Return-Path: <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id h9J3lSV02591; Sat, 18 Oct 2003 23:47:28 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 23:47:28 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <005e01c395f3$7e820e70$b968f7a5@air.org> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "Mary Ann Corley" <macorley1@earthlink.net> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:1261] Re: Education Group Calls for Revised X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; Status: O Content-Length: 21315 Lines: 407 Hi, Sammie: Thank you for sharing your community's experience and your tribal college's Writing Project! Your message speaks eloquently to the need for culturally relevant educational practices and more appropriate professional development for teachers. Although your Writing Project can serve only 7-15 teachers a year and the need is far greater, take heart in the knowledge that good programs like yours usually have a ripple effect: positive changes may begin occurring in other classes from the example set by the teachers you have reached. You may be interested in reading the following article from Phi Delta Kappan: You can access the complete text at http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k0310sta.htm . It would be better if the author had used the term "Native American" instead of "Indian," but the message is worth reading. Will other list subscribers also share their experiences related to successful culturally relevant educational practices? Thanks! -Mary Ann WHITE TEACHERS, INDIAN CHILDREN By Bobby Ann Starnes Illustration © 2003 by Mario Noche TWO YEARS ago, my ignorance and I began to teach on Montana's Rocky Boy Reservation. Until then, I had never really thought of myself as white. My identity was formed by the facts that I am an Appalachian woman, the daughter of a coal miner, a hillbilly -- somehow not quite white. But at Rocky Boy Elementary, I was bride-dress white, and it mattered more than ever before. Before Montana, my only Indian experience had been in the summer of 1959. Our family was on the way to Florida, and the route took us across the Smoky Mountains. My father nervously maneuvered our 1949 Buick along the twists and turns and through the tunnels that curled around and through the mountains. The road was narrow. The turns were sharp. The valley was far below. There were no guard rails. I held my eyes tightly shut but could not contain persistent slow-motion images of our car flying off the mountainside and drifting silently to the ground below. Moments after the mountains were behind us, a wooden sign welcomed us to the Cherokee Indian Reservation. Stretched out before me was the closest thing to Disneyland I'd ever seen. Motels, restaurants, and souvenir shops were lined up wall to wall on both sides of the highway. There were cars and people as far as I could see. My father wheeled our tank of a car into a parking space right in front of Big Bear's Cherokee Trading Post. I jumped out of the car and ran to the window. There before my eyes was a virtual cornucopia of essential Indian and frontiersmen's regalia. They had everything I needed -- hard plastic bows with yellow-suction-cup-tipped arrows; rubber tomahawks decorated with secret Indian symbols; cardboard headdresses adorned with blue, red, or yellow feathers; and a real cedar ash tray with a ceramic insert showing a hillbilly boy with his pants down. "Put your butts here," it said. While that was funny, it paled alongside the bag of corn husks labeled "Hillbilly Toilet Paper." My eyes continued to scan the window until they landed on a genuine faux fur coonskin cap. I knew I had to have it and began to concoct a plan to attain it. As I crafted the finer points of the coming battle between my mother and me, my eyes were diverted. The coonskin was erased from my mind and replaced by the most remarkable thing I'd ever seen. There, right in the parking lot, stood an enormous painted teepee. I was lured to it as though under a spell. But I forgot all about it when I saw an Indian chief standing beside it. I looked him over as if he were a museum specimen. His arms were tightly folded across his chest, his headdress was feathered all the way to the ground, and his stance conveyed emotionless power. "Just like Tonto," I thought. "The chief wants us to take a picture of him with you and Tom," my father said. I couldn't imagine why, but, sure enough, the chief motioned to us to come stand beside him. I was going to get my picture taken with a real Indian! Why, it could be the best thing that ever happened. My neighborhood status would shoot to the top when kids saw me standing beside the chief. My little brother refused to loosen his death grip on my mother's arm. "Always a baby. He's going to ruin everything." I took matters into my own hands. With whispered threats of bodily harm once Mother and Daddy weren't there to protect him, I pulled him into camera range. Just before the camera snapped, I flashed my biggest smile, Tom's face froze in terror, and the chief contorted his face to create an appropriately fierce look. Later, I saw my father drop quarters into a cup labeled "tips." TODAY, MOST Indian children are taught by white people who, like me, possess only the sanitized knowledge and understandings of Indian people and their history from bland white history texts. We learned about the pilgrims, but not about the Indians who saved them; about Lewis and Clark, but not