A video featuring a poem by a Dartmouth student about Urban Outfitters’ lack of respect for Native culture has has become a YouTube hit. In the clip, various students recite lines from “A Letter to Urban Outfitters,” a poem written by Autumn White Eyes, Dartmouth class of 2014. The poem begins with some nostalgic yearnings for eagle feathers, buckskin, pow wows and drum music — for a Native student at an Ivy League school, signifiers of a faraway former life, perhaps. But the reverie is interrupted by contemporary issues, forming the poem’s devastating middle section:
Instead I write this letter to Urban Outfitters.
A costume shop that sells thousands of clothes.
Filled with the appropriations of my heritage.
Of the people.
Of the people.
Of the people that died for this home.
This land.
This country, are watching you dance on their ancestors’ graves.
Wearing the clothes and colored feathers that they find at your costume shop.
Half naked women wearing warbonnets becomes
Hundreds of small pox blankets handed out to native children.
Who will never know the importance of an eagle feather.
Little girls won’t wear feathers with pride like their grandmothers.
Little boys won’t be the leaders we need them to be.
Instead they will swoon over the women who have the audacity to mock us as their mascots.
I don’t feel human. I just feel used.
Read more:http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/09/21/video-a-letter-to-urban-outfitters-a-poem-by-autumn-white-eyes-135090?fb_action_ids=4572896969383&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=timeline_og&action_object_map=%7B%224572896969383%22%3A227978510663587%7D&action_type_map=%7B%224572896969383%22%3A%22og.likes%22%7D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/09/21/video-a-letter-to-urban-outfitters-a-poem-by-autumn-white-eyes-135090#ixzz27LrEJVYsThere's a scary new study showing that obesity can hurt kids' brains.
Aug. 3, 2012 -- Fitter kids do better on school tests, according to new research that echoes previous findings.
The fitter the middle school students were, the better they did on reading and math tests, says researcher Sudhish Srikanth, a University of North Texas student. He presented his research Friday at the American Psychological Association's annual meeting in Orlando.
The researchers tested 1,211 students from five Texas middle schools. They looked at each student's academic self-concept -- how confident they were in their abilities to do well -- and took into account the student's socioeconomic status.
They knew these two factors would play a role in how well the students did, Srikanth says.
After those factors, they looked at others that might influence school performance, such as social support, fitness, or body composition.
Bottom line? Of the other factors examined, "cardiorespiratory fitness has the strongest effect on academic achievement," he says.
The research doesn't prove cause and effect, and the researchers didn't try to explain the link. But other research suggests why fitness is so important, says researcher Trent Petrie, PhD, director of the Center for Sport Psychology at the University of North Texas.
"Physical fitness is associated with improvements in memory, concentration, organization, and staying on task," he says.
Fitter Kids, Better Grades: Details
For one to five months before the students took standardized reading and math tests, they answered questions about:
The researchers assessed the students' fitness. They used a variety of tests that looked at muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, aerobic capacity, and body composition.
Previous studies have found a link between fitness and improved school performance, Srikanth says. However, this new study also looked at several other potential influences.
For the boys, having social support was also related to better reading scores.
For the girls, a larger body mass index was the only factor other than fitness that predicted better reading scores. The researchers are not sure why.
Other studies have found fitness more important than weight for test scores.
For both boys and girls, fitness levels were the only factors studied (besides socioeconomic status and self-concept) related to math scores.
Srikanth found an upward trend, with more fitness linked with better scores. He says he can't quantify it beyond that.
Fitter Kids, Better Grades: Perspectives
The new research echoes that of James Sallis, PhD, distinguished professor of family and preventive medicine at the University of California, San Diego. A long-time researcher on physical fitness, he reviewed the findings.
"The mountain of evidence just got higher that active and fit kids perform better in school," he says.
The finding that fitness was related to both reading and math scores in both girls and boys is impressive, he says. "That's strong evidence."
"I hope this study convinces both parents and school administrators to increase and improve physical education, recess, classroom activity breaks, after-school physical activity and sports, and walk-to-school programs."
He is a co-founder of SPARK physical activity programs, in place nationwide.
Lesley Cottrell, PhD, vice chair of research in pediatrics at West Virginia University, has also linked fitness with better school performance in her research. "They extend our findings by considering students' self-concept," she says.
Her advice to parents? "A healthy child is a well-rounded child. Focusing on one developmental area may neglect other, important areas. For instance, in our findings we acknowledge that we have neglected the physical activity and fitness development for our children as a whole."
"By doing so, we may miss an opportunity to improve or sustain their academic development," she says.
