Thinking back on my own educational path in school, the one thing that seems the most pervasive now is the traditional view of American Indians that I received growing up. I had exceptional teachers but there was something that was always missing when it came to learning about American Indians. Even as a college student, it was not until I began working on this unit that I realized how little I knew. This unit, therefore, was a journey for me to grow but also to create something that represents the larger scope of issues around how to teach about American Indians.
This unit would not have been possible without the help and time of Ryan Comfort from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As a non-American Indian, I had these preconceived ideas and notions that had to be broken down prior to even making any progress on this unit. There were multiple occasions that I would leave a discussion with Ryan and not know what to say or how to process what had happened to my schema. After years of inaccurate schema reinforcement, I had to break down my thinking for any progress to be made.
The unit that follows is the journey for me. I had to think about American Indians in a way that I had never thought or be taught. When I began this unit, it was completely from the framework of American Indians as a culture and people of the past. I could not get past the way in which I had learned about American Indians and I had not idea how to begin to think about American Indians in a contemporary fashion. As time progressed and work continued, I was able to begin to see how important it is to present the American Indians in a contemporary light.
The following unit is a combination of Language Arts, Social Studies, and Science. It is designed to be an inquiry-based unit around deconstructing the prejudices that are prevalent about American Indians, and also, to create a sense of appreciation for all the different cultures and people in Wisconsin. The history of Wisconsin is not a single strand of history but rather a shared history among all the people and events. Ignoring American Indian’s place in this shared history does all of us a disservice.
This unit hopes to highlight our shared history and show that American Indians are still a part of that fabric. By using storytelling as a mode of communication in Language Arts or by looking at the recent history of the Ojibwe and spear fishing rights, the place of the American Indians is today, not yesterday.
Hopefully, this unit is seen as a starting point for teaching about Wisconsin American Indians in the classroom. This is not a catchall for how to teach American Indians in the 4th grade. It was created based on a hypothetical classroom and was an exercise in curricular planning but the rationale was to show that it is possible. As I began to work on this unit, I realized that I had taken on an exercise that was beyond the scope of a single person. The hardest thing to get past was asking for help and getting started. It is easy to plan a unit on a topic that a person is familiar with, but with limited familiarity the process becomes more difficult. It takes diligence and the willingness to step outside of one’s comfort zone to create growth both for educator and student.
This unit would not have been possible without the help and time of Ryan Comfort from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As a non-American Indian, I had these preconceived ideas and notions that had to be broken down prior to even making any progress on this unit. There were multiple occasions that I would leave a discussion with Ryan and not know what to say or how to process what had happened to my schema. After years of inaccurate schema reinforcement, I had to break down my thinking for any progress to be made.
The unit that follows is the journey for me. I had to think about American Indians in a way that I had never thought or be taught. When I began this unit, it was completely from the framework of American Indians as a culture and people of the past. I could not get past the way in which I had learned about American Indians and I had not idea how to begin to think about American Indians in a contemporary fashion. As time progressed and work continued, I was able to begin to see how important it is to present the American Indians in a contemporary light.
The following unit is a combination of Language Arts, Social Studies, and Science. It is designed to be an inquiry-based unit around deconstructing the prejudices that are prevalent about American Indians, and also, to create a sense of appreciation for all the different cultures and people in Wisconsin. The history of Wisconsin is not a single strand of history but rather a shared history among all the people and events. Ignoring American Indian’s place in this shared history does all of us a disservice.
This unit hopes to highlight our shared history and show that American Indians are still a part of that fabric. By using storytelling as a mode of communication in Language Arts or by looking at the recent history of the Ojibwe and spear fishing rights, the place of the American Indians is today, not yesterday.
Hopefully, this unit is seen as a starting point for teaching about Wisconsin American Indians in the classroom. This is not a catchall for how to teach American Indians in the 4th grade. It was created based on a hypothetical classroom and was an exercise in curricular planning but the rationale was to show that it is possible. As I began to work on this unit, I realized that I had taken on an exercise that was beyond the scope of a single person. The hardest thing to get past was asking for help and getting started. It is easy to plan a unit on a topic that a person is familiar with, but with limited familiarity the process becomes more difficult. It takes diligence and the willingness to step outside of one’s comfort zone to create growth both for educator and student.
