Tribe and schools build a bond of trust
This is the fourth and final story in the series
By Anna Ferdinand
When staff from the La Conner School District attended a training session on the Swinomish Reservation, eating barbecued salmon, visiting the Smoke House and watching a video about the history of Indian boarding schools in the U.S., it was more than a symbolic crossing of the bridge.
It seemed to herald a new era.
“They are willing to learn and we’re finally, honestly, willing to share and open up,” said Tracy James, education director for the tribe. “It’s a trust thing they’ve built over time. It’s been a wonderful experience with the school district.”
James says tribal members talked to La Conner staff about the boarding school era, “what happened to our elders and the trauma it caused. A lot of the research says it takes seven generations to start healing after the trauma. After so many generations, we‘re realizing we need to bring back our culture and to heal ourselves.”
Jill Rohrs, one of nine paraprofessional aids hired by the tribe to work in La Conner schools was instrumental in setting up the training day.
“There are a lot of new employees not familiar with life on the rez,” said Rohrs. “I wanted it to be like a challenge day, to make a bridge between the two cultures, and to understand how this affects kids in the classrooms.”
High school social studies teacher Peter Voorhees says that while he has studied tribal customs and history due to teaching a tribal-supported curriculum in his Washington State History Class and his own personal interest in tribal culture, the day was beneficial.
“It’s always a good thing when we as a staff can raise the base level for everyone,” said Voorhees. “Teaching in La Conner is a unique thing. Multi-culture is the blanket statement, but it’s specific depending on the culture. In La Conner, there are specific cultural issues that are pertinent that wouldn’t be pertinent to another cultural group.”
While since the 2011 Canoe Journey, the resurgence of pride in culture has caused a major shift in students’ sense of identity and the tribe’s desire to share, Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby speaks bluntly about the challenges facing the youth on the Swinomish reservation.
“Trying to get our kids to age 30, that seems to be the bench mark,” he said recently, pointing to the plague of drugs and alcohol in the youth. “I can fill up this chalk board with friends of mine that are dead or didn’t make it to age 30 because of suicide or overdose. The biggest challenge is to try to get our kids — we call it growing up — education.”
Education and protecting treaty rights have been a focal point for the tribe in recent years. With income from the various tribal enterprises, education and health services to deal with the challenges kids face have been funded to a degree previously unseen.
Aurelia Washington, culture director for the tribe, says one goal for the tribe is to get students through high school and college in order to return to fill key roles in running the tribe. “My vision is once these kids graduate from high school, they can further their education,” says Washington. “We have a lot of people who have worked for 15, 20, 30 years and are ready to retire. We need to have a succession plan in place.”
Tim Bruce, superintendent of the schools, has made it a priority, both in his own research, as well as with the grants he has written, to address the social and academic needs of Swinomish students and create a sense of relevance in education for those students who get lost in the system. One of the first priorities is hiring more tribal teachers.
“Our student population is about a third Native American, but our staff is not a third Native American,” said Bruce. “For any student seeing positive role models, people from your own culture — whether that be white, black, any culture — has a lot of merit.”
Landy James was one such teacher. His impact on students in La Conner was profound. “Landy James was a big inspiration,” said Washington, who was a student at the high school when James was still teaching. Having Swinomish teachers is “probably the most important factor, because as far as trust and integrity, I had more respect for him. He was in our community. He was someone who was present all the time.”
James went into teaching in 1956, joining the La Conner School District in 1969. He also served as a tribal chairman and spoke around the nation about the importance in education of bridging the old ways of Native communities to those of the new.
In a 1975 speech delivered to the National Association of Tribal Chairmen in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and read recently by his son Loran James at a high school assembly last month, Landy James laid out what he called the seven drums of education. The tenets included honoring the family as the basic unit of Indian culture, retaining identity as an Indian nation by maintaining language and culture, being active in forming and supporting Indian education programs, and aiding in the creation of curriculum.
“Modern school education is only a set of tools that we can use to understand ourselves and the world around us,” James said in his 1975 speech. “It is only a small part of the total education of any person.”
With the sovereignty curriculum and a focus on Swinomish culture in the schools, as well as the para-pro program, which aims to get tribal members in the schools to support those tribal students, much effort has been made to turn the tide for native students within the public school system.
Nonetheless, some tribal members feel the school system is inherently biased against native ways.
Former tribal senator Ray Williams now works with indigenous tribes internationally to promote a return to language, and the spiritual connection to land. Williams believes that the public school system lacks the spiritual connection. His own experience in La Conner, where he felt cut off from his cultural beliefs, has been central to spurring his work, which includes lobbying at the United Nations for indigenous rights.
