A curriculum that connects with native students
This is the third story in the a series.
By Anna Ferdinand
For the state of Washington, the high school dropout rate for Native American students in the school year that ended in June was 28.4 percent. That’s the highest percentage of dropouts of any group in the state.
In order to understand that number, it’s important to revisit some Washington state history — And this is what La Conner High School has done in an attempt to boost the graduation rate of its Native American students.
“I think we have a history across the United States where the story of Native Americans was fractured,” said La Conner School District Superintendent Tim Bruce, speaking about the grant he helped write to teach the sovereignty curriculum developed by the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The state Legislature in 2005 passed a law that encourages schools to teach from a native perspective, working with tribes to help develop and implement curriculum.
“The history was told from perhaps the person who wrote it, it wasn’t necessarily the facts,” Bruce said. “These are curriculum materials and resources that have been put together with the assistance of Native American tribes throughout our state and basically have their stamp of approval that we can all agree is truthful and represents what people went through and the historical context.”
Treaties signed between tribes and the U.S. Government had been given short shrift in most Washington state history classes, given the vast amount of material to be covered in a semester. But for tribes around the state, the treaties are the documents upon which much of today’s current issues are based. The sovereignty curriculum takes students deeper into topics central to tribal governance today.
La Conner High School social studies teacher Peter Voorhees is in his second year teaching state history using the curriculum developed in cooperation with tribes indigenous to Washington State.
“We looked at the Point No Point Treaty and the Point Elliot treaty,” Voorhees said. “We looked at the tribes that signed on to them and what were the promises. It’s always nice to have a list of resources. It makes a topic that is unwieldy, like tribal sovereignty, a bit more approachable.”
After a number of Swinomish students failed their Washington state history class, the school received grant money to teach the tribal sovereignty curriculum.
Linda Willup was a para-professional in the class and a student at the Northwest Indian College on the Swinomish Reservation, where she is earning her degree in Native Science.
“Typically Washington state history focuses on who were the main participants in making a government here and what were some interesting things that happened during those first years,” said Willup, who is researching the role the curriculum played in engaging students on a deeper level. “To go into a native perspective of teaching for the first time, they are having to say, ‘OK, what happened with our native history?’ Instead of thinking, ‘when did Lewis and Clark get here?’ Well, ‘how did the arrival of Lewis and Clark affect our area?’”
Theresa Trebon, archivist for the Swinomish tribe, and a consultant when needed for the schools, aims to give students a tribal perspective on the La Conner community when she talks to classrooms.
“The treaty was signed in January of 1855,” said Trebon. “By October, you’re in a full-blown war on the east side of the mountains, and there is stuff happening on this side.” She said there was conflict from the beginning.
Issues of trust lands, fishing rights and tribal authority on reservation lands have their roots in treaties the tribes signed with Isaac Stevens, a soldier who was appointed by President Franklin Pierce to be the first governor of Washington Territory from 1853 to 1857 and was also Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the territory. Those treaties, mostly signed under threats and coercion, are the basis in which issues of tribal sovereignty and rights are argued in today’s context. The goal of the new curriculum is to understand these issues at a deeper level.
Trebon likes to explain to students how the changes in the area’s waterways slowly eroded the rights promised in the treaties.
“The way the non-native population affected this waterway created a very effective dividing line between this side of the channel and that side of the channel.” Trebon said. “In order to understand that these aren’t two separate histories, these are the same histories, you have to look at those changes over time — the change in place, the change in people, the change in education. All of those are really profound.”
Amanda Washington was at Shuksan Middle School in Bellingham when she first took Washington state history. Washington says she was one of five native students in a school of 800.
“Shuksan was just different,” Amanda said. “You get to meet all these different ethnicities, but you don’t get as much help as you do at La Conner. The teachers here explain it a little more, go into deeper depth. It’s to make sure that everyone gets it.”
The La Conner High School history class took a field trip to Diablo Dam, up in the Cascades, bringing the discussion of dams and salmon into full relief.
“The original curriculum talked about dams being important for hydroelectricity or boating,” said Tracy James, the education director for the tribe. But Voorhees “flipped” the curriculum, James said. He looked at how it affected the fishing, the flooding of native sites,” she said. “He looked at two different perspectives, what were the pros and cons.”
