who Made the Modern World...
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I've got no problem with it, as long as there are guidelines in place to make sure teachers present both positive and negative aspects of the missions' effects on society, and to make sure it doesn't become a platform for endorsing religion on the state's dime.
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Hey, these Mission places are popular (and somewhat money-making) tourist attractions owned by the State of California. So they'll endorse anything that keeps the turnstiles turning. (And my local mission is a nice place to hang out and still free, if you stay out of the gift shop.)
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Thanks Skrik, I did almost none of the work on the project outside of munching on graham crackers and watching a wonderfully creative mind in action. TUM, I was a little worried about that too, but her teachers focused a lot of the discussion on how the Native tribes were shit on. In fact, her paper was from the Indians point of view. We have been to 12 of the missions and hope to see them all. And, I see the Mission Bells all the time now whereas I never noticed them before.