Sunset students take lessons from different traditions

AIRWAY HEIGHTS – The students at Sunset Elementary School recently spent two days learning about Native American culture and got a chance to have a little fun, too.

Thanks to a mini-grant from the Educational Service District 101, the students received a visit from flute player Charlie Rising Sun of the Cheyenne Tribe, drummer Gary Fox of the Salteaux Tribe, storytellers and a traveling exhibit from the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.

The events over May 1 and 2 were part of the school’s “Stick Your Neck Out for Diversity” program, which concluded with an art contest celebrating diverstiy.

On May 1, the students in Tammy Johnson’s fourth- and fifth-grade combination class and in Judi Jamison’s fifth-grade class learned about Native American dancing from Fox. He chose several of the students to come up in front of the class in the school gymnasium to learn the fast and fancy dance, and the brass, chicken, butterfly, jingle dress and traditional dances.

Nolan Leach, Jerry Wisner, Ericka Rickards, Baily Post, Ashley Broderius and Renee Psaradakis got up in front of their fellow students and did they best they could.

“It’s like you’re walking, but you go up and down,” Fox told a student learning the chicken dance.

Fox played a traditional drum for the students while they danced and explained that his brother-in-law gave him the instrument, so it was special.

When the students up front had learned their dances, the rest of the students in the gymnasium got up to give it a try.

“What you learned here today took us a lifetime to conquer,” Fox told the children.

In other classes, Rising Sun played a cedar flute. He also stopped by the teachers’ lounge and entertained them with improvisational music.

Members of the Spokane Storytelling League told Scott Frederick’s third-grade class traditional stories about the origins of the world. One storyteller told a story about a coyote who defeated a monster and created several tribes of Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest and the Plains.

Another storyteller, Lee Smith, asked the students questions about how they thought people communicated before there was e-mail or cell phones.

“You would put on a play,” one student offered. Another chimed in, “You would tell stories.”

Smith explained that there was a special person in the tribe in charge of telling the stories, and often, as the stories were passed from person to person, they would change and evolve.

In another classroom, Katie O’Brien from the education department of the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, showed the students some artifacts from the Spokane, Coeur d’Alene, Kalispel and Colville tribes.

She wore gloves when she handled everything and explained that she didn’t want to get some of the oils from her hands on the artifacts, since that could damage them.

One thing she could pass around was an authentic recreation of a deer hide the students could touch and smell.

O’Brien talked about how the tribes would tan a hide over a small fire. The classroom smelled like wood smoke until O’Brien put the hide away after the children had a chance to touch it.

She showed them dolls and beads and explained different ways the tribes could dye material using berries, blood, grass or other natural items found in the wild.

On May 2, the school held an assembly to award the prizes for the art contest, and there was a drum and dance group from the Spokane Tribe to teach about their culture.

Principal Sean Dotson said that a week with hands-on learning and visitors was something the students needed just after many of them had taken the WASL.