Welcome back to Teach The Children The Truth! Ethnic Studies and Raza Studies in the TK-12 Classroom.

I know we are coming off of a heavy weekend and in the middle of what I can only imagine is a challenging week with our students and families trying to make sense of what we saw in the footage of the murder of Tyre Nichols. I pray you have all found a way to digest and process this new information and that you are taking the necessary steps to heal and move into a space of positive action. I pray for this young man's family and friends, and I ask La Creadora to guide him to his Ancestors.

Today we have the second half of a two-part series with Mario García, a veteran educator for the Oakland Unified School District. If you missed last week's episode, I invite you to pause this one and go back to Episode 04 so that you can hear Mario's entire story. You can read a little more about him below.

Bio:

Mario Vallejo García was born in Southern California on the last day of 1973. His family then moved north to Oakland, CA, soon thereafter, when he was only 2 months old. In Oakland, his parents became very involved in the community and educational activism there, particularly as it connected to the Chicano Movement. Among many other things, they were heavily involved with the establishment of both Centro Infantíl de La Raza Preschool and La Escuelita Elementary School, two of the very first bilingual, Chicano/Latino-oriented schools in the Bay Area.

Mario attended all Oakland Public Schools in his early education, including Centro and La Escuelita. He graduated from Oakland Technical High School in 1992 before starting his freshman year at the University of California at Berkeley in the Fall of that year. He graduated from UCB with Honors in the Spring of 1997 with a major in Ethnic Studies and a minor in Education. Upon graduation, Mario was soon hired by the Oakland Unified School District and has worked there ever since. As a full-time classroom teacher, he taught grades 3-5 for 23 years at Stonehurst Elementary (now Esperanza/Korematsu Discovery Academy) and EnCompass Academy, both in the East Oakland flatlands. For the last 3 years, he has been working as an EEIP (Enrichment & Early Intervention Program) teacher at EnCompass, where he wears many hats and provides various forms of school-wide support for all TK-5 classes, including small group and whole class ELA/ELD and math instruction, Newcomer support, and Physical Education. He hopes to continue to work with and serve youth and his beloved Oakland community at large for many years to come.

If you would like more information about Mario's work or would like to reach out to him, you can find him at mario.garcia@ousd.org, or you can also email me at ttcttinfo.com, and I'll put you in touch with him.

To get in touch with Dr. Cesar Cruz, please check out his Homie's Empowerment page and reach out to him there.

If you would like more information about some of the organizations designing Ethnic Studies curricula and supporting current and future Ethnic Studies educators, please check out the following links below:

Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium (CA)

Xicanx Institute for Teaching and Organizing (AZ)

I will continue to share resources with you here in the episode notes, as well as on my website at teachthechildrenthetruth.com in future episodes. Please check out my website and share your resources so we can network and build to make Ethnic Studies thrive!

In Lak'ech.

Ep. 00 - An Introduction to Teach The Children The Truth!

Teach The Children The Truth! Ethnic Studies and Raza Studies In The TK-12 ClassroomBy Marisa VillegasJan 04, 2023