Another lesson looked at major landmarks in Washington showing the mountain ranges and major cities. Students were asked to show major sites and tribes they knew, connecting tribal history to place names.
“I actually liked it better,” said Amanda, of taking the class the second time around. “Maybe it was the fact that it helped me learn more about native history than when was Washington state started. I had something to connect with it.”
Auralia Washington, cultural director for the tribe and who also worked in the class, says she saw a change in students who sometimes don’t feel they have a foothold in their education.
“Sometimes our kids get the attitude like ‘I really don’t care, I’m just here because I have to be here.’ I think since this was geared towards them, and they were learning about their area, their ancestry and the ways the other tribes lived in the U.S. and their belief system,” she said, “that made a huge difference, it was more attention grabbing for them.”
After the first year, there is not much quantifiable data to determine whether the shift in curricular focus will have an impact on the statistics.
“I wish it were the case that if we taught a Native American history class, that every Native American student would do great in it. But that’s not the case. Our educational issues are a lot deeper and a lot more complex than offering a topic that some kids can relate to,” said Voorhees, who is just beginning another year with the sovereignty curriculum.
Voorhees is still waiting for video recording equipment purchased with the grant money, which he hopes to use to help students create tribal history by interviewing Swinomish elders.
Beth Clothier, La Conner School District librarian, says the school and local library received grant money for technology and materials to support the curriculum.
“The need has been there for a really long time, and I think only now are we starting to say, ‘Here are some materials to make that happen,’” says Clothier.
For children in younger grades, the school purchased primary readers that reflect native students in their daily lives.
“We bought a lot of these books with the hopes that, even from as early as kindergarten, kids have an opportunity to be reading and seeing more that we’re all part of a family and a community, instead of the feeling, being that over there, you have one community, and over here, you have a different community,” she said.
Clothier says the implemen-tation of the curriculum materials coincided with activities asso-ciated with last year’s canoe journey.
“We were able to start this presentation with some of the things our kids are doing, to open up the eyes of kids that don’t have that experience, who are, like, ‘Wow, there’s this whole other cultural experience that’s going on around me that I was unaware of.’ I’m hopeful that things like that will bring us closer.”
By Anna Ferdinand
For the state of Washington, the high school dropout rate for Native American students in the school year that ended in June was 28.4 percent. That’s the highest percentage of dropouts of any group in the state.
In order to understand that number, it’s important to revisit some Washington state history — And this is what La Conner High School has done in an attempt to boost the graduation rate of its Native American students.
“I think we have a history across the United States where the story of Native Americans was fractured,” said La Conner School District Superintendent Tim Bruce, speaking about the grant he helped write to teach the sovereignty curriculum developed by the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The state Legislature in 2005 passed a law that encourages schools to teach from a native perspective, working with tribes to help develop and implement curriculum.
“The history was told from perhaps the person who wrote it, it wasn’t necessarily the facts,” Bruce said. “These are curriculum materials and resources that have been put together with the assistance of Native American tribes throughout our state and basically have their stamp of approval that we can all agree is truthful and represents what people went through and the historical context.”
Treaties signed between tribes and the U.S. Government had been given short shrift in most Washington state history classes, given the vast amount of material to be covered in a semester. But for tribes around the state, the treaties are the documents upon which much of today’s current issues are based. The sovereignty curriculum takes students deeper into topics central to tribal governance today.
La Conner High School social studies teacher Peter Voorhees is in his second year teaching state history using the curriculum developed in cooperation with tribes indigenous to Washington State.
“We looked at the Point No Point Treaty and the Point Elliot treaty,” Voorhees said. “We looked at the tribes that signed on to them and what were the promises. It’s always nice to have a list of resources. It makes a topic that is unwieldy, like tribal sovereignty, a bit more approachable.”
After a number of Swinomish students failed their Washington state history class, the school received grant money to teach the tribal sovereignty curriculum.
Linda Willup was a para-professional in the class and a student at the Northwest Indian College on the Swinomish Reservation, where she is earning her degree in Native Science.
“Typically Washington state history focuses on who were the main participants in making a government here and what were some interesting things that happened during those first years,” said Willup, who is researching the role the curriculum played in engaging students on a deeper level. “To go into a native perspective of teaching for the first time, they are having to say, ‘OK, what happened with our native history?’ Instead of thinking, ‘when did Lewis and Clark get here?’ Well, ‘how did the arrival of Lewis and Clark affect our area?’”
