Education

Oklahoma Ottawas Get Tuition Deal with Kansas Ottawa University

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Ah, finally some justice resulting from the Ottawa University land fraud (book link)….

From Indianz:

Members of the Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma will get free tuition, room and board at Ottawa University in Kansas under an agreement finalized last week.

The tribe gave 20,000 acres for the school nearly 150 years ago. In return, the school promised to educate tribal members. “We believe that expanding this agreement is in keeping with the Ottawa spirit and honors the heritage of this institution and its relationship with the Ottawa Tribe,” university president Kevin C. Eichner told The Kansas City Star.

Get the Story:
Ottawa Indian Tribe members to get free tuition at Ottawa University (The Kansas City Star 10/22)

Fluent Anishinaabemowin Teacher for Sutton’s Bay Schools in Leelanau County

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Wanted:  Fluent Anishinaabemowin Teacher for Suttons Bay Public Schools and the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.  Teacher will be employed half time by Suttons Bay public Schools to instruct a Level 1 class at the high school level, a beginning class at the middle school level, as well as some foundation language experiences at the elementary level.

The ideal candidate will help develop the high school curriculum, which will grow in the following year into a two-year course sequence. The applicant must be a first speaker of the Odawa or Ojibwe dialects of Anishinaabemowin.  The applicant must write in the double vowel system and speak the dialect of Manitoulin Island or the North Shore of Ontario.  The applicant should have training in the Total Physical Response methodology of teaching the language, and should have a minimum of three years experience teaching Anishinaabemowin.  The teacher must know the cultural aspects of the language and the worldview inherent in Anishinaabemowin.

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NYTs: Article on Arapaho Language Preservation

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the NYTs:

RIVERTON, Wyo. — At 69, her eyes soft and creased with age, Alvena Oldman remembers how the teachers at St. Stephens boarding school on the Wind River Reservation would strike students with rulers if they dared to talk in their native Arapaho language.

“We were afraid to speak it,” she said. “We knew we would be punished.”

More than a half-century later, only about 200 Arapaho speakers are still alive, and tribal leaders at Wind River, Wyoming’s only Indian reservation, fear their language will not survive. As part of an intensifying effort to save that language, this tribe of 8,791, known as the Northern Arapaho, recently opened a new school where students will be taught in Arapaho. Elders and educators say they hope it will create a new generation of native speakers.

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Pigeon Family in Documentary about Basket Weaving

Kate Fort

From the Grand Rapids press via mLive, by Rick Wilson:

Students help weave film featuring Potawatomi family, basket-making

by Rick Wilson | The Grand Rapids Press

Monday September 29, 2008, 8:26 AM
Press photo / Dave Raczkowski
Connor Zautke, 11, weaves a black ash basket as Kitt Pigeon, left, offers instruction and a cameraman documents the moment.

ADA TOWNSHIP — Rachel Swem conceded it’s pretty cool to be in a movie. But she also understands she’s part of a larger picture.

The 11-year-old sixth-grader and schoolmates at Forest Hills Goodwillie Environmental School spent much of last week as a backdrop for a documentary video conceived to provide a window into the struggles of West Michigan American Indian families trying to find their place in a society dominated by people of European descent.

Press photo / Dave Raczkowski
Steve Pigeon demonstrates basket-weaving techniques at the Goodwillie Environmental School in Ada Township.

The documentary centers on the Potawatomi family of Steve and Kitt Pigeon and the ancient tradition of basket-weaving that has been kept alive in their family for generations. Continue reading →

Sherman Alexie in the Classroom

Kate Fort

Turtle Talk favorite Sherman Alexie is in the news again, this time as the focus of a textbook for high school English teachers.  From Jodi Rave at the Missoulian.  H/T Indianz.

Native insight: Textbook guides teachers on author’s racial messages

It ain’t easy being Indian. So says one of America’s premier Native writers of contemporary Indian life.

To help explain the racial complexities that permeate Sherman Alexie’s work, a textbook for teachers, “Sherman Alexie in the Classroom,” was recently published to help educators explore Native Americana in modern times, stories often told by Alexie with an acerbic twist.

To wit, says Alexie: “I rooted for John Wayne even though I knew he was going to kill his niece because she had been ‘soiled’ by the Indians. Hell, I rooted for John Wayne because I understood why he wanted to kill his niece. I hated those Indians just as much as John Wayne did.”

So why would an Indian hate Indians?

English literature professors and teachers Heather Bruce, Anna Baldwin and Christabel Umphrey explain this paradox in “Sherman Alexie in the Classroom,” a high school literature series published by the National Council of Teachers of English. The text examines Alexie’s provocative body of work, ranging from poetry and novels to film scripts.