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The National Seminar on the Teaching of Latin American Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

Miriam Williford*
Affiliation:
Winthrop College
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All too frequently, national associations pay scant heed to professional activity below the university level, seeming to forget that schools and colleges are the foundation for their future success. Aware of this, the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) appointed its first committee on teaching Latin American studies on all levels in 1973. The committee, working closely with the steering committee of the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs, (CLASP), sought some means of building bridges of mutual help and understanding between teachers and professors of Latin American studies. In these efforts, two specific needs and one rather obvious fact became apparent. The needs were for some means of updating and improving the quality of teacher training for those teaching Latin American content and for the development of instructional materials that met the high standards of both Latin American scholars and professional educators. The obvious fact was that the average Latin Americanist had little understanding of the current school classroom and the problems confronting and opportunities available to the classroom teacher. To compound these, it was clear that the study of Latin America as a world culture area was diminishing. Such conditions, once recognized, cried out for action on the part of LASA/CLASP.

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 by the University of Texas Press

References

Notes

1. The kit was designed by Shirley Heath and Miriam Williford of Winthrop College. Each kit contained a game; codices; instructions for making codices, potato stamps, pottery; costume designs; design cards; and a resource notebook. The notebook included fifteen activities for grades 1-6, thirteen for grades 7-12; materials on use of kit contents, costumes, Maya numeral system, city planning, houses, tools, etc.; and a section of adapted primary sources. Annotated bibliographies for teachers and students were also included. A few kits are available for purchase at $50 each. Interested persons may contact M. Williford, Box 5102, WCS, Rock Hill, S.C. 29733.

2. All who would like to become a part of this network—school teacher, college or university professor, anyone interested in the teaching of Latin American Studies—are welcome. Simply write to the author at the address given above. Please send information concerning instructional techniques or materials developed, particular interests, or requests for possible inclusion in the Newsletter. If funds permit, the Newsletter will be sent to all interested persons.

3. Each potential participant was asked on the questionnaire/application to list the name and address of the Latin American center/program within easy reach of his school. The CLASP steering committee is trying to assist those who did not have any affiliation.