about the Indians who saved them; about the great westward expansion, but not about the destruction of the Indian way of life it required; about reservations, but not about the attempted genocide. And Indians disappeared after they killed Custer. At least there was no more about them in my history books. As a result, we learned little beyond one-dimensional caricatures of history. Here in Montana, and I imagine throughout Indian country, deep wounds and resentments still fester. Many of the white teachers' great-grandparents participated in the wars that gave them the right to plant wheat and graze cows on land promised to Indians. They told their version of history to their children and their children's children. The children we teach are descendants of warriors who fought fiercely but lost the war to preserve their way of life. Like white men, they passed their version of history along to their children and grandchildren. Even as a teacher not burdened with the histories shared by many of my colleagues, I struggled to understand. But only seemingly random thoughts cluttered my brain. Then one day, I had a bolt-of-lightning realization so obvious it stunned me. As the new understanding began to sink in, everything I knew, or thought I knew, about Indians and settlers morphed into a new perspective. Our "relocation" was their death march; our rebellion was their resistance; our sport shooting of buffalo was their loss of food, clothing, and objects of great significance in their religious ceremonies. When a small Cree band killed eight white people, we called it the Frog Lake Massacre. When 200 mostly unarmed men, women, and children were killed by the Seventh Cavalry, we called it the Battle at Wounded Knee. In our school on the Rocky Boy Reservation, much is taught about life far beyond the reservation. Virtually nothing is taught about life just outside our school walls. Sadly, the marginalization of the Indian people seems never more blatant than during Native American Week, as children fashion construction-paper moccasins, color in profiles of Indians in headdresses or pulling back a bow, construct toothpick teepees and birch bark canoes. The focus is crafts, not meaningful understandings of their own history. But white teachers don't know history from a Chippewa-Cree perspective. And, as one teacher pointed out, you can't teach what you don't know. Our social studies textbooks are no help. They are the same series used by many mainstream public schools. The fifth-grade book has special inserts about women, blacks, and Asian Americans, but no Chippewa or Cree is ever mentioned. Texts whose titles call for exploring "our community" do not, in fact, have anything to do with our Rocky Boy community. When we study government, we learn how Congress and state governments pass laws. But we never explore the government that has the greatest impact on our children's lives -- the tribal council. Facts and understandings of Chippewa-Cree history don't show up on E. D. Hirsch's list of what literate people need to know, and they definitely won't be on the Iowas. Our job is to educate our students to perform as if they were white. Not because there are practical applications for the isolated knowledge bits, not because children need to feel the American Dream is within their reach, but because white history is the real history. Still, in Montana every school is required to teach the history of the state's seven tribes. There is no agreement on the content of these histories. There are no texts or curriculum manuals, no standards, no assessments, and no support materials. Teachers are indentured into inservice workshops of every form and shape. Funded with No Child Left Behind monies, unsupported by research predicting positive outcomes for our children, and showing no connection to our kids, the workshops teach us approaches that will only push our students further behind. What we white teachers really need is intensive professional development to help us learn to teach children living in a culture we do not understand. We need to learn history from an Indian perspective, to learn the language and traditions that are so much a part of reservation life. But there is no funding for such things. So, with the best of intentions, we stumble on. The Indian wars are not really over. They may never be. Their effects are visible every day. The issues that matter are seldom, if ever, discussed. Persistent cultural mistrust, long-ago miscarriages of justice, and who did what to whom for what purpose silently linger just below the surface. Last week in the grocery store, I overheard a white man telling a joke. I didn't hear the beginning, but the punch line was, "There's a limit of one deer, but there's no limit on Indians." The cashier's booming laugh rolled across the aisles. I hoped no child was near as my eyes scanned the store. Even my terminal optimism is challenged by such experiences. On good days, I believe white teachers can educate Indian children. But sometimes, standing in line at the grocery store, I begin to wonder. