As for building a model, he said, “I encourage my kids not to do them because I don’t want my classroom littered with missions!” (The highlight for the kids is the chance to play with mud, he said.) But they also do their own projects on the missions, something they choose, like making a cookbook or writing a song or poetry. Together, his students each year “refurbish” a dog house-sized model a previous class built out of adobe bricks they made. Abuse and disease were part of the picture, but so were the Spanish and Mediterranean architecture, food and culture that are part of California today.

“I try to present all the sides,” he said. Scott Schugel, fourth-grade teacher at Woodland Hills Elementary Charter for Enriched Studies, said he tries to give his students a “whole picture” of the California missions, including the negative consequences for Native Americans who lived at them. And it seems teachers have been easing it out anyhow, or allowing students to choose a different format to show their understanding of the period. Though some teachers assigned the model building in class, state guidelines haven’t specifically required it. Part of the change is a move away from one big project and toward “skills that students need for the future,” said Nathan MacAinsh, history/social sciences coordinator for the district. The Los Angeles Unified School District – the second largest district in the nation – will be adopting the new guidelines. The framework, adopted by the state’s Department of Education, has tapped the attention of districts, parents and students across Southern California, from Los Angeles to the Inland Empire. Students should consider cultural differences, such as gender roles and religious beliefs, in order to better understand the dynamics of Native and Spanish interaction.” “Missions were sites of conflict, conquest, and forced labor. Building missions from sugar cubes or popsicle sticks does not help students understand the period and is offensive to many,” the new History-Social Science Framework adopted last year says. “Attention should focus on the daily experience of missions rather than the building structures themselves.

Things remembered mission valley