Ryan Kramer

I learned alot about indian education, and really enjoyed the presentations. specifically I learned alot about indian culture in this area, as well as some topics to teach to my students. What I found most interesting was the indian sign language. What was interesting to me was the that indians had sort of a basic system regardless of tribe. What was more interesting was what was lost in translation. Even more interesting was that the language might be dying. This is a scary thought. I would have liked to have dug deeper into the boarding schools. In my class, i would like to dig into the art aspects of indian culture, both historical and today. I could show documentaries and have visits to local colleges that feature such art.

Rachael Schwaller IEFA

Hello Everyone!
I really enjoyed all of your presentations last week, not to mention I learned a lot! I think that incorporating Indian Education in our future classrooms is crucial. This education can break down any barriers that students have due to misunderstandings of the Native American culture. I have often found that people stray away from things that they find unfimiliar. I think the IEFA is an amazing way for people to explore this beautiful culture. This is particularly important in the state of Montana. Due to our diverse population, I think that teachers have a neat opportunity to not only teach about the rich Indian history and traditions, but to also bring "Contemporary Indians" into their classrooms. I would love to have a performer/speaker (like Jack Gladstone) come into my classroom someday to talk firsthand about his/her life and family history. There are just so many interactive classroom things that could be done with this!
See you all in class tomorrow, thanks! Rachael

Andrew Johnson

It would be easy for me to write the politically correct thing and say I learned a lot about American Indians and it was fascinating and interesting, but the truth is I am tired of writing and saying what I think my teachers want to hear just for the grade. I don't know anymore about native American culture today then I did before our class, and Im perplexed as to why it was necessary to designate a a technology education class to Native Americans studies. I found the assignment frustrating cause I didn't understand its relevance to the overall purpose of the class. It was if someone picked native american studies out of a hat and decided that would be the focus of the class on that particular day. Don't get me wrong I recognize the importance of cultural awareness and sensitivity, but am I the only one who thought it was strange that we were suddenly doing presentations on native Americans after reading a children's book or watching a movie. I read the other blogs and and had a hard time taking some of them seriously, would you really make moccasins or invent bar graphs on indian populations in your classrooms. Or are you struggling as I am to try and complete this assignment by saying what you feel you are supposed to say. Maybe I'm wrong maybe everybody else was genuinely fascinated and enjoyed the assignment, but i was confused and this being a blog where we are supposed to express how we feel i felt compelled to be honest even if it means it negatively affects my grade.

Gillian H

Native American culture is fascinating to me, probably because its pretty new to me. I grew up in Colorado and vagley remember one or two units studied on Native Americans. Last year I took NAS 100, and learned a ton from it. Durring our group projects last Thursday I thought it was very neat to see the multiple intelligences brought into this unit. It was fun to think about the many different ways you could teach one unit to your students.

Kally L #4c

Hey everyone! Last week I really enjoyed learning more about the Native American culture. I had not heard of the communication problems with sign language between various tribes. When I was in elementary school, I remember Native Americans from a reservation that visited our school to perform a Pow Wow. It was really interesting to see the diverse ethnic values and norms, interpreted from the reservation. I also found the multiple intelligences information influential. I think it is important to teach subject matter in all of the multiple intelligences. Everyone learns differently, by doing different activities with the students, they will discover their strengths and weaknesses.
(FACS major)It is important to enforce a portion of regional cultural diversity in the classroom.A few ideas that I have for my classroom is to take a few days or a week to create Native American meals and clothing. I will establish a fun lesson plan that will involve the classroom participation. A few examples may be creating moccasins and finding and creating recipes from the Native American culture.

thanks and see you tomorrow!

TC Golden

After the class last week on Indian education I had the opportunity to go watch the pow wow that was happening on campus the next day. One thing that caught my attention was all of the little children wearing old style clothes. I never really thought much about how these Indian children would learn about their own cultures. This is a perfect example the oral tradition that most Indian tribes had. You can't have your children read a book about their culture becuse they didn't have them back then. It also would be a great teaching tool to have your students attend a pow wow like that. With Some of the speakers and information they presented even I learned a lot and I have live in this state my whole life.

Bonnie E. Assignment #4c IEFA

Indian Education for All is new to me, so I learned quite a bit and I see there's plenty more to learn about it.

One important note I made is that it's a program mandated and funded by the state of Montana. Another is that Natives are about 10% of the school-aged children in Montana, a higher number than I would have guessed.

To incorporate this curriculum in a math class, I would have students research the 7 reservations, collect some interesting data, and display the data with or without the use of technology. For example, they could draw a bar graph comparing the populations of the 7 reservations. In addition, they could find areas of the reservations and calculate the population densities.

For a music class, I would invite a Native guest to demonstrate the drumming and singing that's done at a Powwow. Then students could try it, practice (like always in music class), and perform at their own "powwow" in class.

Kathryn (katie) Guerra #4c

Hey guys, what great ideas everyone has for classroom activities that have to do with Native Americans! I'm not originally from MT (really from CT) so hearing all about the history of our state last week in class was sooo interesting for me. I had a really hard time swallowing down the topic of boarding schools and 'assimilation', which was my topic on the presentations. I can't beleive we did that to these people! And to the innocent children! Sheesh. I absolutely loved hearing the presentation about the pow-wows and the different types of dancing that goes on. I will definately use that in my classroom someday...what a fun thing for kids to try! I think even bringing your class to an actual pow-wow would be SO great for them.
I also was very interested to learn about the different signs that the Native Americans used to show differing tribes. WOW! What a cool thing. I remember when i used to teach in CT and I had THREE legally deaf children in one of my classes. What a tough class to teach not knowing sign language.....I think that these students would have really enjoyed learning about the native american sign language and would also be sympathetic to the inaccuracies that occure between oral languange and sign language.... well, thats all for me now folks. I look forward to hear this weeks presentation. See you guys tomorrow....:) Katie