Interview Questions
The purpose of our interviews is to gather more in-depth information and data from people who have been taught about the dominant narrative in school. It is our understanding that the current curriculum taught in U.S. schools tends to be one-sided and favors the American narrative that Europeans discovered America. We e interviewed a variety of people from different backgrounds to see if there are any patterns or influences that prior beliefs may have on answers. For interview 1 Natalie interviewed someone who received a private school education. The second interview was conducted by Gibson and was done with someone who received a public school education. Finally the third interview was done by Wenyu who interviewed a professor. This is to see how public school curriculum may differ from a private school education, and how it is taught in regards to history and the dominant narrative we are researching. We will ask questions concerning demographics and knowledge on the dominant narrative as well as the counter narrative. The list of possible questions will be provided below:
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Background to Natalie’s Interview: Natalie interviewed Madison Mora, a current college undergrad student who received her high school diploma from a private high school. We wanted to interview a student who had received a public education and a student who had received a private school education. The intent of this was to see if school curriculum varied depending on the institution it was received from in regards to history and the dominant narrative we are researching. We wanted to see how or if private school curriculum differed from a public school and if that has any significant impact on answers. The questions and answers from that interview are posted below.
What is your age? “I am 21 years old.” Where are you from? “I am from Indianapolis, Indiana. Born here and raised here.” What is your race? “I am Asian, more specifically my parents and I are filipino.” What is your political affiliation (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, etc)? “I identify as a Democrat.” When and what were you taught in school about the discovery of America? “I remember being taught about the discovery of America in my U.S. history class sophomore year of high school. We essentially told that Christopher Columbus discovered America, but we were also taught the presence of Native Americans as well.” How has school curriculum impacted the way you perceive American history? “Honestly, American history has always been a boring subject to me, but I went to a very liberal high school that brought many perspectives to the way America came about. I think the school's curriculum, in turn, has made me think of American history in a broader context.” The nation has two holidays on the same day: Columbus Day and Indigenous People’s Day. Which have you heard of and which would you choose to celebrate? Why? “I've heard of both, but mostly Columbus Day. I would probably celebrate Columbus Day because that is how I've grown up knowing it to be.” Do you think the history behind Thanksgiving is accurately taught in schools? Why or why not? “I think part of the context is accurately taught in schools, but there could definitely be more in-depth context on the subject. I think this is due to the fact that there is so much history and theory that comes with Thanksgiving, so it is hard to know exactly what happened, and thus, it is hard to know exactly how to teach it to others.” If you were to change anything about the history school’s teach about the discovery of America, what would it be and why? “I would change the curriculum to teach students all perspectives of the story. Though it is predominantly correct to think only Christopher Columbus discovered America, there are definitely other factors that go into the history. That being said, school's should obtain resources and knowledge that teach others every aspect of history.” Do you think Native American history has been fairly taught in school? Would it be important for schools to include a comprehensive and accurate curriculum on Native American history and culture? “Native American History has been fairly taught in schools in the sense that it gets to the basic way of the story, but I do think it would be important to include a more accurate curriculum. By implementing a more rigorous way of teaching, students would gain a greater sense of open-mindedness for the way the world came to be how it is today.” End Interview Summary: Based on the results from this interview, I believe we gained some insight into the way private school students are taught and think about the discovery of America. For example, Mora believes her high school was generally liberal and that it is predominantly correct to think Christopher Columbus discovered America since there are limited resources and knowledge to learn and teach the past. But she also still believes schools should obtain the necessary resources to teach every aspect of history, which we can infer includes the counter narrative that Native Americans actually discovered America first and had their land stolen. Through some basic research, I found that private schools are also different from public schools because they do not have to follow a curriculum required by the state. This means they choose and provide all curriculum and instruction material to students. Private schools can also include influences of religion within their curriculum, so it can perhaps be thought that a Catholic school (such as Mora’s) could structure their curriculum to follow and respect catholic religion. This can be connected back to our dominant narrative because part of Columbus’ exploration was fueled by imperialism. In fact, Columbus forced Natives to convert to Christinaity, which may be left out of private school teachings to avoid any negative publicity. Of course, these ideas will require further research but are ideas worth pursuing as we go on. Interview 2
Background to Gibson's interview: Gibson Interviewed Mark Ribaudo, a current undergrad at Indiana University who received a public education. For this interview we wanted to see how the subject of the discovery was taught. Between the public and private School interviews we wanted to see if the education was more the dominant narrative or the counter narrative. The interview that took place is below:
What is your age? "I am 20 years old" Where are you from? "I was born and raised in a small town called North Salem, which was located in Westchester County New York" What is your race? "I am White" What is your political affiliation (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, etc)? "I don't really identify with any one side. I am open to hearing arguments that different sides and then form my own opinion on the matter. If I had to chose I would say that I tend to lean towards a republican in the ways that I think" When and what were you taught in school about the discovery of America? "I feel like I first remember learning the basics about the Discovery of America in kindergarten or first grade. We learned the rhyme in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue and I also have a distinct memory of doing arts and crafts projects about Columbus's three ships. I definitely learned the bulk about the topic freshman year of high school in in history class. I remember learning about how Columbus was initially looking for a route from Europe to Asia and then he stumbled upon the Americas on accident. That is when he discovered natives living there and he gave them gifts and began to colonize the land." How has school curriculum impacted the way you perceive American history? "I mean, the only places where I would learn about history is school so the way I learned it is how I perceive how the history of America was taught. Im sure that there are many things that I wasn't taught