Teaching about American Indians: "You don't want us to do anything!"

I'm getting a few private replies to my post asking teachers to think critically about using traditional American Indian stories as a model for a writing activity. One person said that while she has learned a lot from what I've been sharing on the blog, she is getting a little tired of my critiques. It seems that I can find something wrong with every lesson or activity on American Indians teachers do, or every children's book they use. One person, in a comment, said I am losing credibility with readers of the blog.

I can see why someone would feel that way. October and November are months when Native American content is very visible in schools across America. I've discussed problems in dressing up as an Indian at Halloween and problems in depictions of characters dressing up as Indians in favorite children's books. And, I've been critical about the ways that Native peoples are, and are not, presented in lessons about Christopher Columbus and Thanksgiving.

So, it seems like a bit much right now.

But maybe it is because there IS so much wrong with the way we are teaching children about American Indians.

I don't think any given teacher is a bad (or racist) person because their lessons provide a heroic or romantic picture of America's history. Most likely, that teacher didn't get much in the way of critical thinking about teaching this topic in his/her teacher education program. Maybe there haven't been opportunities to think about this, either, once the teacher entered the classroom.

Teachers are overworked and underpaid. They and the profession often get little respect. Most are doing the best they can.

I'm not asking teachers to immediately drop all the lessons you've been doing for years. Meaningful change takes time. If a teacher elects to modify a lesson, it takes time to figure out what to do instead. That means a lot of time for research, thinking, writing, locating and developing new materials for their students.... Time most don't have, because they're struggling to do a good job as it is, given things like No Child Left Behind.

What I'm doing with this blog is offering some ideas for teachers to think about. My hope is that this will lead to change. I know some teachers can make changes right away, and others will modify something more slowly, and still others will think over my input and then reject what I offer because it is counter to the way they view things.

I have confidence in education and in educators. Teachers are caring people. They care about the children they teach. They want to do a good job, and if they're reading this blog, they are interested in thinking about the ways they teach about American Indians. I offer this blog to help them.

American Indian "Pourquoi" tales

A few days ago, the White House proclaimed November to be National American Indian Heritage Month. This happens every year. Across the country, teachers begin their lessons on American Indians, and their professional organizations and associations help them by suggesting activities they can do.

For example, the ReadWriteThink website (maintained by the International Reading Association and the National Council for Teachers of English) has a page (to get to it, go to their calendar and click on November 2nd) .

Here's the activity at the top of the page:

"Engage your students in an exploration of Native American heritage through a study of Native American pourquoi tales. Pourquoi tales explain why something or someone, usually in nature, is the way it is. Have your students read a variety of Native American pourquoi tales and then write original texts."

The activity is very popular, most adults did this activity when they were kids. It seems harmless and fun, but is it?

Is it harmless to take a peoples way of thinking about the world and use it as a playful model for a writing activity?

Would you do this with Genesis?

There is a double standard at work, subtly undermining the integrity of indigenous peoples whose stories are trivialized in this way. Engaging in these seemingly harmless activities has ramifications for the way children learn to think about American Indians and others whose stories are used like this.

Let's stop doing it.

Or, let's do it to Genesis, too. Teach children that all religions deserve the same treatment.

Tim Tingle's CROSSING BOK CHITTO

[Note: This review used by permission of its author, Beverly Slapin. It may not be published elsewhere without written permission of the author.]

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Tingle, Tim (Choctaw), Crossing Bok Chitto: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship & Freedom, illustrated by Jeanne Rorex Bridges (Cherokee). Cinco Puntos Press, 2006. Unpaginated, color illustrations; grades 2-5

Crossing Bok Chitto, originally one of the stories in Tingle’s excellent collection, Walking the Choctaw Road, is now a picture book.

In the early 1800s, Mississippi’s Bok Chitto River was a boundary, dividing the home of the sovereign Choctaw Nation from the “Old South” of plantation owners and their human property. Enslaved Black people who were able to get to the Choctaw side of Bok Chitto were free. According to the story, the Choctaws built a stone path just below the muddy surface of Bok Chitto—built it up in times of flooding and built it down in times of drought. It is this unseen stone path, and the generosity of a Choctaw family, that aids an enslaved Black family to cross to freedom. 

When her momma asks Martha Tom to fill her basket with blackberries for an upcoming wedding, the little girl crosses Bok Chitto, loses her way, and encounters the calling together of a Black church secreted in the Mississippi woods. After an enslaved Black father instructs his young son how to move among the white people without being seen—“not too fast, not too slow, eyes to the ground, away you go!”—Little Mo escorts Martha Tom past the plantation house and back to the river, where she shows him how to cross. The relationship between the two children and their respective families deepens, and when trouble comes—“it always does, in stories or in life, trouble comes”—magic is made, and the Black family is empowered to cross to freedom. 

There are two concerns with this otherwise extraordinary story. One is that, in moving the text from a short story to a picture book, the description of the Choctaw was changed from “a sovereign nation of people” to “a nation of Indian people.” “Sovereign” may be one of the most important words in Indian Country, and children old enough to read this book—or have it read to them—need to be taught its meaning. 

There is something else that needs to be considered. For people to be defined by their condition of servitude—“slaves”—is a social construct that holds the institution of slavery in place. Rather, the word “enslaved” places the responsibility for servitude on the owners rather than on the owned, and raises a level of consciousness that the word “slave” does not. 

These issues notwithstanding, Crossing Bok Chitto is an awesome story of survival, generosity, courage, kindness and love; enhanced by Jeanne Rorex Bridges’ luminous acrylic on watercolor board paintings on a subdued palette of mostly browns and greens. In an endnote, Tingle describes how this particular story came to be. Today, Choctaw families—as well as Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole—continue to tell the stories of how they aided the “runaway people of bondage. "

—Beverly Slapin

American Psychological Association Resolution on American Indian Imagery

In 2005, the American Psychological Association passed a resolution calling for the immediate retirement of American Indian mascots, symbols, images, and personalities used by schools, colleges, universities, athletic teams, and organizations.

The APA's Justification Statement for the resolution reads, in part:

“It is especially difficult when American Indian peoples are trying to present their tribal identity as accurately as possible, to have the dominant culture employ symbols, mascots, images and personalities that depict American Indians in an inaccurate and offensive manner (Staurowsky, 1999; Pewewardy, 1991).”

Here’s another excerpt from the APA Justification:

“The stereotyping of any racial, ethnic, or religious group by other groups and social institutions—especially public educational institutions and educators—had the potential to teach children and youth that stereotyping of ethnic minority groups is acceptable (US Commission on Civil Rights, 2001).”

A lot of people are inclined to dismiss stereotypical images in a children’s book because “it is just a children’s book.” Others defend dressing up as an Indian, especially if the Indian is/was a real and heroic person (i.e. Pocahontas), arguing that such actions are informative to the person dressing up that way, and potentially to those who the person interacts with while dressed that way. And still others cite freedom of expression, first amendment rights, etc.

Read the APA document and consider what we do, as individuals who create, edit, publish, review, and purchase children’s books with American Indian imagery. You can read the entire statement by clicking below or pasting the URL in your browser window: http://www.apa.org/pi/oema/justification_amindian_mascots.pdf

Justification Statement

Resolution Recommending the Immediate Retirement of American Indian Mascots, Symbols, Images, and Personalities by Schools, Colleges, Universities, Athletic Teams, and Organizations