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Arizona Civics Podcast
Welcome to the Arizona Civics Podcast. This podcast aims to share our journey of sustaining Arizona’s interests in reforms to civic education by working with civic educators in our state. This work is being done by the Center for American Civics at Arizona State University. I am your host, Liz Evans, Civic Education and Outreach Program Director at ASU, and I will interview Arizona teachers, content experts, and leaders in civic education. We hope you enjoy our journey to make Arizona a national civics model!
Arizona Civics Podcast
Supporting Arizona Educators: A Deep Dive into History Education Resources
Dr. Monica Ketchum-Cardenas, president of the Arizona Council for History Education, shares an array of resources and opportunities available to Arizona history and civics teachers that many educators don't know exist.
• ACHE membership costs only $25 annually and includes free conference access plus National Council for History Education membership
• The organization offers classroom grants up to $500 for curriculum materials and resources
• ACHE provides scholarships for teachers to attend the national conference with registration and travel funding
• This year's conference theme "Conflict and Cooperation" explores how Americans have navigated challenging historical periods
• Teachers can become civic leaders through community involvement without running for office
• Social media comparisons like "What would Common Sense look like on TikTok?" make history relevant to students
• Practical classroom assignments like designing awareness campaigns help students understand civic engagement
• Arizona's diverse landscape and independent-minded population provide rich opportunity for exploring local history
Join the Arizona Council for History Education through the link in our show notes to access these resources and attend the September conference featuring keynote speaker Dr. Stephen Knott.
ACHE Website
ACHE Conference
StoryTime with Ms. Moni
The Arizona Constitution Project
Check Out Our Free Lessons on Arizona History and Government!
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I am very excited to chat with our guest today, mostly because I think there are so many things that are available to Arizona teachers Arizona teachers don't really know about. I met Monica through the Arizona Council for History Education. I am now on the board of directors, but one of my first experiences was the conference last year. I got to present and I got to be a part of directors. But one of my first experiences was the conference last year. I got to present and I got to be a part of it and it was so I'm as somebody who goes to a lot of conferences. It was so well run and I left, even though I'm not in the classroom. I left with so many ideas and connections and it just felt. I felt good, I was there. That experience so good, in fact, that I wanted to be a part of the board of directors. So I wanted to introduce Monica. Monica is the current president. So actually, monica, I will let you introduce yourself and let our listeners know kind of anything you want to tell us about you.
Speaker 2:Hi, my name is Dr Monica Ketchum-Cardenas and I'm a professor of history and sociology at Arizona Western College down in Yuma so the southwest corner we call it the west coast of Arizona and I've been participating in the AIC conferences for probably about 10 or 11 years and, just like you, it was going to an AIC stands for Arizona Council for History Education, and it was through going to a conference that I started to become more and more involved and I was approached because I was the only person coming from Yuma and I was presenting on a regular basis, and they said hey, do you want to join our board? And I said I was really excited to come on board because I am passionate about supporting teachers. Even though I've never taught in the history in the K-12 classroom. I really believe that that's a place where we need to focus our support, not only in Arizona but nationwide, and I loved that.
Speaker 2:You know one of the guiding principles, if you will, for AIC and the National Council for History and Education, nche it really is to provide resources and provide support for classroom teachers and that's something that, like you said, you just don't get that in a lot of conferences. A lot of times it's more like this is what I'm writing a book on or an article on, and people are just sharing what they've done research on in you know, and getting feedback, but we're really student and teacher focused in terms of our organization.
Speaker 1:And I love that. And one of the things that I really liked is, you know, going to a meeting. We were talking about the national conference. This year it was in St Louis, missouri, and AIC has scholarships and they can send a couple of teachers to that. You got to go to the conference. So tell us a little bit about the NCHE conference and what kind of opportunities teachers who are members have.
