As a classroom teacher, I was often asked to pair a text in English with the content being offered in history classes, and when it came to indigenous cultures of the United States, I was always perplexed by the lack of perspectives, and it was always on day two I'd get a question from a student, "Why aren't there more indigenous people in our classroom?" -- after all, the Brown School's mission was diversity and inclusivity. My environmental work often led me to a worship of indigenous beliefs, but it always rubbed me the wrong way that it was always White retellings.
The very notion of original peoples and current realities is extremely telling of history, truth-altering, and the quest to rule the world. Alarmingly fascinating and troubling, too.
Then comes #OwnVoice. I remember reading The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and thinking, "now I have something that is teachable...that addresses issues...that models storytelling to make us think." Many years later, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian arrived, but it arrived as I was exiting K-12 teaching and I never got to work with it at Brown.
Fast forward to now, and Week Five of a young adult literature. I created a list of what students might consider and, interestingly enough, many reported their local libraries didn't have any of the titles (these are graduate students). They persevered and we had a great conversation following prompts from the night's reading in a chapter addressing indigenous questions that should be asked of young adult readers. They were great prompts - congrats to Noodin, Pasternak, Walczak, & Zimmerman (2021):
- What cultural models does the narrator or implied author present in the text?
- How and to what extent does the narrator or implied author reify or critique the cultural models in the text?
- What are the social and political implications of the reification or critique of the cultural models at work in the text?
My students worked through mini-presentations of what they read, as they answered these questions on-demand, and I collected their knowledge for a larger conversation on a white board. They read everything from Sherman Alexie to Bruchac to Anton Treuer to Joseph Bruchac to Adam Garnet Jones and Cynthia Leitich Smith.....
Through their discussions they offered themes and conversation around land, place, and boundaries. They addressed spirituality, story-telling, the importance of intergeneration mentoring, but also the policing of bodies by Whiteness, and the internalized racism characters witnessed in others and often radiated within themselves. Another idea that came across was how the ideas of NDN people have been described and put forward in an Encyclopedia fashion the has excluded original voices (as the grandmother says in Rez Dogs, books are to be read to learn what others are 'saying about us'). Feeling outside in one's own land was also common, as well as wrestling with economics, opportunity, and leaving the home to find a new way. It's all complicated.
Throughout the evening, too, I brought it videos of indigenous poets reading their work, indigenous teachers making recommendations for teaching their stories, and stories from popular news agencies that were countered by indigenous youth to say, "We are more than that."
In short, I want to read more books - all of the ones I presented to them - and to find even more that I know I've missed. I need to get ready for tonight's class (writing seminar), but I was truly inspired by the authors we read for the week and the way my students worked through the much-needed conversation. In the words of most, "We never learned about indigenous people in school, except totem poles and tipis."
And there you have it. Another reason why diverse reading experiences in K-12 schools should occur.
