BACK TO HERITAGE: A Different Kind of School for American Indian Adolescents

Multicultural Education, Fall 2004 by Buly, Marsha Riddle, Ohana, Chris

"The teachers look at us as people who are here to learn about the culture, not just trying to get us through and out of their hair. These teachers try with us."

The United States system of education is far removed from the historic system of education in many American Indian communities, yet most American Indian students attend state-run public schools, often with little or no input from tribal communities. Something is clearly not working because many American Indian students experience high levels of educational failure and many drop out of school (Sherman, 2002).

In this article, we present an alternative to the traditional state-run public school for one group of American Indian adolescents. We describe the first year of a grades 6-12 "choice" school, within a public school system, that utilizes a projectbased approach to education with a focus on local tribal culture. The school is somewhat unique because although it is located on a reservation and the student body predominantly (94%) identifies as American Indian, the school is within a public school system with a predominately White student body.

COMMUNITY CONTEXT

American Indian students comprise approximately 3% of this Northwest state's public school enrollment and approximately 7% of the enrollment for the district described in this article. Prior to the opening of the new school, two option schools, one for grades 6-8 and one for grades 9-12, were located on the reservation. These two schools operated primarily on a contract basis. Students came to school to receive assignments and to meet briefly with teachers for instruction or directions, they turned in assignments, and they took tests. Minimal student time was spent at school. Drop-out rates were high.

Attendance figures for the school district show that American Indian students across the district were missing school at an alarmingly high rate. The year prior to the choice school opening there were 444 ongoing, district petitions for truancy in the local county Juvenile Court. Of those, 103 were for American Indian students (23%). In 2000, the school district reported an approximately 7% drop out rate for students in grades 9-12. Dropout rates for students at the contract-based school were approximately 13%. In addition, 73% of the American Indian students in the district had lost credits in 2 or more classes because of poor attendance, compared to 34% for White students.

Poor attendance often leads to depressed learning and achievement. Secondary level test scores in the school district for American Indian students revealed wide disparities. For example, students at the previous contract-based school scored dramatically lower on the vocabulary section of the 1999 11th grade ITED. The district average was 54, the average for students enrolled in the contract-based school was 11.

The historical data clearly suggested that the previous school system was not meeting the needs of many American Indian students in grades 6-12 across the school district. This caused great concern among the tribe and the school district, resulting in the understanding that there was a need to change the way that school was conceptualized for American Indian students. In the fall of 2001, the two contract-based schools were collapsed into a new choice school to serve students in grades 6-12.

Prior to the opening of the school, district personnel (contract-based school counselor, principal of the contract-based school, district Indian Education Coordinator) and community members met together to discuss what the new school should be like. As stated by one community member, "it had to be different."

CULTURALLY RELEVANT PEDAGOGY

Many theories exist to explain the low performance of American Indian adolescents, such as: low expectations of teachers, lack of commitment by parents, or a lack of high standards for schools (Chavers, 2000). Differences between native culture and school culture, ignorance of native culture among school staff, differences between students' and teachers' values, differences in native students' learning style, poor motivation of Indian students, language differences of students and teachers, and students' home and community problems have also been postulated (Gilliland, 1992). Undoubtedly student difficulties could be attributed to one or more of the reasons cited, or yet to other reasons.

According to Mclntyre, Rosebery, and Gonalez (2001), successful curricular designs for minority students put the experiences and knowledge of the students at the center of learning. For Alaskan Natives, a growing body of research suggests better learning occurs when teachers transform their educational practices and the curriculum reflects the home culture from which children come (Lipka, Mohatt, & the Ciulistet Group, 1998).

Traditional mainstream White education is based primarily on EuropeanAmerican values which do not give American Indian children any avenue to dignity, honor, and pride and do not ensure their interest in school. As a result, American Indian children are bound to fail in the traditional White school. Culturally-relevant pedagogy has often been suggested as important to improving the academic performance of American Indian /Native Alaskan students (e.g., Cleary & Peacock; 1998; Dehlye, 1992; Delpit, 1995; Demmert, 2000; Klug & Whitfield, 2003).