Speaker 2:Well, the National Council for History Education has an annual conference and they hold it in a different historical city every single year and of course we know this year the theme was all history is local. And so when I say historical city, every city has a history, every town has a history, and so this year was really interesting because I thought I don't know what I was thinking about St Louis but I was really gobsmacked really by all of the history that is in St Louis that I didn't even connect to St Louis. So, in addition to the conference, you have excursions to historical places and opportunities to network historical places and opportunities to network. And, being in Arizona, a lot of times we feel, you know, we're all the way out in the West, in the Wild West, and that we don't always have the same connections and opportunities that people on the East Coast, particularly if you're like in the New England and New York and Virginia area. There's all kinds of opportunities for teachers there, and so one of the things that we think is really important for AIC is to provide opportunities for our teachers to also attend the conference. And so each year conference, and so each year, as long as I've remembered we have we send four people to the conference and so this can be a combination of board members, it can be regular members.
Speaker 2:We always try to have at least two of our members go, sometimes more, and we provide the conference registration and then travel funding because we know that you know it's not cheap to fly out of different parts of Arizona and then the hotel and things like that. So I think you know this is something that that we're really committed to, so that, you know, in In universities sometimes there is more funding for people to travel, although we know that that there's been a lot of issues trying to get travel funding. More recently, especially since COVID, things have kind of been dialed back. But that doesn't exist in the K-12 system in Arizona. It's really difficult.
Speaker 2:You have to go and get you know individual grants and things like that, and so we like to, you know, offer that as an opportunity for our teachers, and our conference, our local conference, is also just a benefit of membership, and so we make sure that our teachers in Arizona, if you join the Arizona Council for History Education, it's like $25 a year and you're also a member of the National Council for History Education and so you have all of those benefits.
Speaker 2:Plus, we have a conference every year that you can attend. And then you know we have other grants. We have classroom grants. So you can apply for a classroom grant up to $500 because we know we need more resources in the classroom and so if there's some kind of curriculum that you want to purchase for your classroom, if there's materials that you need for a lesson, then those are things that you can apply for these grants and it's not a complicated application process and we love to reach out and help teachers in the classroom so that we can support the teaching of history and make sure that young people throughout Arizona have access to quality history education.
Speaker 1:I mean, and I think one of my favorite things about being on the board is when we were having the discussion about sending people and it was very classroom teacher focused, like we want to make sure that at least somebody going is a classroom teacher and gets that support, and I, I mean, I love going to our meetings because it does feel like that. You know, we are both in higher ed. I was in K-12 for a while and I think sometimes, especially teachers of history and civics feel like they're left to their own devices. It's very lonely and now that my eyes have been opened to all these things it's like there are so many people out there that want to help. And you mentioned the conference. So the local conference that ACHE is putting on is in September. Can you talk a little bit about that and why a teacher should go?
Speaker 2:Sure, just going back to NCHE, I mean I know you were just blown away by the number of elementary school teachers and early career teachers who were there. I mean there was just this, really, you know, great vibe throughout the conference, because these are people that are just thirsty for knowledge and they also need a lot of support. And so I was just really excited to see so many, like I said, early career and you know, k through eight teachers in there, because you know they seem to have the least amount of support in the classroom, because when you are teaching elementary school, you're also juggling everything else in addition to history and civics, right. And then, with our Arizona local conference, we also encourage pre-service teachers to attend, and so that gets people to be able to network even before they're in the classroom and learn about all of the resources that we have available for students. We also have exhibitors there that are from the various organizations in in Arizona that are there to provide resources, arizona that are there to provide resources. And yeah, I mean it's something that we're really committed to, because we really do believe that if we don't have a, a history focused, a classroom focused conference in Arizona, that you know our classroom teachers are just not going to have the support that they, that they deserve. And even if they, they may not take away everything from the conference. I mean they may go and say, well, you know I teach world history, so maybe the keynote, you know it's not something that I can use, but we find world-class keynote speakers. So even if it's not a topic that somebody is, you know, really going to be using, they're just inspired. They go away inspired.
