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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Indian education for all comes alive


Assistant librarian Lori Walker sorts through hoops and sticks used in American Indian games by children at Longfellow Elementary in Great Falls. Longfellow is one of just a handful of Montana schools fully complying with a state requirement that all public school students learn about Indian culture. 
 (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Sarah Cooke Associated Press

GREAT FALLS – It started out as one bookshelf.

Thirty years and hundreds of donations later, Longfellow Elementary’s American Indian resource library has become a key tool for students to learn about tribal history and culture – a unique mandate for public schools under the Montana Constitution.

Thousands of Native books, videos, newspapers and magazines line the concrete block walls of Longfellow’s Indian library. Artifacts like chunky rock hammers and weathered leather dolls, along with miniature teepees made by students, sit atop rows of bookshelves.

“We’re almost half museum and half library,” said Principal Cal Gilbert, a Chippewa-Cree Indian. “I actually have parents transferring kids into our school just so they can have an education that’s diverse.”

But Gilbert knows this school is an exception.

Longfellow is one of just a handful of Montana schools fully complying with a state constitutional mandate unique in America: that all public school students – not just Indians – be taught about the cultural heritage of Indian tribes.

The mandate became part of the Montana Constitution in 1972, when a constitutional convention updated it. But in the 32 years since then, critics say, very little has actually been done. The only mandatory Indian education classes for teachers, adopted in 1973, were abandoned before the end of that decade.

In 1999, state lawmakers approved the Indian Education for All Act, intended to spell out requirements of the constitutional language. But a lack of money and training, combined with what some describe as years of apathy at the state level, essentially crippled the measure.

Now, however, the state Supreme Court may force state lawmakers to act.

Under an October decision that found Montana’s public education funding system unconstitutional, the court also ruled Montana had failed to provide enough money for schools to meet requirements of the Indian education act.

Indian lawmakers and education leaders rejoiced. Many had argued for decades the state wasn’t fully complying with the constitutional language and watched in frustration as proposals to help pay for and apply the mandate fell by the wayside.

“Nothing really was ever pushed through or implemented,” said Norma Bixby, a state lawmaker from the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in southeast Montana. “Even though we recommended and recommended, it never happened, so I think the lawsuit is going to help get this constitutional language implemented.”

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Linda McCulloch says the constitutional provision is the only one of its kind in the United States. It was meant, in part, to address years of intolerance.

After herding most tribes onto reservations, the government sent many of their children to boarding schools to assimilate them into white society. Native dress and language were discouraged, and many students were stripped of their tribal names.

Even when boarding schools began to close, Indian students learned little about themselves in public schools through most of the 20th century and often had to repress their Indian identities.

“I don’t remember learning anything about who I was as an Indian person,” said Carol Juneau, a state lawmaker and member of the Hidatsa and Mandan tribes who lives on northwest Montana’s Blackfeet reservation. “It probably wasn’t until I was in college that I began to realize I had a right to learn about our history and begin that process.”

That growing sense of self-determination was a driving factor behind the constitutional measure. It says the state “recognizes the distinct and unique cultural heritage of the American Indians and is committed in its educational goals to the preservation of their cultural integrity.”

Legislation sponsored by Juneau in 1999 was intended to implement it.

The purpose was to make Indian students feel more valued and accepted, and to promote understanding of different cultures. By doing so, education officials hoped to close the growing achievement gap between Indian and non-Indian students and cut Indian dropout rates. Indians make up 11 percent of Montana’s public school students.

“When racism starts to be eliminated, you’re going to start to see students performing better, and achievement is going to increase,” McCulloch said.

Leo Bird, a Blackfeet science teacher at Browning High School, has seen firsthand the difference Indian education can make.

He started incorporating Blackfeet stargazing into his astronomy classes five years ago, taking students to historic sites on the surrounding reservation and teaching them how Indians used the stars to navigate. He also incorporates Greek and Roman teachings but said the Native lessons strike more of a chord.

“(The students) have more to tie to than just memorization,” Bird said. “They internalize it because the stories mean something to them.”

The classes are now among the school’s most popular, with a waiting list.

Bird, like many Indian educators, believes more money for teacher training and curriculum is the key. Many teachers try to follow the law, he said, but don’t have the resources.

“Probably 99 percent of our teaching force out there is non-native so they’re not comfortable teaching what they don’t know,” Gilbert said.

McCulloch has asked the governor’s office for $500,000 to fund the act over the next two years, but the Montana Indian Education Association doesn’t think that’s enough. Bixby expects to ask for several million dollars.

She expects opposition. But she’s also buoyed by a rare Democratic takeover of the state Senate and the election of Gov.-elect Brian Schweitzer, the first Democrat to hold the job in 16 years. Bixby thinks both help her chances of success.

“It’s been way too long in coming,” she said of the funding. “If we had done this years ago we probably wouldn’t be in this situation today.”

Joan Andersen, a Republican legislator and retired teacher, said she feels the state has enough materials on American Indian heritage and culture. She voted against funding Indian education curriculum and professional development when it came before the 2003 Legislature and couldn’t rule out doing so again this session.

“I’m not so sure (the curriculum) is going to be used,” Andersen said. “I think teachers are already using a lot of materials and ideas that are very well done and well received.”

But some say they need better reporting from districts to even determine what school administrators are doing to comply with the law.

“There’s always opposition when it comes to Indian issues, but with the education of our children and of all children in Montana, this really needs to happen,” Bixby said.