- JoyAnn Boudreau Part of our job as librarians is to help support curriculum and to collaborate to see what resources teachers need to supplement their lessons. We research, we curate, we share. When we’re doing this work, it’s important that we are looking for gaps in curriculum and in representation in texts. Another aspect of our job as a building leader striving towards equity is to do our part to help ensure that all students and cultures are represented in an accurate manner that doesn’t just portray one side of the story. There’s a new humanities curriculum for some grade levels in my building and district. It was observed that the representation of American Indians in the 5th grade curriculum/book did not include enough information or any current information. Hearing that, I set out to gather resources. Filling the GapsSome of the teachers at that grade level may already have resources to recommend to others, we can help crowdsource and gather these. For example, one of my teachers suggested and had used Pebble Go Next. A subscription database that our local public library subscribes to and we can access through them that has a section geared towards 5th grade social studies with tribes, states, etc. And another one of my teachers found some modern books on tribes and American Indians on Epic. Any teacher can set up a free teacher account and set up their students to access books during school hours. My district subscribes to World Book Online, so I went there to remind myself and others what they had for American Indians, and they had articles for several tribes individually in addition to some historical overview information. I also turned to resources I had seen shared and had saved from Twitter, such as the US Department of Arts and Culture has a guide about Honoring Native Land. They have a guide and posters that can be downloaded on their site. Sidenote: Land acknowledgement, which is primarily what the guide is focused on, is something more folks are working on doing. This is also something I would like to post in our library space and find ways to recognize. My first instinct was to do this quickly, and I did a lot of research to find accurate information about the tribes of our county. Then I took pause. I came across this article from Dr. Debbie Reese entitled “Are you planning to do a Land Acknowledgement?” I do still plan on moving forward with putting up a sign from the USDAC site and having things in place to do a land acknowledgement through the library, but I also want to slow down to study Dr. Reese’s resources and words to try to ensure that my impact will match my intent. Dr. Reese makes a great point about it being more than a box to check but proceeding with a land acknowledgement with great thought, intent, and planning. That is often the misstep we take when doing equity work is rushing ahead with good intentions and not making sure our impact will be what we are working towards. The US Department of Arts and Culture’s guide also references this interactive map that will show tribes, languages, and treaties in many areas. (It’s an amazing resource. Be mindful that it is still a good idea to thoroughly research your area’s history in addition to this great guide if you want a full picture of the tribes historically/currently in your area.) I also turned to research and looking for sites on modern tribes and reservations, knowing that one of the issues we run into with lessons about American Indians is that so many of the questions we ask students to answer are all in past tense, and then we cause students to forget to see American Indians in present tense or never give them the opportunity to do so. The National Congress of American Indians has a tribal directory with links to many of tribes’ sites. The Big PictureThis is just an example of a topic and of resources pulled. But it was a valuable reminder to me of the weight and impact the resources we pull can have and of what can happen if gaps in a new text or curriculum are not supplemented with additional resources. I’ve yet to see a perfect curriculum that represents all sides of all events or is fully inclusive. So knowing that, we can actively talk to our teachers about what or who is missing in their new curriculums. We can help guide them to asking tough questions, such as: Whose voices are left out or missing? What stories are not being told? Who is this text centering? What assumptions are being made? (I have seen questions like this posed by many folks doing equity work on Twitter. I do not want to take credit for them being original but am also not sure who to give credit to.) Also it’s a valuable reminder that we all still have internal learning to do as we try to fill these gaps and ask these tough questions. Two resources I had already found and learned from prior to this work was from Dr. Debbie Reese, who is a wealth of knowledge on Twitter and posts pieces to this site, and from a podcast episode of Leading Equity with Dr. Sheldon Eakins interviewing Teresa Dameron on “What Can I Teach? Integrating Indigenous Education into the Curriculum with Teri Dameron.”
I also found and learned from some new to me resources during this process that helped grow my own knowledge and understanding, such as Indian Country Today, NDN Collective, and IllumiNatives on Twitter. You can also follow hashtags during Native American Heritage Month (#NativeIn2019 and #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth). Check out Teaching Tolerance’s The Moment on Thanksgiving 2019 and the Racial Justice Guide to Thanksgiving for Educators and Families (I have been told that "The Very First Americans" is inaccurate and on that list.) that was curated by The Center for Racial Justice in Education. The work isn't done. It's ongoing. I will continue to look for other resources that can supplement this unit in future years. I will keep an eye and ear out for other curriculum needs and help push folks to continue asking those tough questions. Comments are closed.
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AboutThe purpose of the ISTE Librarians Network is to promote librarians as leaders and champions of educational technology and digital literacy. The key mission is to provide a professional learning community where librarians can leverage technology knowledge and expertise to improve school library programs, increase access to information, and foster strong teaching and learning environments in a connected world. Archives
April 2020
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