Speaker 2:And we do like to have what one of our former board members, one of the founders of AIC, used to say we try and have some shovel-ready lessons right that the not the attendees can come in and take away lesson plans, take away ideas that they can just turn around and implement in in their classrooms. And and that's, I mean it is our signature event. We do, you know, we provide other support throughout the year. We provide other support throughout the year. But I think I think if somebody is a pre-service teacher, if somebody is a classroom teacher, if somebody is early career or just kind of facing burnout which I think a lot of us recently it's it's a way to come together and and and really be inspired. And we hold it in September.
Speaker 2:We used to have it in August, which was a little bit, you know, a little bit hotter, but we have it so that by the time people settle into their classes they're like, okay, it's another year, and then you just kind of have this injection of excitement and new ideas and I feel that it can really, you know, inspire people to keep, you know, pushing forward throughout the rest of the semester, the rest of the term, because they get that just, I guess the only way I can describe it is like an injection of history, right, and also just the networking, right.
Speaker 2:They're like, okay, I know somebody at another school, another school. So if you're in a smaller school where you might be the only person who teaches history or civics, history and civics, right, you might be, you know, feeling like you're just in this little silo and nobody, you know, understands and there's no one to bounce ideas off. Well, now you're in a room with people who are from throughout, typically the greater Phoenix area, although we have people coming, you know, sometimes from Flagstaff and Tucson. But you know, you, you really feel like now I have a community of teachers and, you know lifelong learners, right, who, who can bounce ideas off of each other, who can sometimes commiserate with each other but, you know, might partner up and develop you know curriculum together and things like that. So I think that's one of the things that makes our conference, you know, special and important for history educators to attend each year.
Speaker 1:I mean last year, and I can't believe this because I've been a history and civics teacher for over two decades and last year was my first year attending and I loved the keynote. I have his book and I loved that. Every time I walked into a room or a session it felt very welcoming, right. I think that sometimes, especially if you are somebody who's going by yourself, you're like I don't like, it's hard it. This conference was just very like hey, come sit over here and you know, look at what's going on.
Speaker 1:And I will say I'm very excited for our keynote speaker this year. It is Dr Stephen Knott. He has written a lot of books, most recently a book on JFK, but our theme this year is conflict and cooperation and what we're really looking at is, in times of struggle, what has the United States done, world Arizona, you know, looking at, because it feels right now sometimes hard to teach history and civics, but this isn't the first time. It's happened right, and so we're really trying to spotlight. There have been lots of times in our nation's history and our state's history where there has been a lot of conflict, what had to go into cooperating to kind of move forward. So I, I mean I'm I am stoked for this conference and I feel like it's not an expensive conference. Members are free, correct?
Speaker 2:Yes, we don't. We don't charge for the conference we conference. It's a benefit of membership. So just join the Arizona Council for History Education and you are in.
Speaker 1:I will make sure to put that link in our show notes so that anybody that wants to has the ability. So one of the things that you and I have talked about before is how teachers can be leaders in their communities. I think sometimes teachers think, well, I can only be a leader if I'm a department chair, or I can only be a leader you know X, y and Z and you actually have experience being a leader in your community. Can you talk a little bit about that for us?
Speaker 2:Sure, I grew up in a very politically active family and I come from a mixed marriage. My mother was Democrat and my father was Republican, and so we never subscribed to the idea that you don't talk about politics. But I learned from a very early age that we have to have political discourse and that everyone, you know, I mean it goes back to the old adage that you know, politics are personal right, goes back to the old adage that you know, you know politics are personal right, and everybody has the opportunity to effect change in their community, to engage in their community in different ways. And so, you know, I was always pretty shy growing up, but I was around all of these discussions and then even, you know, as a teacher, I'm always telling my students, you know I'm, you know you, you have to vote right, you have to be engaged. If that's the minimum, that's the minimum is voting. And sometimes students will say, well, it's just, you know, my vote doesn't really count. But I've seen numbers of times when I'm on a city council or you mean a supervisor, a county supervisor seat, it's been a handful of votes between the person who wins the election and the one who doesn't right, and so so when I turned, when I turned 18, there's a couple of friends of mine the most exciting thing about turning 18 was registering to vote right.
