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AN INNOVATIVE PROGRAM TEACHES EDUCATORS ABOUT NATIVE CULTURE
WPR News - An innovative program teaches educators about native culture
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Friday February 10, 2012
by Patty Murray
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(GREEN BAY) Wisconsin requires a certain amount of instruction in native cultures in its public schools. A program at UW Green Bay is being recognized for its efforts to teach future educators about the state's native people. It's getting a diversity award from the UW Board of Regents.
The state's mandate to teach about native culture only applies to public schools. But the head of UW Green Bay's First Nation's Studies Program says a recent incident at a private school in Shawano provides a case-in-point as to why the topic deserves more attention.
Lisa Poupart she says a teacher disciplined a girl for speaking Menominee. The school has since apologized. Still, Poupart says it was an instructional moment.
"One teacher who perhaps didn't have an understanding about the importance of the language and the loss of the language, and the historical trauma Indian people have experienced as a result of federal indian boarding schools for example," she says. "The prohibition of the language. How important the revival of the language is today and to have young indigenous children speaking their language, that's a rare thing."
UW Green Bay requires all of its education majors to take a three hour course consisting largely of sessions with tribal elder. She says the program may be unique in the whole country.
The goal is to dispel stereotypes and to help teachers deliver quality instruction. But Poupart says there's anecdotal evidence some teachers aren't fulfilling the intent of the state mandate:
"Making paper headdresses or making some sort of stereotypical Indian outfit out of paper grocery bags," she says. "That in no way educates a young person about culture sovereignty, contemporary status, or history."
Poupart says she doesn't fault well meaning, possibly overworked teachers. That's why the program also offers sample curricula and reading lists to working educators.
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