By Arnav Gupta

Silver Creek high school’s ethnic studies course, taught by Cesar Juarez Ruiz, is aimed to educate students on the struggles faced by people of color, the challenges they have overcome and how power has been used or misused in society, specifically throughout the history of the United States.

The class focuses on African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islander Americans, Latin Americans and Middle Eastern Americans. The course content includes material regarding the forms of discrimination used in the United States’ past. This includes racism, classism, sexism and more. Additionally, the course educates students on the various forms of resistance used to combat discrimination. For instance, indigenous people of the United States used art as resistance and African Americans used organization.

Ruiz believes, if you aspire to change society for the better, ethnic studies should be a course you undertake. A key focus of the class is to better understand the past, which is crucial to comprehending the present. Students are taught to strengthen their articulation skills, in regards to thoughts and arguments. Students are also guided to gain a better understanding of themselves, through experiencing history from the perspectives of oppressed groups of people.

In ethnic studies, students are taught through a combination of lectures, project based learning, writing, individual work, group work and student led discussions. An average day in the class follows a workshop model schedule. The first 10 minutes of class are teacher-led and afterwards, the majority of the remaining time is used by students to work on an activity. The final five minutes are spent in contemplation and reflection of the class period.