The California mission project is an assignment done in California elementary schools, most often in the fourth grade, where students build dioramas of one of the 21 Spanish missions in California. While not being included in the California Common Core educational standards, the project was vastly popular and done throughout the state. The popularity of the project has declined due to scrutiny on what the assignment teaches students about the treatment of indigenous Californians in the California Spanish missions.
The mission project is commonly assigned to California elementary school students in the fourth grade when they are first learning about their state's Spanish missions. Students are assigned one of the 21 Spanish missions in California and have to build a diorama out of common household objects such as popsicle sticks, sugar cubes, papier-mâché, and cardboard.[1] The project is so commonly done that premade kits of specific missions can be found in craft stores and giftshops at the missions themselves.[2][3][4]
Alongside the mission project, some schools send their classes to local Missions to learn about its history and participate in child-friendly Mission-era activities such as leather tooling, churning butter, and making tortillas by hand.[1]
The 21 Spanish missions in present-day California were built between 1769 and 1833 largely by indigenous Californians at the behest of Spanish Franciscan priests who sought to evangelize them.[3][4] The natives were forced to stay in the missions and were kept in squalid conditions, forced to work, and were severely malnourished. The mission Indians also experienced beatings, torture, and brandings at the hands of the friars.[5] Approximately 62,000 indigenous Californians died from a combination of disease and severe mistreatment by the time the missions ceased operation in 1833.[4]
"At the missions, the priests worked to create loyal Spanish subjects. . . . They would move the California Indians into the missions, teach them to be Christians, and show them European ways."
— Excerpt from Lesson 3, "The Mission System" in the 2007 textbook California: A Changing State, Emphasis added by Deborah A. Miranda.[3]
The fourth grade is the first, and potentially only, time that California students learn about the California missions.[4] Many textbooks and educational resources throughout history glossed over the mistreatment of Indigenous Californians in the missions and glorified the actions of the Spanish due to being aimed towards children.[3] According to a history journal, the Spanish colonists were depicted as heroic pioneers in the first lessons about California history in 1925.[6] In the 1960s and 70s, certain Californian educators actively worked to promote the image of the Spanish priests who worked in missions.[4]
Models of California missions have been built in California schools since the 1960s. While never being included in California's educational curriculum, the assignment spread across the state.[4][7]
"Building missions from sugar cubes or popsicle sticks does not help students understand the period and is offensive to many. Instead, students should have access to multiple sources to help them understand the lives of different groups of people who lived in and around missions, so that students can place them in a comparative context."
— Excerpt from Chapter 7, "California: A Changing State" in the 2017 History/Social Science Framework for California public schools.[8]
The prevalence of the project has dropped substantially as of the mid-2010s.[7] While indigenous and Chicano educational activists have protested the disingenuous portrayal of the California missions since the 1960s, it was not until 2016 that the state of California took a stance against the project.[4]
The historical curriculum framework adopted by the California Department of Education in 2016 and revealed to the public in 2017 specifically recommends against the mission project as a form of teaching students about the missions.[4][7] Chapter 7 of this framework revolves around fourth grade education and instead recommends teachers to ask their students to consider what life was like for the several groups who were involved with the missions, such as "the native population, the Spanish military, the Spanish–Mexican settler population, and the missionaries".[6][8] This is one of the many changes made by the California History-Social Science Project (CHSSP), the creators of the framework, that seeks to teach the history of Indigenous Californians in a more historic and comprehensive way.[7] According to the executive director of the CHSSP, "building a mission doesn't really teach [students] anything" and "is offensive to many".[1]
Despite the new framework, the mission project continues to be done in certain elementary schools.[4]
