Melissa Mack Assign. 4c.

During class on Thursday, we were split into groups to learn more about Indian Education for All (IEFA). The activity was both informative and interesting, as IEFA plays a part in classroom education. From the presentations made at the end of class, I learned that there are many misrepresentations between the cultures and people. These misrepresentations commonly appear in the forms of bias present in accounts of history and translation problems when trying to understand from two entirely different languages. Also, we learned a little about the boarding schools. The way some of these boarding schools recruited students and the ways in which they treated these students were quite shocking to hear about, as they were not always done in cooperation with the tribes.

There are many ideas and activities that can be incorporated into the classroom in order for the students to learn more about the cultural differences. One of these ideas is for a health enhancement class, or elementary music class, to spend time learning about a different dance or multiple dances that are part of a Powwow. This could include many components, including attire and music, as well as the steps of the dance. Students could possibly work on developing their own dance routine. Another activity students could use to expand their knowledge and understanding is to do tribe research projects in history. These could be used to cover any of the many aspects of the different tribe's cultures and would be great for discovering the differences. This would be completed in a presentation for the class and could be complimented with guest speakers.