The study was funded by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education.
These findings were presented at a medical conference. They should be considered preliminary as they have not yet undergone the "peer review" process, in which outside experts scrutinize the data prior to publication in a medical journal.
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(In thousands of dollars) |
FY 2010 |
FY2011 |
FY2012 |
FY2013 Pres. Budget |
FY2013 Funding After Cuts (est -8.2%) |
FY13 Cuts |
% Cut, FY10 to FY13 (inflation adjusted) |
Bureau of Indian Affairs |
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Bureau of Indian Education |
799.4 |
752.7 |
795.5 |
796.1 |
730.3 |
65.2 |
-15% |
Construction |
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 September 19, 2012Best Practices: Ideas for Classroom Instruction
Tools for Teaching: The Amazing Sticky Note Can a simple piece of paper really be such a powerful learning tool? Educator Ben Johnson shares some great ideas for how teachers can use sticky notes -- as a way to flag accomplishments, as a tool for assessing learning, and to help students storyboard complicated ideas. Five Tips to Help You Soar This September New Teacher Support: Delivery of Instruction Find more blogs on best practices for the classroom.
Most Popular Blogs Last Week:
1. Embracing Introversion: Ways to Stimulate Reserved Students in the Classroom
2. From Management to Engagement 3. Engaging Students in the STEM Classroom Through "Making" 4. 21st Century Schools or 21st Century Learning? 5. Practical PBL: Design an Instructional Unit in Seven Phases
What's Hot on Facebook:
 This week we're giving away the newly released Kindle Fire HD (a $199 value)! You could be the lucky winner.Enter by Sunday, September 30 for a chance to win.
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GRANTS & RESOURCES |
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True or False Quiz/Connecting with Teens
Most teens turn to their parents for advice.
True: 78% of teens say in times of need they first turn to their parents. There is a drop-off as children get older. 90% of 12 and 13-year-olds say they rely on parental advice.
“Not having enough time together” with their parents is a top concern among teenagers today.
True: Family time is tied with education for first place on teens’ list of concerns.
Teens have enough after-school activities in their communities.
False: 52% of teens say they wish they had more after-school activities in their community, and 62% of unsupervised teens say they would participate in after-school programs if they were available. When teens participate in after-school programs they avoid risky behavior and do better in school. Teens that don’t participate in after-school activities are five times more likely to be “D” students, three times more likely to use drugs, and twice as likely to get into a fight at school.
Sources: Talking With Teens: The YMCA Parent and Teen Survey Final Report and After School for America’s Teens: A National Survey of Teen Attitudes and Behaviors. Both available at www.ymca.net
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Risk Factors |
Domain |
Protective Factors |
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Early Aggressive Behavior |
Individual |
Self-Control |
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Lack of Parental Supervision |
Family |
Parental Monitoring |
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Substance Abuse |
Peer |
Academic Competence |
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Drug Availability |
School |
Anti-drug Use Policies |
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Poverty |
Community |
Strong Neighborhood Attachment |
The first 50 years of the American Period was a horrible time for the Native Californians, given the sheer magnitude of what happened during that half century: scalpings of men, women, &children; incarceration in jails with the only way out being enforced indenture to whites for unspecified lengths of time; the kidnapping &sale of Indian children; the massacres of entire Indian villages; the military roundup of Indians and their enforced exile on military reservations where even the most basic of living amenities were lacking; their complete legal disenfranchisement. The outcome of all this was that during the first two decades of the American occupation, the native population of California plummeted by 90 percent - in short, a California version of the WWII Holocaust.
Because of the oppressive, depressing, &horrifying nature of the American period I was tempted, while preparing this web page, to simply summarize what had happend to the Native People. I felt (as several of my students who proof-read the web document did) that human nature, being what it is, would cause people visiting the American Period page to block out the information with which they can't or don't want to deal. In one section the information is so damning towards the Americans that, as one of my students pointed out, many people just won't read it, or worse, they'll conclude that the views &information presented are too one-sided; thus, they may discount the information entirely. Surely, there must have been people speaking out on behalf of the Indians and against the genocide committed against them?
There were a few people who spoke out, who reacted against the savagery of the anglo-Americans in California. Unfortunately, such voices were"crying in the wilderness." They were pushed aside, their humanity negated by a system that promulgated the shibboleths of inevitable conflict, the greatest good for the greatest number, and the most important one, the destiny of the white man.