Speaker 2:We were always kind of, you know, hooked into politics and for a long time I thought that politics was really just those elected officials and that wasn't really where I wanted to necessarily go. But I became involved in various community and that's where my political impact has come from. So I had a business in Calexico, california, and so I joined the Chamber of Commerce and I was elected to the Board of Directors and then I was elected to the executive board. I served as president for a couple of years and I realized that being the president or the treasurer or whatever on a city chamber of commerce board is political right You're advocating. I had to go to city council meetings and things like that.
Speaker 2:And then I've also been involved in a lot of organizations that are related to raising awareness about, or raising funds for, domestic violence, shelters, women's shelters, for domestic violence, shelters, women's shelters, and I am a member of Seroptimus International and through that I've gone to.
Speaker 2:I was just a couple of weeks ago I was at the Commission on the Status of Women, I was a delegate to the UN, and so my path towards you know, being involved in Arizona.
Speaker 2:They might say I'm not really political right, but find something that you're passionate about and it makes being politically active and engaging in the civic space something that eventually will become natural right.
Speaker 2:So I've helped to organize coalitions that were, you know, very so like a human trafficking coalition that was interdisciplinary, where you're bringing together law enforcement, district attorneys.
Speaker 2:I mean, when I'm talking about law enforcement, we're talking like police, sheriffs, fbi, homeland Security bringing all of these different people together in a room and being able to put aside your differences and focus on the mission and the problem at the same time getting different people's perspectives. And I think that I think that's something that has, you know, experiences like that, I think, have served me well in terms of just my personal life and in the world that we're living in now, because we are seeing that politics is very polarized right now, and it's not the first time and it won't be the last time that we've had, you know, this polarization in that, although what many people see in the news is the two extremes and people yelling at each other and just you know the hate that comes out of it that when we all sit in a room together, that we are often able to put aside our differences and work towards a common solution.
Speaker 1:Right, and so so I you know that's kind of you know my, I don't know my, my perspective, I guess on on being um active in the community, um, I appreciate that, because I think it like giving that local look and and you're right Like people think sometimes politics means I have to run for office and I have to do this and everything you're talking about.
Speaker 1:It's what you wanted to do and this is how you want to be involved, and it does, I think, bring more hope when you're watching the national news and you're seeing all this division. But you're like well, my personal experience and I love that you grew up in a politically divided household One of the things I wish there were more of is civil discourse and not shying away, but because you know the conversation you're going to have is going to be a conversation. You're going to learn from it and I think part of the reason that people shy away from political conversations now is because that's what they see is the yelling back and forth and this divisiveness. But when you really come down to a local level, like you said, when we're all sitting at a table tackling a problem, we're not looking at well, you're a Republican or you're a Democrat we're looking at. This is the problem. How can we solve this for our community?
Speaker 2:Yeah, great point.
Speaker 2:I think that when we you know if you're a teacher, a lot of times, like you said, you think the only way I can be political is if I run for. I'm at the high school, so maybe I run for the elementary school board mindset that people have is that it has to be an elected office. But there's so many different ways that that we can. We can be involved. I often tell my students that you know when, when they you know kind of hem and haw about voting, because I'm like how many of you guys are going to vote and and they'll be like it's not going to make a difference. But I say, well, you know, I mean I have a problem with the Electoral College because it's not the 1700s, right. But I say, well, think about, you got to vote down the ballot. Because in fact I say you need to vote up the ballot start at the local level, because the president of the United States is not going to fix the pothole in front of your house. And I mean these are the things that you call your city council or you call the county supervisors about. You know things that are present in your local community. So look at who those people are who are running for school board, who are running for county supervisor, who are running for judge, and you know, start there and then work up.
