Consequences of Confusion
Misunderstandings can arise when the cultures of students and educators differ.
Teachers who aren’t familiar with Native customs may wonder why Native students don’t speak up or ask questions, why they avert their eyes. The teacher may see a student looking away and conclude the student isn’t listening or is showing disrespect, when really it’s the opposite, Fernandez says. “If you don’t know about a culture, you’re making assumptions about the child, and this child is just being what they naturally are.”
Irene Kiefer, director of advancement at the College of Menominee Nation, believes the physical customs of any group with a strong cultural background can be misunderstood.
Photo by: Emily Genco
“Body language, patterns of speech, all of those things can be issues that get in the way of successful cooperation between somebody who’s trying to teach, or nurse or carry out a relationship [with] somebody else,” Kiefer says.
Native students often don’t understand why the classroom feels foreign. The difficulties that arise navigating the expectations of a different culture contribute to the lower achievement for Native students in Wisconsin, Fernandez says.
In the past six years, American Indian/Alaska Native students have had the second highest dropout rate in the state, an average of 3.79 percent.
Learning to Walk in Both Worlds
Native students who aspire to be successful must learn to navigate the value system that governs behavior in the western classroom.
The class “Menominee Models” taught at Menominee Indian High School freshman through senior years aims to help students do just that. The goal: creating the model Menominee person, balanced in both worlds.
New methods of teaching may also play a key role in helping students navigate both the tribal and western value systems.
Justin Gauthier is a second-year student at UW-Madison studying English. He remembers art classes as a boy at St. Anthony’s, which later became Menominee Tribal School. The classes had a more communal feeling and were a reprieve for adopting the more individualistic mode of thinking required by the other classes.
Gauthier and his classmates are working on a project to design a science and sustainability curriculum for seventh, eighth and ninth graders. The lessons will channel the communal feeling of his childhood art classes where students can validate their background knowledge in school.
Modern science is built on the shoulders of intellectual giants, but the intellectual giants looked to Native American practices, oral histories and shared knowledge between the tribes to learn, Gauthier says. “We’re trying to instill in the kids that there is a history of science learning in our communities, and it’s just not in this western science mode.”
Gauthier hopes the curriculum will demystify the scientific method and give students better foot and hand holds to help them to perform at a higher level.
The College of Menominee Nation is also preparing teachers to better instruct Native students by helping them understand the culture and history of American Indians.
