Memory of the Cloud People in Primary School

Review by Bux

The bronze history fills squares with statues and seeks to erase local memories, making it difficult for us to recover the memory of the Za (cloud) people and many others. Its noise prevents us from perceiving the human heartbeat that is heard when we read this magnificent book with an open mind. It's about knowing and preserving a world that was different and better, and that we now know inspired a change in mentality in Europe, which at that time knew nothing of freedoms, federalism, or even democracy (Greek democracy was something else), and certainly nothing about respect for nature, and very little about the struggle for the communal. 

All this was discovered in America, and fortunately, some indigenous peoples have preserved these values, although at a high cost.Tequio (cooperation in collective work), mutual aid between families (guelaguetza), the sense of the festival as a shared joy of life, are elements of the Zapotec peoples that are present in our pedagogy, just as respect for nature, mutual care... these are ways of life that must be defended here and all over the world against imperialist threats, however well-disguised in good intentions they may be. 

The book critically analyzes a school that colonizes the minds of children and youth with the dominant discourse. In his book The Work Plans, Freinet insists on not accepting the history imposed on us but on building our own history from the memory and interests of the students. A few years ago, Patro asked me to talk about colonialism. I didn't fully understand where he wanted to go. This book helps me recognize the presence of colonialism in our minds and behaviors. The Spanish conquerors and their Creole, Anglo-American, etc., continuators won but did not convince. 

This book does not seek the vindication of an identity for the sake of identity, but the struggle for values that are at stake and for a way of life worth living. What is a gachupín doing defending the culture of indigenous peoples? Firstly, because my Spanish, Jewish, Arab ancestors, more Christian than Catholic, and other unbelievers stayed in the Peninsula, resisting imperial politics with very bloody struggles like those of the Communities of Castile or the Germanías in Valencia. But above all, because the values of the American peoples have inspired the best of Western culture, and although with little hope, we hope it will evolve to avoid the collapse of society and the Earth.So we must continue to learn from indigenous peoples; from the love that parents and children sometimes show each other amid poverty, something truly moving and enviable, that we wish we had in Europe. 

The book rigorously addresses, with quotes from widely recognized figures in sociology and anthropology, a critical analysis of school content and the hidden nationalist curriculum, as well as didactic proposals to rectify the damage that school too often does to our youth, to our future, and to avoid this, it is essential to reinforce the idea of community and collective spirit in our classrooms.