Native Culture in Education series
The newspaper published a four-part series by award-winning journalist and educator Anna Ferdinand, who looked at local education through the lens of the Swinomish and La Conner communities as the school district incorporates native culture not only into the curriculum, but into its daily school environment. The series was published on Wednesdays, September 26 through October 17, 2012.
13 moons – a natural balance in education
This is the first in the series
By Anna Ferdinand
Before the arrival of explorers, fur traders, clergy, wagon trains and their 12-month calendar, people native to our area measured their lives according to the 13 moons of the year.
They knew which moon meant tides were low or high, what sea foods could be harvested and when and where to gather roots and bulbs.
A recent $45,000 grant awarded to the Northwest Indian College on the Swinomish Reservation aims to bring community members and students closer to the 13 moon philosophy.
“The Coast Salish diet is primarily related to the sea, but there were also times of harvesting greens, roots and bulbs,” says Jessica Gigot, science faculty at the college.
Gigot helped write the First Nations Development Institute grant, which is funding the establishment of a community garden with a greenhouse, gardening supplies to tribal community members and eventually classes for community members.
Historically, seafood and game were augmented with starches harvested in the mountain regions on both sides of the Cascades. While seafood is still a mainstay of the Swinomish diet, traditional gathering is a way of the past.
Over the years, a lack of fresh produce and high consumption of processed foods in native communities has led to dietary deficiencies and alarmingly high rates of diabetes.
The Institute of Indigenous Food Systems, a project of the cooperative extension’s Traditional Plants program within the Northwest Indian College, recently held a conference on Bainbridge Island for tribes to revitalize traditional foods and cooking technologies.
“The Traditional Plant’s program is focusing on food as our medicine and looking at other areas on the West Coast, primarily Vancouver Island and Alaska and what they have done to reestablish indigenous food networks and traditions,” said Gigot, who teaches nutrition as well as biology classes.
While heading up to the cascades to harvest camus bulbs might not be realistic in this day and age, incorporating an understanding of the past into an understanding of healthy living is the goal, says Gigot.
“If they are not the exact traditional foods, what are they? They are wild foods, they are organic, they are whole foods and they are local.”
The school offers a holistic approach to education based on a cooperative, hands-on learning within the environment, where students in the class plant seeds, transplant and tend the plants in raised beds behind the school. Getting students into the environment is a central feature of an education geared towards the goal of being active in the community.
“As a teacher, I strive to integrate certain elements into my teaching that helps students bring their own understanding into native science, integrating the arts, visual learning and oral storytelling,” says Gigot, speaking in the school’s new science lab, with new lab materials still in boxes. The college has grown from one room in the tribal headquarters, to its own building with four classrooms over the last several years.
The college now offers a four-year certified bachelor’s degree program in native environmental science, with a curriculum that incorporates standard science classes such as chemistry and biology but works to connect the science to the community’s interaction with the environment.
“In standard western science, you are really taught to be quite distant from your subject matter, and so in Native science, we acknowledge that there is an involved role,” says Gigot.
Tribal members work closely with the western scientists to address restoration of habitat, fisheries protocols and climate change issues, integrating traditional ecological knowledge into every aspect of decision making.
“And so that aspect of traditional ecological knowledge, which is secondary in western science, is primary in native environmental science,” Gigot said.
Nadine Clark is a student at the Northwest Indian College. At the age of 50, she decided to take advantage of the tribe’s policy of paying for continuing education. As a teenager, she dropped out of La Conner High School but later received her GED. She earned her associates degree at the college in 2003.
Her son Nick Clark was one of the three boys in the documentary “March Point,” which looked at the effect that pollution from the Tesero and Shell oil refineries were having on the ecology of the area. Last year she decided to go for her four-year degree in the native environmental science program.
“I saw all the pollution that was coming from the smoke stacks. I have grandchildren, and I wanted to make sure that the environment and the seafood were going to be safe for their future. I just wanted to make sure this was a clean place for them to grow up,” said Clark, who hopes to find a job with the tribe after graduating in 2014. The tribe has been pushing to have tribal members earn science degrees so they can come back and work for the tribe.
Initially, Clark struggled with the math and a sense of self-doubt.
“I thought, ‘who the heck am I? I’m 50 years old, trying to come back and go to school with these younger students,’ and I almost quit,” she said. “But I stuck it out and I stayed and studied really hard, and in the long run, it paid off. I was getting As and Bs.”
Clark has two girls in the high school right now, both cheerleaders. “I hope that me coming to school will make my kids want to come to school,” she said. “Maybe not necessarily here, but knowing that the college is just across the road from where we live, knowing that it’s here to benefit them, I hope they continue to go to college.”
Clark says both her girls were involved in activities surrounding the canoe journey last year.
A return to the 13 moons philosophy, manifested most prominently with the canoe journey, is taking hold. The starts in the 13 moons garden are still small, and the native garden is yet to be built to capacity.
But the push to restore the natural landscape, native plants, and step back from harmful substances like drugs, alcohol and a processed food diet is gaining momentum.
“I think people are really wanting that sense of culture and connectedness,” says Gigot. “A lot of ways that sense of connectedness to the environment has been through a knowing of the landscape and a knowing of the plants and that’s what we’re trying to facilitate here.”