“We have to continue to take that wedge of doubt and to remove it, and one of those ways to remove it is to be able to educate our population and others with an understanding of this deep-seeded spiritual relationship to all that exists on this earth,” says Williams.
The wedge of doubt must be removed, he said, in order to move from viewing the world only as a resource and commodity. Restoring this balance is “really the question that we’re looking at right now. Education is really incidental around that. How do we restore the integrity and the intentions of our purpose of being on this earth? The rest of it is politics...”
While Bruce acknowledges that the public school system is far from perfect, and that the drive towards testing and increased graduation standards makes the climb to success in high school much steeper in today’s world, students must receive a rigorous schooling in order to be successful.
“I will tell you there is a perception in Indian country across the United States that some of those state tests or exams required by different states are biased against the native culture. It doesn’t make any difference whether it’s true or not. If that perception is out there and being talked about, it’s going to do some damage to the student who comes in to take that test, if they think that test is biased.”
Even so, says Bruce, Native American students “have to be prepared to have a foot in both worlds. How do we help prepare people to do that, where we honor the culture and make it a part of (the curriculum), but we prepare a student to be successful in whatever world they happen to step in?”
Theresa Trebon, archivist for the tribe, has studied the evolution of education at Swinomish from prior to the signing of the point Elliott Treaty to present — from traditional education to boarding schools, driven first by religion, then assimilation to the economics of the Industrial Revolution and finally education on the Swinomish reservation and in town. She played an integral part in the presentation for the in-service training for La Conner School District staff.
“Any time the predominant culture can look at the past through the lens of someone else or another experience is huge. That is what education is all about,” said Trebon. “You talk to people my age, and they usually learned only the history of the victors, not those cultures that were suppressed or how those people viewed change from their experience.”
Tribal funding has become a game changer in addressing the educational needs for the tribe, says Trebon, as has the sense of urgency for tribal leaders to educate the young so they can enter work in, among other fields, the sciences, law and administration to uphold the tribal values in today’s world.
“Tribal students have to be able to make it through the school system,” says Trebon. “And that’s difficult if there is not a concerted effort to bridge what happens in the La Conner School District, and what this community is and values, and the way things work over here.”
By Anna Ferdinand
When staff from the La Conner School District attended a training session on the Swinomish Reservation, eating barbecued salmon, visiting the Smoke House and watching a video about the history of Indian boarding schools in the U.S., it was more than a symbolic crossing of the bridge.
It seemed to herald a new era.
“They are willing to learn and we’re finally, honestly, willing to share and open up,” said Tracy James, education director for the tribe. “It’s a trust thing they’ve built over time. It’s been a wonderful experience with the school district.”
James says tribal members talked to La Conner staff about the boarding school era, “what happened to our elders and the trauma it caused. A lot of the research says it takes seven generations to start healing after the trauma. After so many generations, we‘re realizing we need to bring back our culture and to heal ourselves.”
Jill Rohrs, one of nine paraprofessional aids hired by the tribe to work in La Conner schools was instrumental in setting up the training day.
“There are a lot of new employees not familiar with life on the rez,” said Rohrs. “I wanted it to be like a challenge day, to make a bridge between the two cultures, and to understand how this affects kids in the classrooms.”
High school social studies teacher Peter Voorhees says that while he has studied tribal customs and history due to teaching a tribal-supported curriculum in his Washington State History Class and his own personal interest in tribal culture, the day was beneficial.
“It’s always a good thing when we as a staff can raise the base level for everyone,” said Voorhees. “Teaching in La Conner is a unique thing. Multi-culture is the blanket statement, but it’s specific depending on the culture. In La Conner, there are specific cultural issues that are pertinent that wouldn’t be pertinent to another cultural group.”
While since the 2011 Canoe Journey, the resurgence of pride in culture has caused a major shift in students’ sense of identity and the tribe’s desire to share, Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby speaks bluntly about the challenges facing the youth on the Swinomish reservation.
“Trying to get our kids to age 30, that seems to be the bench mark,” he said recently, pointing to the plague of drugs and alcohol in the youth. “I can fill up this chalk board with friends of mine that are dead or didn’t make it to age 30 because of suicide or overdose. The biggest challenge is to try to get our kids — we call it growing up — education.”
Education and protecting treaty rights have been a focal point for the tribe in recent years. With income from the various tribal enterprises, education and health services to deal with the challenges kids face have been funded to a degree previously unseen.