Speaker 2:And then I also, you know I do not like canvassing. I've canvassed for a couple of politicians and it always happened on a Saturday or Sunday morning and people are not happy to see you knocking on their door at eight o'clock in the morning and so, um, I, I just do not like doing that and I'm, you know, it's just not my bag and I've told people in the past like, okay, I'll do anything for you except Canvas, because I just don't like it. But for some people they love it. You know you're getting out there in the morning, you're spreading the, you know the word, and yeah. So I say there's so many ways that you can get involved. And even if you don't want to get involved that way, if you have you know if you're keeping up with what's going on in politics, if there's, if there's a ballot initiative that you're not very happy about, or if there's a piece of legislation that you don't support, write to your congressman or person, write to your senator, write to your state senator, right to the governor. And you know, I know a lot of it's. It can be.
Speaker 2:Really, you have contact and you may. You might have a form letter from different organizations. You can call them and they may not agree with you, but if they get enough people calling, then that is going to have an impact and I mean for me. I get you know, I get the, we received your letter. We received your letter and I'm like, well, I'm not going to do anything with it, but but if I can be a little thorn in in my representative side who does not share my political beliefs, then more power to me, right, and I think that you know when you have, you know when you have representatives and senators, they're there to represent the people. When you have a county supervisor, they're there to represent their constituents and they don't always get an accurate pulse of what their constituents you know really want, because you can hold a town hall meeting but not everybody is going to have access to go to that town hall meeting.
Speaker 2:It might be at a bad time, there might be transportation issues, especially when we look at our huge, you know, districts that we have in Arizona. And so sending that letter and voicing your opinion, it doesn't hurt, right, and it's one way that each of us can get elected if you do a letter writing campaign or something like that. So I always, I always do encourage my students to to do that and I don't know, just just getting getting people active, active and reading up on the issues, because if we don't right, if we don't do anything, then nothing's going to change. And if we do do something, maybe nothing's going to change but we can say we tried right.
Speaker 1:I would rather do something and have you know than not do something. Right, because if there's a bunch of people who are like, well, my vote doesn't count, well, there's a political cartoon that says, like, my vote doesn't count, but it shows like a bunch of people Like the things we do count. They may not count in this moment, but they do eventually count, whether you're talking to your neighbors or you're doing a letter writing campaign or you know you're focusing on these state and local elections. Those are national elections, are important as well. But you're right, the people who are going to fix so our, our neighborhood has a cow problem, because cows just are like I. There are times I look over and I can see a bunch of them coming down the street. The national government's not going to fix that for me, it's going to be my town council.
Speaker 1:So how then would you encourage? You know, the hope is that they learn civic knowledge in K-12. And this is something I know teachers are trying to do. Teachers can only do so much because there's only so many hours in the day. There's so much that is required of teachers. What can teachers do? You know, whether it's at K-12 or whether they're teaching at the college level to get students to be involved. You know whether they're teaching at the college level to get students to be involved.
Speaker 2:You know, besides telling kids, like go register to vote and go do this canvas or whatever else. Well, I think having projects or assignments that are related to political issues or social issues. I have an assignment this isn't in a history class, but it's in one of my other classes where I have students design either an awareness campaign or some kind of fundraiser for a cause that they're interested in and talk about what they're going to, what they're going to be doing about it. So it could be hunger in Yuma County, and so what are they going to do to support the local food bank? So they'll create a campaign and learn about how they can leverage their networks in order to try and bring about positive change. So things have changed over time. It used to be that you had to take out an ad in the newspaper or you had to print up a bunch of flyers and mail them out, but now we have social media right, so they could design a social media campaign right and just getting them thinking about the myriad ways that they can become engaged for positive social change. And some of them have done things that were political. I had one that had a plan to reduce the length of the lines going from through the San Luis Port of Entry into Mexico, because there's so many commuters that in the afternoon and you'd have, you know, the lines just backed up and people are idling and there's, you know, pollution from cars and things like that. So I had a student who said, okay, first of all, I have this plan, I'm going to take it to the city council about this, that and the other, and it really makes them think about, like just a small issue in their community that they might be able to, you know, light a fire under those public officials to actually take action. And so I think, designing some and it doesn't have to be a big project, but designing assignments that have students think about the impact that their civic involvement could have.