As I note below, the anglo-Americans believed they were the chosen civilizers of the earth. And contrary to popular myth, the men who ruthlessly destroyed the Native Californians were not the outcasts of society, the footloose riffraff of the United States. In fact, many of the whites often became California's leading citizens. For example, in northwestern California William Carson has been credited with creating hundreds of jobs on the Pacific Coast. Yet, this man participated in the Hayfork Massacre of 1852 where 152 Native Californians were slaughtered. John Carr, in his book Pioneer Days, describes the Massacre and states in the introduction: " It may help ... to rescue and preserve some of the doings of the common people that founded and built up this great State of California" [emphasis added]. With the exception of Isaac Cox, author of theAnnals of Trinity County, most white historians who discuss the Hayfork Massacre and the events leading up to it [the killing of the white John Anderson and the stealing of his cattle by the Indians], place theBLAME for the Massacre on the Indians, not on the whites. Even Cox, who states the Indians were justified in having a grudge against Anderson, justifies the massacre: "Be this true or not, the rascals had committed a glaring infraction into the peace and security of the county and to chastise them was proper and laudable."
Prescott High School Students Triumph in Fight Over Indian Mascots
Why would a group of white Prescott High School students in Prescott, Wisc., fight for a bill to end the use of Native Americans as mascots, carry their concerns all of the way to the State Capitol in Madison and get Gov. James Doyle, a Democrat, to sign the bill into law on May 5?
For these dedicated students and their teacher Jeff Ryan, the victory was sweet, and it may set a precedent for other states to follow. Perhaps these high school students can teach a lesson to the petitioners on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and the Spirit Lake Reservation in North Dakota, that to be denigrated at sporting events is not an honor. It places Native Americans on the same level as lions, tigers and bears. As the students proclaimed, Native Americans are people, not mascots.
If these non-Indian high school students can figure that out, why is Fool Bear at Standing Rock, and more than half of the tribe a Spirit Lake not listening? To be mimicked, ridiculed and aped at sporting events is not an honor and these white high school students "got it!"
The bill passed the Wisconsin Assembly by a vote of 51 - 43 and it passed the State Senate nip and tuck at 17 - 16. But, if not for the dedication and the presentations by the students at Prescott High School, the bill would have never passed. At the hearings leading up to the introduction of the bill, Native Americans from the different reservations in Wisconsin were in attendance and not a single one of them spoke out against the bill: They were all united behind the students.
As one of the tools Ryan used in his classroom to educate the students about using Native Americans as mascots, he read some of the columns I have written for the past 28 years. He and his students communicated with me all during the progression of the bill. And I was amazed to observe the dedication the students devoted to this issue. It was their school project. What started out as a lecture in November of 2008, became a law in 2010.
After the victory, Maddie Smith, one of the students, said, "It is still hard to believe that it takes legislation to ensure that different cultures are treated with respect."
Another student, Brenna Ryan, said, "We were so happy when the bill finally passed. What many people fail to realize is that this bill has been in the legislature for 16 years. There have been so many people (Native Americans) who have been working for so long to make the dream of eliminating Indian mascots and logos come true in Wisconsin and around the United States. Hopefully other states will follow what our state legislature did and once and for all decide that using race based mascots and logos in public schools does not honor Native people - it hurts them. The Native people are friends and it is time we started treating them that way."
Jack Simones talked about the things he learned from the process.
"The only way this issue can be fully understood is that you have to live outside of your own bubble and living in Wisconsin, a state with 11 Indian reservations, it makes sense that we develop that empathy and understand that the Native people of our state have a rich history that needs to be recognized, celebrated and honored appropriately in our schools and not with half-time chants and jigs at football games," Simones said.
Some of the folks that have been fighting this issue for nearly 30 years, people such as Charlene Teeters, an art instructor at the American Indian Art Institute, and Michael Haney, now deceased, a Seminole, who blanched at the Seminole Tribe's disregard for feelings of other Indians in America by continuing to allow their tribe to be used as a mascot for Florida State University, a university that has reduced their once proud name to "Noles," would have stood and cheered the courage and dedication of these Prescott High School students.
These students did not go without sharp, and oftentimes, nasty criticism from their friends and neighbors in Wisconsin.
"Why in the hell are you doing this?" was one of the most frequent questions they encountered.
As Teeters, Haney and I know, they did it because they wanted to correct a blatant wrong, a wrong that most Americans have never made the effort to understand. American Indians are human beings and not mascots for America's fun and games.
To contact the teacher and students go to jryan@prescott.k12.wi.us.
Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is the publisher of Native Sun News. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard with the Class of 1990. His weekly column won the H. L. Mencken Award in 1985. His book Children Left Behind was awarded the Bronze Medal by Independent Book Publishers. Giago was inducted into the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at editor@nsweekly.com
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