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Centering Indigenous Voices

MCELA/MCSTOYA Indigenous Reads

August 2024

Jane Chamberlain

Camden Hills Regional H.S.

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  1. Approach–Tenets of Indian Education for All and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy
  2. Explore–Background, Course make up, Main texts, Course Overview, Unit Overview
  3. Experience–Columbus Journal Extract (subjective/objective), Haudenosaunee Elder View of History Video Clip, Discuss
  4. Share–”Giveaway Blanket” proj, Student response excerpts
  5. Debrief–Resources, Questions

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Agenda

Unceded Land

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My Journey

  • Prior interest in college
  • 10th gr. unit Absolutely True Diary…
  • Spring/summer 2022 helped create teacher guide for The Gatherings with MCLA
  • August 2022 Upstander Academy in Boston
  • Spring 2023 Presented at MCELA on Decolonizing the Classroom
  • Fall 2022-Summer 2023 Indig. Voices course proposal and development
  • Spring 2023 unit The Marrow Thieves
  • August 2023 NEH Buffalo Nations Landmarks in Yellowstone
  • Fall 2023 New course runs
  • Spring 2024 Indig. Voices course approved for full year 2024-25 (so far 16 sign ups)
  • Summer 2024 Solutionary Teaching microcredential work, Human Rights & Equity

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(Hear student reasons for taking course)

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What’s your “why” for being here today?

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Where are you in your journey? What are your immediate goals around centering Indigenous voices?

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What are you most interested in hearing about?

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Essential Question:

What happens when we center Indigenous voices in the classroom?

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My realization: It is not about doing work to make the classroom interdisciplinary, community-centered, student-driven, and place-conscious…it is that centering the voices automatically makes it become so.

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Core Texts

Teacher not as expert, but as curator who facilitates access.

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Indigenous Voices Course Curriculum Doc

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Sample Rubric

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Course Makeup: 22 students, 12 jr/10 sr, 17 hon/5 cp, 8 from experiencing 10th gr. unit, 6 of those moved up from cp to hon

Topics Addressed in The Marrow Thieves Unit

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  • Residential schools
  • Music as healing
  • Ceremony and Story (“Weckuwapok” Reciprocity Project short film)
  • Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW)--Wab’s Coming To Story
  • Environmentalism (Standing Rock/pipelines/water)
  • LGBTQ+ (Two Spirit/Geo Neptune)--Miig’s Coming To Story
  • Wiindigo legend (Greed, Braiding Sweetgrass excerpt)
  • Cultural healing (“First Light,” blood memory concept, jingle dress dancing)
  • Sacred resources (herbs) and Indigenous stewardship
  • Language as cultural survivance–Minerva

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“The Danger of a Single Story”

--Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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Subjective vs. Objective

Cultural bias vs. Cultural Humility

Columbus Journal Extract

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The handout you will receive is an excerpt from Columbus' journal or Captain's log, describing first contact. Although at first glance it could appear to present an OBJECTIVE (factual) account, a deeper examination reveals many SUBJECTIVE elements--meaning elements that are based on application of one perspective colored by cultural bias.

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Your job is to deconstruct this text. That is, locate particular spots that demonstrate SUBJECTIVE elements (bias, opinion, assumption, contradiction, etc), and identify overall concepts that can be read critically. You will have individual and group time. Make sure you paper is marked up with highlights and notes to this effect.

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Columbus Journal Extracts

(scroll to Thursday, 11 October)

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Decolonizing Perspectives

View from the Shore v. Boat

Acknowledging the lens through which we see our history.

What is new or impactful to you–either in content or delivery?

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Debrief

DofD Critical Thinking Writing Assignment

What happens when we center Indigenous voices?

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  • We see interdisciplinary connections
  • We become open to counter-narratives and engage with critical thinking around dominant narratives
  • We become inquiry-oriented, curious, and more aware of our own agency in our education
  • We develop a desire to become more action-oriented and to share knowledge with others
  • We become more social justice-oriented, and more place-conscious/place-relational

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Student Response Excerpts

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Resources

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With thanks to

Lorena Germán, Upstander Project , and Buffalo Nations Landmarks with Ft. Peck Community College and Montana State University

for resources

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