Theresa Trebon, archivist for the Swinomish tribe, and a consultant when needed for the schools, aims to give students a tribal perspective on the La Conner community when she talks to classrooms.
“The treaty was signed in January of 1855,” said Trebon. “By October, you’re in a full-blown war on the east side of the mountains, and there is stuff happening on this side.” She said there was conflict from the beginning.
Issues of trust lands, fishing rights and tribal authority on reservation lands have their roots in treaties the tribes signed with Isaac Stevens, a soldier who was appointed by President Franklin Pierce to be the first governor of Washington Territory from 1853 to 1857 and was also Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the territory. Those treaties, mostly signed under threats and coercion, are the basis in which issues of tribal sovereignty and rights are argued in today’s context. The goal of the new curriculum is to understand these issues at a deeper level.
Trebon likes to explain to students how the changes in the area’s waterways slowly eroded the rights promised in the treaties.
“The way the non-native population affected this waterway created a very effective dividing line between this side of the channel and that side of the channel.” Trebon said. “In order to understand that these aren’t two separate histories, these are the same histories, you have to look at those changes over time — the change in place, the change in people, the change in education. All of those are really profound.”
Amanda Washington was at Shuksan Middle School in Bellingham when she first took Washington state history. Washington says she was one of five native students in a school of 800.
“Shuksan was just different,” Amanda said. “You get to meet all these different ethnicities, but you don’t get as much help as you do at La Conner. The teachers here explain it a little more, go into deeper depth. It’s to make sure that everyone gets it.”
The La Conner High School history class took a field trip to Diablo Dam, up in the Cascades, bringing the discussion of dams and salmon into full relief.
“The original curriculum talked about dams being important for hydroelectricity or boating,” said Tracy James, the education director for the tribe. But Voorhees “flipped” the curriculum, James said. He looked at how it affected the fishing, the flooding of native sites,” she said. “He looked at two different perspectives, what were the pros and cons.”
Another lesson looked at major landmarks in Washington showing the mountain ranges and major cities. Students were asked to show major sites and tribes they knew, connecting tribal history to place names.
“I actually liked it better,” said Amanda, of taking the class the second time around. “Maybe it was the fact that it helped me learn more about native history than when was Washington state started. I had something to connect with it.”
Auralia Washington, cultural director for the tribe and who also worked in the class, says she saw a change in students who sometimes don’t feel they have a foothold in their education.
“Sometimes our kids get the attitude like ‘I really don’t care, I’m just here because I have to be here.’ I think since this was geared towards them, and they were learning about their area, their ancestry and the ways the other tribes lived in the U.S. and their belief system,” she said, “that made a huge difference, it was more attention grabbing for them.”
After the first year, there is not much quantifiable data to determine whether the shift in curricular focus will have an impact on the statistics.
“I wish it were the case that if we taught a Native American history class, that every Native American student would do great in it. But that’s not the case. Our educational issues are a lot deeper and a lot more complex than offering a topic that some kids can relate to,” said Voorhees, who is just beginning another year with the sovereignty curriculum.
Voorhees is still waiting for video recording equipment purchased with the grant money, which he hopes to use to help students create tribal history by interviewing Swinomish elders.
Beth Clothier, La Conner School District librarian, says the school and local library received grant money for technology and materials to support the curriculum.
“The need has been there for a really long time, and I think only now are we starting to say, ‘Here are some materials to make that happen,’” says Clothier.
For children in younger grades, the school purchased primary readers that reflect native students in their daily lives.
“We bought a lot of these books with the hopes that, even from as early as kindergarten, kids have an opportunity to be reading and seeing more that we’re all part of a family and a community, instead of the feeling, being that over there, you have one community, and over here, you have a different community,” she said.
Clothier says the implemen-tation of the curriculum materials coincided with activities asso-ciated with last year’s canoe journey.
“We were able to start this presentation with some of the things our kids are doing, to open up the eyes of kids that don’t have that experience, who are, like, ‘Wow, there’s this whole other cultural experience that’s going on around me that I was unaware of.’ I’m hopeful that things like that will bring us closer.”