Speaker 2:Even if you're teaching, you know early US history and you're like, oh well, that isn't necessarily relevant to today. Well, relevant to today, well, you could look at issues that were happening in the 1800s or even in. You know, yeah, just say looking at the 1800s or something, and then ask that follow-up question what might you do today? Or what's an issue that's similar to this that you know we need to change today and have students kind of think critically about what they might do, go back to what they might do back then, or what they might do if, in you know, the 1820s, we had social media, right, things like that, what, how would, how would common sense, you know, have been, you know, distributed today? Right, it would have been distributed on TikTok, right it would have been, it would have been just like soundbites, rather than publishing all of common sense, right, and thinking about one of the things that, going back to common sense, I'll have students, you know, look at it and say, you know, not everything that Thomas Paine is going to resonate with everyone.
Speaker 2:But if you were living at this time and thinking about, like your family and maybe what you know, maybe your family's, you know merchants or they're farmers or whatever you know what, which of these points would have kind of pushed you towards becoming a revolutionary right?
Speaker 2:Because you know, when people are reading it, they're like, well, you know, that doesn't make any sense, it's not relevant to me, right, but there's going to be one or two things that people are going to say, oh, that's right. And so just kind of sometimes taking some of those older documents, or, you know, the Declaration of Independence, and then, if you're looking at, like more recent US history, thinking about the civil rights movement, and the same thing like designing, you know, designing a civil rights campaign within today's society. It gets students thinking about how civic activism has changed over time, but the issues are often the same, right? It's like how do we get the word out, how do I get involved? And so those are some of the kinds of things that I think that we, as educators, can do, either in K-12 or higher. Education is really kind of, you know, make it relevant for our students.
Speaker 1:I will literally be thinking about what common sense by Thomas Paine on TikTok would look like for the remainder of the day. But you're right, you can't take the entirety of that brochure and put it on TikTok. But you know, if your family were farmers or if your family were you know merchants in town, like what parts of this? And it really gets students looking, because I think sometimes, especially with history, kids think, well, why do I need to learn that? It's already happened and it's like there's actually a lot we could learn and a lot of these things happen multiple times, are very cyclical. It just looks different because, like you said, now we have social media, now we have ways to get things out to the world.
Speaker 1:Where you brought up the declaration, we're coming up on America 250, right, how long did it take King George to get that things? I think thing students don't realize like things move a whole lot slower as opposed to these quick things. Because what if King George was like slipping through his TikTok and saw that one of his colonies is like yeah, we're good, we're done, like have been? Oh, now I see these kinds of things make me want to go back into the classroom, so bad.
Speaker 2:And thinking about AI too, and thinking about, like Paul Revere's Boston Massacre, right? Is that like the first deep fake, right, because it's propaganda. And so you're like, okay, you can, you can kind of think about things like that, and then it gets them kind of, you know, intrigued, right, and I mean you're not going to capture all of them, but I, you know, they, they always, you know, they always say that you know, if you don't learn history, you're not going to be a, a, you know good member of society. Right, you need to know history in order to really fully participate in society, because if you don't, then it's like you're not going to really have a point of reference. Why is this important? And so so I think that we have to find, you know, new creative ways to reach out to, to our students.
Speaker 2:I used to do a. I used to have them do tweets on different topics and they would just bring them into the classroom and write them up on the whiteboard and I mean, some of them were just hilarious when they're talking about the Boston Tea Party or whatever, or voting rights and things like that. So I think, if you get a little creative and say, hey, what would this have looked like today and get them thinking about that. It might kind of spark some interest. And who knows, we may be teaching the next senator. And who knows, we may be teaching the next senator, the next president, you know, the next, you know.