Aurelia Washington, culture director for the tribe, says one goal for the tribe is to get students through high school and college in order to return to fill key roles in running the tribe. “My vision is once these kids graduate from high school, they can further their education,” says Washington. “We have a lot of people who have worked for 15, 20, 30 years and are ready to retire. We need to have a succession plan in place.”
Tim Bruce, superintendent of the schools, has made it a priority, both in his own research, as well as with the grants he has written, to address the social and academic needs of Swinomish students and create a sense of relevance in education for those students who get lost in the system. One of the first priorities is hiring more tribal teachers.
“Our student population is about a third Native American, but our staff is not a third Native American,” said Bruce. “For any student seeing positive role models, people from your own culture — whether that be white, black, any culture — has a lot of merit.”
Landy James was one such teacher. His impact on students in La Conner was profound. “Landy James was a big inspiration,” said Washington, who was a student at the high school when James was still teaching. Having Swinomish teachers is “probably the most important factor, because as far as trust and integrity, I had more respect for him. He was in our community. He was someone who was present all the time.”
James went into teaching in 1956, joining the La Conner School District in 1969. He also served as a tribal chairman and spoke around the nation about the importance in education of bridging the old ways of Native communities to those of the new.
In a 1975 speech delivered to the National Association of Tribal Chairmen in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and read recently by his son Loran James at a high school assembly last month, Landy James laid out what he called the seven drums of education. The tenets included honoring the family as the basic unit of Indian culture, retaining identity as an Indian nation by maintaining language and culture, being active in forming and supporting Indian education programs, and aiding in the creation of curriculum.
“Modern school education is only a set of tools that we can use to understand ourselves and the world around us,” James said in his 1975 speech. “It is only a small part of the total education of any person.”
With the sovereignty curriculum and a focus on Swinomish culture in the schools, as well as the para-pro program, which aims to get tribal members in the schools to support those tribal students, much effort has been made to turn the tide for native students within the public school system.
Nonetheless, some tribal members feel the school system is inherently biased against native ways.
Former tribal senator Ray Williams now works with indigenous tribes internationally to promote a return to language, and the spiritual connection to land. Williams believes that the public school system lacks the spiritual connection. His own experience in La Conner, where he felt cut off from his cultural beliefs, has been central to spurring his work, which includes lobbying at the United Nations for indigenous rights.
“We have to continue to take that wedge of doubt and to remove it, and one of those ways to remove it is to be able to educate our population and others with an understanding of this deep-seeded spiritual relationship to all that exists on this earth,” says Williams.
The wedge of doubt must be removed, he said, in order to move from viewing the world only as a resource and commodity. Restoring this balance is “really the question that we’re looking at right now. Education is really incidental around that. How do we restore the integrity and the intentions of our purpose of being on this earth? The rest of it is politics...”
While Bruce acknowledges that the public school system is far from perfect, and that the drive towards testing and increased graduation standards makes the climb to success in high school much steeper in today’s world, students must receive a rigorous schooling in order to be successful.
“I will tell you there is a perception in Indian country across the United States that some of those state tests or exams required by different states are biased against the native culture. It doesn’t make any difference whether it’s true or not. If that perception is out there and being talked about, it’s going to do some damage to the student who comes in to take that test, if they think that test is biased.”
Even so, says Bruce, Native American students “have to be prepared to have a foot in both worlds. How do we help prepare people to do that, where we honor the culture and make it a part of (the curriculum), but we prepare a student to be successful in whatever world they happen to step in?”
Theresa Trebon, archivist for the tribe, has studied the evolution of education at Swinomish from prior to the signing of the point Elliott Treaty to present — from traditional education to boarding schools, driven first by religion, then assimilation to the economics of the Industrial Revolution and finally education on the Swinomish reservation and in town. She played an integral part in the presentation for the in-service training for La Conner School District staff.
“Any time the predominant culture can look at the past through the lens of someone else or another experience is huge. That is what education is all about,” said Trebon. “You talk to people my age, and they usually learned only the history of the victors, not those cultures that were suppressed or how those people viewed change from their experience.”
Tribal funding has become a game changer in addressing the educational needs for the tribe, says Trebon, as has the sense of urgency for tribal leaders to educate the young so they can enter work in, among other fields, the sciences, law and administration to uphold the tribal values in today’s world.
“Tribal students have to be able to make it through the school system,” says Trebon. “And that’s difficult if there is not a concerted effort to bridge what happens in the La Conner School District, and what this community is and values, and the way things work over here.”