Native American Education

Anytime you take on a new challenge you grow, sometimes in leaps and bounds like a puppy in it’s first year of life, sometimes with growing pains and adjustments like a teenager adjusting to her gangly long arms and legs that didn’t seem to be there yesterday, and sometimes like Grandma, retelling her stories over and over to her grandchildren, hoping that they will learn from her years of experience and yet knowing that only as they age and grow more patient will they truly appreciate her slowness, her wisdom, and her stories.

This past year has been a year of growth for me, I have gone through all of the stages, and I have enjoyed every minute of it! Some of you who have worked with me are probably thinking right now that I have must be crazy but I’m really not. I have enjoyed the hustle and bustle of planning the symposiums and summer teacher institutes, the endless miles traveling through the Sandhills and Panhandle (Yes, even driving through a herd of cattle by Mullen and the freak spring storm between Alliance and Chadron in April with the snowflakes as big as my hand and road conditions so bad I wondered at my sanity for continuing the trip!), meeting the people (although I still have troubles remembering everyone’s names—sorry!) who are working with our Native children in Nebraska, and mostly, seeing the enthusiasm in the teachers and administrators I have met which serves to remind me that Nebraska has the best teachers in the world and our children are so lucky.

July 1, 2004 to July 1, 2005 had to be a year of growth, discovery, and experimentation as it was the first year of the position of “Statewide Coordinator for Native American Education.” Really, we had nowhere to go but up, although sometimes it didn’t seem as if we were moving in that direction. So, you’re asking yourself, “What did she do all year?” That’s a very good question. One I have often asked myself. Sometimes I did a lot and sometimes, truthfully, I did as little as possible.

Much time was spent last July and August developing the Native American education website and planning for the 2004 Native American Education symposiums. Since you are reading this, you have discovered our website. Excellent and Welcome! I hope you visit often and check out all our updates and I hope we are providing useful information to you. Please feel free to contact me at anytime regarding what is or isn’t on the website.

Our symposiums were a great success. We were so fortunate to be able to bring many nationally recognized and prominent figures in Indian education to Nebraska as well as offering a wide range of local talent to speak to the conference participants. With the 2005 symposiums we are hoping to continue this tradition as we again have many excellent presenters and record numbers of participants.

I very much enjoyed meeting with and being part of the Native American Achievement Council at Omaha Public Schools who meet every other month, the Indian Parent Action Committee (IPAC) at Lincoln Public Schools who meet the first Friday of every month, and the Santee Community School’s Native American High Performance Learning Communities (NAHPLC) school improvement team that meets once a month. This has provided and excellent opportunity to meet not only school personnel but also community members. I also enjoyed my visits to other schools and communities across the state for teacher meetings and in-services, parent committee meetings, and just stopping in to get to know people. Each visit reminds me why I had to “come home” to Nebraska.

Over the course of the year I have had the pleasure of being invited to speak to student at Norfolk Public Schools, Chadron Public Schools (elementary and middle school), Cody-Kilgore Public Schools, and Alliance Public Schools and high school students visiting Chadron State College from both Nebraska and South Dakota.

One of the greatest events held involving students was our logo contest for the Native American Symposium logo design. We had many, many wonderful entries from students all across the state and all grade levels from K-12. The decision was difficult, however Owen Patton and I finally narrowed it down to two designs. Since we really couldn’t decide we picked both. The design submitted by Johanna Wright from Norfolk Public Schools was selected for the symposium logo and the design submitted by Manuel Marshall from Cody-Kilgore Public Schools was selected for the cover design for the summer institute curriculum guides. Congratulations to both of these students and all the students who took time to submit entries!

Speaking of the curriculum guides, we held a second year of summer teacher institutes with Dr. Sandra Fox. In 2004 these institutes were held in two one-week sessions at Wayne State College with teachers from Santee, Walthill, Winnebago, and Omaha Nation. Approximately 50 teachers took part. They learned about Native culture through Dr. Fox and guest speakers. They learned about the importance of integrating Native American literature and culture into the curriculum when working with Native students, and they learned about some of the best teaching strategies to use when working with Native students. Then they developed curriculum units, based on what they were learning, that incorporated Nebraska state standards and Native American literature and culture that they could take back and use in their classrooms. These units were then edited and arranged into a curriculum guide that was published by the Nebraska Department of Education. Copies of this curriculum guide were sent out to the schools that participated, provided to other schools in Nebraska, provided to every participant, in CD-rom format, and made available to the general public in PDF format at the NDE Native American website.

In 2005 we expanded the summer teacher institute to a statewide project holding three one-week sessions at Wayne State College, Northstar High School in Lincoln, and Chadron State College. We had about 100 teachers from every corner of the state participate. This year we were joined by Dr. Sally Thomas and increased the focus to include Hispanic literature and culture. Coordinating the process from beginning to end has been a treat. Although at times overwhelming, it was pure joy to work with so many outstanding teachers. Our 2005 curriculum guide is in the editing stages right now and should be published by the end of the year. It will also be available to the general public by PDF on this website.

One of the most successful accomplishments of 2005 has been the development of the Western Nebraska Native American Advisory Council. The people who have been attending these regularly scheduled meetings are beyond compare. The caring they show for the students they are working with, their enthusiasm for working together for what is best for the students, and their devotion and commitment to meeting across the miles on a regular basis has been very inspiring to me. We are using the model this group has created for organizing regional meetings to create and begin to develop regional advisory groups for Northeast Nebraska and Southeast Nebraska. Our hope is to develop strong regional groups who are meeting regularly to discuss the needs of their Native students, network with each other to create partnerships for activities and projects involving Native students, and ultimately to improve student achievement among Native students.
I also managed to attend a few national meetings. The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) is doing many things to improve education for Native students across the country. They held a conference of meeting of state Indian education directors in Blaine, Washington last August and will reconvene this group in October 2005 in Rapid City, South Dakota. Dr. Ruby Payne has done outstanding work in the area of understanding poverty and its effects on students and student learning. In January, I traveled to her training center in Houston, Texas for a three-day intense training on Understanding the Frameworks of Poverty. In February 2005, the National Indian School Board Association, understanding the effects of poverty on Native communities, held a training on Bridges Out of Poverty based on the work of Dr. Ruby Payne. In March I had the privilege to attend the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida. I took part in a three-day preconference session with Dr. Robert Marzano on What Works in Schools. The United States Department of Education held the National Conference on Indian Education in Albuquerque, New Mexico in April as directed by President Bush’s Executive Order. Finally in an effort to learn more about federal funding of Indian education, I recently attended a meeting in Rapid City, South Dakota about the federal governments Title VII program.

Wow! Looking back over that list of things, I don’t think I had as many times of “doing as little as possible” as I thought. I think the only time I really did as little as possible was during the time I took off in July to have shoulder surgery. As I review the past year, and look ahead to the upcoming year, I think I should have taken more than two weeks off when I had the chance—or should I say a really good excuse.

Things look to keep rolling along like the speed of a space shuttle taking off and I don’t think my learning curve is going to even out anytime soon. It looks to be going straight up right along with that space shuttle of events and activities. And, yes, I am still loving every minute and looking forward to the challenges and accomplishments along the way!