or have just forgotten that probably would depict a more accurate scene on American history. The nation has two holidays on the same day: Columbus Day and Indigenous People’s Day. Which have you heard of and which would you choose to celebrate? Why? "I always remember celebrating Columbus Day because we would get the day off from school, but that was probably the only thing that I would actually celebrate. This is a little embarrassing but when you asked the question that was the first time I learned that Indigenous People's day was a thing." Do you think the history behind Thanksgiving is accurately taught in schools? Why or why not? "I think that the basic idea or history of thanksgiving is taught in schools. Im sure there is more to the story that is not taught in schools. I feel like that the way thanksgiving is taught is all about the friendly relationship between pilgrims and Native Americans, how they sat down and shared a big meal. There is definitely more that should be taught about all the positives and negatives about the first thanksgiving." If you were to change anything about the history school’s teach about the discovery of America, what would it be and why? "I think changes need to be made about how the history is taught. It's important to show both sides of the story. I think that when it comes to the history of the Americas both the europeans perspective and the Native Americans perspective should be taught. Because I can't really recall learning a lot about Native Americans besides the big controversies like the Trail of Tears." Do you think Native American history has been fairly taught in school? Would it be important for schools to include a comprehensive and accurate curriculum on Native American history and culture? "I would say that it is more fairly taught in high school rather than elementary school. Like in elementary school I feel that we are taught to think of Christopher Columbus as a really good guy. I guess it makes sense because it wouldn't be super smart to teach kids about all the death that was involved in that time. I think that curriculum should be modified to teach kids at a young age that the history of America wasn't all happy times. They should be educated on Native American culture and then in high school when kids are more ready they should be taught about all the negative things that Native Americans went through at the hands of Europeans. End Interview Summary: I think that this interview gave us insight on how the curriculum of the history of the discovery of the Americas was taught. In this public school the education on the subject leaned more towards the dominate narrative of Christopher Columbus "discovering" the Americas. As said in the interview I believe that this schools focused more on the European side of the history talking about the process that Columbus went through to stumble upon the "Americas." Even though mark was educated more about the Dominant narrative he knew that Native Americas faced many hardships in this time. He believes that curriculum should be reformed to better show the history and culture of the people that were native to the Americas. Interview 3Background to Wenyu’s interview: Wenyu interviewed Miss Shi, an international high school teacher who has experience teaching American History to students. This unique perspective offered us a better understanding of how teachers discuss and teach American history, as well as a possible effect on the international perspective of the discovery of America. Since our intended audience is to both students and parents, we found it beneficial to include how teachers are links in curriculum too. The following questions and answers are from that interview.
What is your age? “I'm 32 years old.” Where are you from? “I'm from China.” What is your race? “I'm Chinese.” What is your political affiliation (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, etc)? “I belong to the Communist Party of China.” When and what were you taught in school about the discovery of America? “When I teach high school history, I talk about the discovery of The United States.” How has school curriculum impacted the way you perceive American history? “Because the time in the course is limited, so is the history that I teach with my classmates. However, I read a lot of relevant materials in every class preparation and spare time, so I can fully understand the history of The United States.” The nation has two holidays on The same day: Columbus day and Indigenous People's day. Which have you heard of and Which would you choose to celebrate? Why? “I have heard about both of them, but I probably won't go out to celebrate either of them in particular, because in my country, people don't have the tradition to celebrate these festivals.” Do you think the history behind Thanksgiving is accurately taught in schools? Why or why not? “I'll give you some historical information about Thanksgiving. Let's start with the origins of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving Day was started by a group of early immigrants to the United States. This group of immigrants is also called the Puritan, their typical characteristics for the religious reform of the church of England is not completely, and the king and the church of England repression of their political and religious persecution, so the pilgrims from the church of England, go to the Netherlands, then decided to move to the other side of the Atlantic that desolate land, hope to be able to freely according to their wishes religious life. When they first arrived in America, they had nothing. The Indians on the island took pity on them and sent them daily necessities. They also sent people to teach them how to hunt, fish and grow corn and pumpkins. In the end, the settlers had a good harvest. During the celebration, they followed the custom of religious tradition, they designated a day to thank God, and invited the Indians to spend the festival with them to thank them. On Thanksgiving Day, they held the usual church services, bonfire meetings, and a host of activities. These activities have since been handed down to become the modern day Thanksgiving. But the arrival of the settlers brought disastrous destruction to the Indians throughout America. They carried diseases that did not exist in the Continental United States -- smallpox, measles, typhus, yellow fever, and so on -- that killed the Indians at a rapid rate. In addition, the settlers brought ambitious European invaders, whose advanced military technology conquered the whole Of America and brought destruction to the entire Indian race. For this reason, Native Americans call Thanksgiving a National Day of Ethnic Cleansing, a National Day of genocide, or a National Day of silence. For me, this is not a story of gratitude, but more of sadness. I don't know if that's accurate or not, but as I understand it, that's the definition of Thanksgiving.” If you were to change anything about the history school's teach about the discovery of America, what would it be and why? “I want to delete some records about the cause of Thanksgiving, such as religion, which I think is not necessary in class, and it will affect students' thinking.” Do you think Native American history has been fairly taught in school? Would it be important for schools to include a comprehensive and accurate curriculum on Native American history and culture? “I think Native American history is taught fairly in the classroom. The teacher needs to let the students know the real history. As for previous ACTS of violence such as prejudice, they should judge for themselves. The purpose of the course is to give them an understanding of history, so it should be comprehensive and accurate. And as I mentioned in my last question, the massacre actually involved China, but this hatred should not be perpetuated. The teacher can not avoid the past grudges and to hide things from the students.” End Interview |