Speaker 1:Any of them. I think people think like, oh, tweets, that sounds really fun and it's like it is. It also requires a lot of critical thinking, like to take something you want to say and you got 140 characters or I don't know what it is now, but it really makes them think and it it makes it relevant to them, right, like we're talking about TikTok. And I will be honest, when I taught, I did not understand Twitter, and so finally, one day I just said to my seniors can somebody help me with this? Like I want to understand how to use this, and it became one of the best things I used in my AP government class because that's what they were using at the time, and I dove into that world. It was kind of scary for me, but it ended up being really fun. Now, speaking of socials, one thing that I learned about you is that you have a YouTube channel reading books. Can you tell us about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I have a soft spot in my heart for children's books especially awesome especially kind of quirky children's books.
Speaker 2:So when during COVID, during the lockdown, I just I had this whole collection of children's books and I started reading them and and sending them to our child development learning lab, because all the kids were now at home during the lockdown, at home during the lockdown, and so I said here, if you guys, if you think that this will, you know, help your, your students, then you're welcome to use them. And then I started to look and these were some old school books, right, and my all time favorite book is the Three Billy Goats Gruff. So that's like my I, you know, I like collect Three Billy Goats Gruff. And so I I started to look for other books that were newer and, you know, a little, maybe more relevant than than the old fairy tales and things like that. And I just started reading them and they're all one take. It's like very low production value, but but yeah, so I called it story time with Ms Moni, because I've known as Moni or Moni, and and I I just started, you know, sharing it.
Speaker 2:And then I have another one, a sub, a sub one, that's all on, on punk rock, kids books and so, and so I have like a few books that are, like, you know, the ABCs for punk rock and and things like that. So I have a couple of different uh channels and those are more for uh, those ones are more for my, uh, my friends, because we're all into punk rock and so I'm like, hey, share this with your kids or your grandkids, um so. So yeah, I've got those um kind of you know little little YouTube channel with that kind of stuff. I've got it. I've got a Facebook page that the same thing, sorry, sorry, storytime with Miss Moni.
Speaker 2:That where I was posting stuff for a while, but I'm just so bad about posting on Facebook and stuff and so, but, but every once in a while I'll post, post things and stuff and so, but, but every once in a while I'll post, post things and, and a lot of them I found. I found some great books. A couple of them are history, kids, kids, history books, and some are are just really about belonging and so so I think I have a pretty good collection there. So, whether you like the three billy goats gruff, or whether you want to, you know, want Steve Caballero's skating skating story or something like that, I've got, I've got kind of something for everyone.
Speaker 1:And that also is a way to serve your community. Right Like this is. There's so many different ways and I will don't worry listeners, I will link all of these for you. I love that you have a punk rock one that is, it's a very specific niche, but it's needed. Right Like these are the things that it makes reading fun and it makes it accessible and and it doesn't have to be, and I love that. I mean you say low production value. I say authentic right, because I think what it shows is we don't have to have these like massive production studios, like reading kids' books, Cause I always read to my students, whether they were eighth graders or seniors. I think it is such a valuable thing. Maybe I'll start doing it with my college kids, but this is a way to serve your community and I love that during pandemic, during a lockdown, you still found a way to serve your community and again in a way that worked for you and that you were passionate about.
Speaker 2:And again in a way that worked for you and that you were passionate about. Yeah, it and it is. You know it is. It is a good outlet as well, a little creative outlet. And I had taught, I had taught a class team taught a class for the honors. Our honors program called the politics of punk, and so one of the things we did is we had them create a set list and create a poster for a festival or a concert that was related to some kind of political issue that had to be current. Not, you know, it wasn't rock against Reagan or you know some of the some of the stuff going on in the 80s, but it had to be something that was current, and so that was. I also kind of shared it with my students that were in that class so they could see some of the punk rock ABCs and things like that.
Speaker 1:Is that class available to audit, because I would love to just sit and learn in that class at some point.
Speaker 2:That class. It was a one credit honors class, and so we only taught it once, and it was in spring of 2020. So we went for, you know, eight weeks, nine weeks, and then we had to go virtual. But I'd love to teach it again, but, yeah, I haven't had the chance to.