Next week: How events, including the 2011 Canoe Journey hosted by Swinomish and engaging the entire La Conner community, have contributed to the academic success of students.
Before the arrival of explorers, fur traders, clergy, wagon trains and their 12-month calendar, people native to our area measured their lives according to the 13 moons of the year.
They knew which moon meant tides were low or high, what sea foods could be harvested and when and where to gather roots and bulbs.
A recent $45,000 grant awarded to the Northwest Indian College on the Swinomish Reservation aims to bring community members and students closer to the 13 moon philosophy.
“The Coast Salish diet is primarily related to the sea, but there were also times of harvesting greens, roots and bulbs,” says Jessica Gigot, science faculty at the college.
Gigot helped write the First Nations Development Institute grant, which is funding the establishment of a community garden with a greenhouse, gardening supplies to tribal community members and eventually classes for community members.
Historically, seafood and game were augmented with starches harvested in the mountain regions on both sides of the Cascades. While seafood is still a mainstay of the Swinomish diet, traditional gathering is a way of the past.
Over the years, a lack of fresh produce and high consumption of processed foods in native communities has led to dietary deficiencies and alarmingly high rates of diabetes.
The Institute of Indigenous Food Systems, a project of the cooperative extension’s Traditional Plants program within the Northwest Indian College, recently held a conference on Bainbridge Island for tribes to revitalize traditional foods and cooking technologies.
“The Traditional Plant’s program is focusing on food as our medicine and looking at other areas on the West Coast, primarily Vancouver Island and Alaska and what they have done to reestablish indigenous food networks and traditions,” said Gigot, who teaches nutrition as well as biology classes.
While heading up to the cascades to harvest camus bulbs might not be realistic in this day and age, incorporating an understanding of the past into an understanding of healthy living is the goal, says Gigot.
“If they are not the exact traditional foods, what are they? They are wild foods, they are organic, they are whole foods and they are local.”
The school offers a holistic approach to education based on a cooperative, hands-on learning within the environment, where students in the class plant seeds, transplant and tend the plants in raised beds behind the school. Getting students into the environment is a central feature of an education geared towards the goal of being active in the community.
“As a teacher, I strive to integrate certain elements into my teaching that helps students bring their own understanding into native science, integrating the arts, visual learning and oral storytelling,” says Gigot, speaking in the school’s new science lab, with new lab materials still in boxes. The college has grown from one room in the tribal headquarters, to its own building with four classrooms over the last several years.
The college now offers a four-year certified bachelor’s degree program in native environmental science, with a curriculum that incorporates standard science classes such as chemistry and biology but works to connect the science to the community’s interaction with the environment.
“In standard western science, you are really taught to be quite distant from your subject matter, and so in Native science, we acknowledge that there is an involved role,” says Gigot.
Tribal members work closely with the western scientists to address restoration of habitat, fisheries protocols and climate change issues, integrating traditional ecological knowledge into every aspect of decision making.
“And so that aspect of traditional ecological knowledge, which is secondary in western science, is primary in native environmental science,” Gigot said.
Nadine Clark is a student at the Northwest Indian College. At the age of 50, she decided to take advantage of the tribe’s policy of paying for continuing education. As a teenager, she dropped out of La Conner High School but later received her GED. She earned her associates degree at the college in 2003.
Her son Nick Clark was one of the three boys in the documentary “March Point,” which looked at the effect that pollution from the Tesero and Shell oil refineries were having on the ecology of the area. Last year she decided to go for her four-year degree in the native environmental science program.
“I saw all the pollution that was coming from the smoke stacks. I have grandchildren, and I wanted to make sure that the environment and the seafood were going to be safe for their future. I just wanted to make sure this was a clean place for them to grow up,” said Clark, who hopes to find a job with the tribe after graduating in 2014. The tribe has been pushing to have tribal members earn science degrees so they can come back and work for the tribe.
Initially, Clark struggled with the math and a sense of self-doubt.
“I thought, ‘who the heck am I? I’m 50 years old, trying to come back and go to school with these younger students,’ and I almost quit,” she said. “But I stuck it out and I stayed and studied really hard, and in the long run, it paid off. I was getting As and Bs.”
Clark has two girls in the high school right now, both cheerleaders. “I hope that me coming to school will make my kids want to come to school,” she said. “Maybe not necessarily here, but knowing that the college is just across the road from where we live, knowing that it’s here to benefit them, I hope they continue to go to college.”
Clark says both her girls were involved in activities surrounding the canoe journey last year.
A return to the 13 moons philosophy, manifested most prominently with the canoe journey, is taking hold. The starts in the 13 moons garden are still small, and the native garden is yet to be built to capacity.
But the push to restore the natural landscape, native plants, and step back from harmful substances like drugs, alcohol and a processed food diet is gaining momentum.
“I think people are really wanting that sense of culture and connectedness,” says Gigot. “A lot of ways that sense of connectedness to the environment has been through a knowing of the landscape and a knowing of the plants and that’s what we’re trying to facilitate here.”
Next week: How events, including the 2011 Canoe Journey hosted by Swinomish and engaging the entire La Conner community, have contributed to the academic success of students.