Teaching indigenous students : honoring place, community, and culture

Book

Teaching indigenous students : honoring place, community, and culture / edited by Jon Reyhner.

Summary:

Indigenous students learn and retain more when teachers value the language and culture of the students' community and incorporate them into the curriculum. This is a principle enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) and borne out both by the successes of Indigenous-language immersion schools and by the failures of past assimilationist practices and the recent English-only policies of the No Child Left Behind Act in the United States.

'Teaching Indigenous Students' puts culturally based education squarely into practice. The volume, edited and with an introduction by leading American Indian education scholar Jon Reyhner, brings together new and dynamic research from established and emerging voices in the field of American Indian and Indigenous education. All of the contributions show how the quality of education for Indigenous students can be improved through the promotion of culturally and linguistically appropriate schooling.

Grounded in place, community, and culture, the approaches set out in this volume reflect the firsthand experiences of teachers and students in interacting not just with texts and one another, but also with the local community and environment. The authors address the specifics of teaching the full range of subjects--from learning literacy using culturally meaningful texts to inquiry-based science curricula, and from math instruction that incorporates real-world experience to social studies that blend oral history and local culture with national and world history.

'Teaching Indigenous Students' also emphasizes the importance of art, music, and physical education, both traditional and modern, in producing well-rounded human beings and helping students establish their identity as twenty-first-century Indigenous peoples. Surveying the work of Indigenous-language immersion schools around the world, this volume also holds out hope for the revitalization of Indigenous languages and traditional cultural values.

Record details

ISBN: 9780806146997
ISBN: 0806146990
Physical Description: vii, 223 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Publisher: Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, [2015]

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:: Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-214) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:: Overcoming the legacy of assimilationist schooling / Jon Reyhner and Navin Kumar Singh -- The continuum of literacy in Native American classrooms / Sheilah E. Nicholas and Teresa L. McCarty -- Promoting Indigenous literacy / Jon Reyhner and Ward Cockrum -- Mathematics / David W. Sanders -- Indigenous knowledge and science / Willard Sakiestewa Gilbert -- Social studies / Christine K. Lemley, Jeremy D. Stoddard, and Loren Hudson -- Music / Chad Hamill -- Physical education / Willard Sakiestewa Gilbert -- The fourth generation : the sustainability of Native American art education / Michael Holloman -- Immersion education / Jon Reyhner and Florian Johnson -- Appendices: Sources of information on children's books ; Sample science lesson plan format ; Social studies resources ; Recommended music recordings ; Sample format for development of instructional materials.