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sammie Bordeaux" <sambordx@gwtc.net> To: "Multiple recipients of list" <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Sent: Saturday, October 18, 2003 1:42 AM Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:1260] Re: Education Group Calls for Revised > Hi, > I'm a Native person, born and raised on an Indian reservation in South > Dakota. Although I am not a teacher, I am kind of laterally connected to > education, especially as it relates to Native students and teachers. My > mother is an educator, I worked for 12 years at a tribal college, and I > served as a Director of a National Writing Project site at our tribal > college. I am also a parent of four children, three of whom are in public > schools that are 98% Native students with about 88% non-Native teachers > (there are Caucasian, Hispanic and East Indian teachers in our schools, > along with a few Native teachers who graduated from the teacher education > program at our tribal college). I am also,for the second year, on a parent > council at my oldest daughter's school, and serve on a headstart parent > committee. NCLB, of course, is the hot topic of conversation and has been > for several years. > > What we notice is that although our Native culture and language and history > are supposed to be integrated into our schools by tribal law, they are > taking a second place to reading and math. Although all the research shows > that Native students who are immersed in their culture from birth to third > grade are more likely to be successful in school, there is almost no > integration of the culture and language because most of the teachers are not > Native, there is no "tried and true" way of teaching language and culture, > and we have at least three generations of Native parents on our reservation > who were not brought up in the culture. Although local research shows our > Native students possess specific learning styles related to their culture, > the teaching styles have not been altered to address the learning styles of > our students. Add extreme poverty and accompanying social problems to the > mix of high stakes testing, and all but two of the 17 schools on our > reservation are considered failling schools by state standards. The two > which are not serve 7 and 11 students respectively, all of them non-Native. > > It's hard to get teachers to come here, despite a salary scale which matches > or exceeds most schools in our state. It's a very remote area, the social > problems are overwhelming, and living and working within a different culture > is hard on new teachers (the only kind we can get). The "old" teachers are > those who were born and raised in the area, and for the most part they have > worked here for 30 plus years or more. They are adamantly opposed to > changing their teaching styles, discipline methods, or even the bulletin > boards in their classrooms (meaning they were here before the American > Indian Movement was even a reality, and their racist mentalities remains > firmly in place). The average age of parents of children entering > kindergarten here is 22. Their own parents are still bringing them up, while > they struggle to raise their children. Bringing on a law like NCLB is like > hitting a flood area with a plague, a tornado and a bomb at the same time. > It might seem like an unreal situation to some of you, but I assure you, > this is truly a devastating law for our people. > > Others on the parent council with me are Native parents who are older, > well-educated, and concerned. The administrator in my oldest daughter's > school is overtly racist, and the teachers are teachers I had when I was in > school there (25 years ago). We learned by witnessing today that students > who are disruptive in the classroom are immediately placed in juvenile court > prior to their parents even being informed of any incident at school. The > administrator insists she wants parent involvement, but of course, this > means parent involvement of a certain kind. (come to parent night, sell > raffle tickets, review--but make no changes to--the absurd school plan > developed by the teachers). Now we have the alternative to transfer our > students to another school because this school is on school improvement > status--but where would they go? We live 98 miles from the nearest Walmart > and there is no competitive school in the area. Another > absurdity--instituting an attendance policy that immediately raises the > attendance problem to an attendance nightmare (if students are more than 15 > minutes late for school the student is considered half a day absent), which > affects the school's overall score that qualifies them for school > improvement. I asked what kind of professional development teachers were > receiving now that they are on school improvement status. The answer: yes. > Nothing on what the improved training was, how often it occurred, or if it > was helping at all. It's almost too much to bear. > > What I do is this: We have a National Writing Project located at our tribal > college. I've been the director for two years, and a > teacher-consultant/co-director for two years prior to that. As a National > Writing Project, we are required to offer an Invitational Summer Institute > for teachers on the teaching of writing. We altered our Institute slightly > to encompass culturally relevant writing instruction. Research shows that > reading is improved by more emphasis on writing and critical thinking. It's > a graduate level, 6 credit course, offered over 3-6 weeks every summer. > Teachers receive a hefty stipend, reduced cost graduate credits, meet > recertification requirements, and spend three or four weeks reading, > writing, learning about the culture, talking with professional writers, > participating in professional discussions, and demonstrating best practices > to