Speaker 1:That sounds like an amazing class. My last question for you is we're both Arizona girls. I was. I'm not a native, I will say, but I've lived here since I was six, so I kind of feel like a native. What is your favorite thing about the great state of Arizona?
Speaker 2:There's like so much. I think that one of the things that people their, their, their image of Arizona is that it's just a desert, right, it's the saguaro right. So, it's just a desert, right, it's the saguaro right. So, and I think you know, that's just such a limiting vision of what Arizona is about. It is just such a diverse state when it comes to you know the mountains, the climate. I mean we really do have like just you know, you can drive for a few hours and go from you know the deserts outside of Yuma to you know pine forests, right, we have so many fantastic natural wonders in this state. There's so much history in this state, and so I'm, you know, I'm also a transplant.
Speaker 2:I grew up in the California desert, so I'm from about an hour and a half west of Arizona and a little tiny border town that people don't even think exists, and and so my but I. But we went to Yuma. When I was a kid, the Freedom Train came to Yuma, and so I got to see the Freedom Train when I was about like seven or something like that Freedom Train when I was about like seven or something like that. But that's one of the things I love, just driving around Arizona and, yeah, interacting with the people and the people in Arizona also, I mean, I think what really encapsulates the idea of the Arizonan is encapsulates the idea of the Arizonan is. I have a former political science professor here at Arizona Western. He runs the Freedom Library in Yuma, and I was doing something for the centennial and he said, I said, hey, tell me what you know, I'm collecting things that are your favorite part of Arizona, or what you think represents Arizona, and so some people are like desert, the river, right, things like that.
Speaker 2:And he just said freedom. And that really stuck with me because you really do see that the people in in Arizona are free thinkers, right, um, and and you have, um, you know, we're we're not necessarily, um, you know, defined by boxes, right, and so, um, that idea of independence and in, you know, and when we think about, like you know, politics, right, um, we, we always have a lot of independence. And you know, and when we think about, like you know, politics, right, we always have a lot of independence in Arizona, and so that's another thing. You know, just I love the fact that we have, just, you know, just, a lot of people that are caring, just a lot, of, a lot of people that are caring, that, that love the state and and that that really, you know, embrace those ideas of of freedom and independence, you know, and that's American right.
Speaker 1:I love that you say too, like people think Arizona and they think cactus and desert and it's like, well, I went to school at NAU. It is a forest and and we have the Grand Canyon and we have Horseshoe Bend and I mean there's so many. I was actually in Tubac a couple weeks ago, which is a little bit north of Nogales, and it's Ibn Sinoida, you know, up in Sholo, like they're. So our state is so diverse and the people genuinely are, they're proud to be Arizonans. But that, like when I say proud to be Arizonans, there's not just one definition of an Arizonan and I think that's why I love it so much is we have ranchers and we have farmers. I mean I live next to a dairy farm and I live in Gilbert, but we also have our big cities and we have our state universities and we we love our history and we celebrate our history and we learn from our history and I think that is I wish more people understood that about our state, because you said it kind of at the beginning where you know a lot of people think history is, you know, east coast and that's you know where all of this stuff happened, and it's like, but once you start digging into the West, especially our state.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting. So thank you for sharing that and thank you for I mean everything. I have so many notes written down from this. I appreciate your time, monica and listeners. I will be putting the link to ACHE so if you want to become a member, the conference information will be on the website as well. I will put her YouTube channel and, monica, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to talk to us and to let listeners know a little bit about you and also about Yuma. I think sometimes people think, well, yuma is just on the way to San Diego, but Yuma itself has so much history and it's such a cool place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we're working on a Yuma history app. It's all student, student projects and little podcasts, and and again. It's like you know, I think people don't always realize how much history is in our own backyard. And once you start digging I mean really in Arizona you don't have to dig very far, you sure don't? History is everywhere.
Speaker 1:History is everywhere and history is local. That last year's NCHE theme, history is local, like this, is where the fun stuff is. All history is local. Yep, thank you so much, monica. Thank you.