other teachers. When this is over they are asked to demonstrate or > provide inservice to other teachers in their school. What it's become is a > way for teachers who are truly concerned about the students to talk and > strategize and improve or even just find out there are others who share > their concerns. It's become successful because Native people who are both > parents and educators are integral to the Writing Project, so the project is > community-based, culturally-relevant, parent-supported, and based in the > educational philosophies and culture of the students they are teaching. > Problems: administrators at the University where the site is based are not > supportive of the Writing Project; the teachers who are resistant to change > are never involved in it; the administrators at the local schools are only > shallowly supportive because they would rather buy a big package deal that > promises improvement for all schools, all teachers, at all the same time. > This year our schools are doing some ridiculous literacy activity known as > "four square." It's the 7th week of school and kids are exhausted by this > four square activity. They four square their reading, writing, math, > science, social studies, etc. every day, all day. It's not working. > > Our biggest problem at the Writing Project is that we can only serve 7-15 > teachers each year. We have 224 teachers in the area. It could be supposed > that eventually we would run out of teachers to serve, but really, the > turnover here is high, and there are teachers here who wouldn't dream of > giving up four weeks of their summer to do something like set up tipis, > participate in Native ceremonies, talk about educational philosophies of > Native people, or improve their own writing so they could be more successful > teachers of writing. We do know that the teachers we have served over the > five years of our Writing Project's existence have remained here, are highly > successful, are requested more by parents for their children, and have > become leaders in their schools. The problem with that is that nobody > believes it had anything to do with setting up tipis and learning about > Native herbs and medicines. > > Sorry to take up so much of the list time and space. I just wanted to > respond to Mary Ann's question about something that works, what the > connections are between literacy and poverty and race, and how NCLB can > affect out of reach areas like Indian reservations. Although I agree that > teachers and schools need to improve, I think that little emphasis has been > placed on parents and authentic family involvement and community solutions, > not only locally, but nationally as well. > > --SB > > ---------- > >From: "Mary Ann Corley" <macorley1@earthlink.net> > >To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> > >Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:1259] Re: Education Group Calls for Revised Law > >Date: Fri, Oct 17, 2003, 9:39 PM > > > > >Thanks, Andrea. I appreciate your feedback! > > > >Allow me to ask for your help and that of all subscribers to this list: > > > >I think this list has potential for us to discuss changes to our literacy > >programs that would make them more culturally responsive to all learners, > >but I continue to struggle with how to get a really good discussion going on > >the list. I would love some help from subscribers! So let me pose some > >questions and invite subscribers either to comment on these or to pose your > >own questions. > > > >Here are some of mine: > > > >What are the issues related to poverty (or of classism) and racism and their > >connection to literacy that sparked your interest in subscribing to this > >list? > > > >What do you struggle with in your classrooms/programs related to issues of > >poverty and racism? > > > >How do you see institutional racism playing out in our literacy programs--or > >do you? > > > >What do you think of the usual textbooks that are used in literacy classes? > >What alternatives can you suggest or are you using successfully? > > > >How can we incorporate culturally responsive instructional strategies into > >our teaching to reach all learners? What have you tried and would recommend > >to others? > > > >There are other questions like the above that we could be discussing, but we > >don't quite get there--perhaps because, as list moderator, I'm not sure how > >to ask questions that will spark discussion. These are tough topics, and we > >aren't often provided with a forum for discussing issues of poverty and > >racism, so many of us may be uncomfortable speaking about these issues. But > >these issues represent (at least in my opinion) perhaps the most important > >challenges we face in our literacy work, so we must discuss them. > > > >Please jump in and help get the discussion moving! > > > >Many thanks! > > > >-Mary Ann > > > >---- Original Message ----- > >From: <AWilder106@aol.com> > >To: "Multiple recipients of list" <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> > >Sent: Friday, October 17, 2003 10:44 AM > >Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:1258] Re: Education Group Calls for Revised Law > > > > > >> Dear Mary Ann, > >> > >> Thanks for your articles and news updates, I find them really useful in > >keeping alert to what is going on, what others are thinking, educational > >trends and critiques of public policy. > >> > >> Andrea > >
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Mar 11 2004 - 12:18:13 EST