American Indian Educators in Reservation Schools

Terry Huffman

• Publisher: University of Nevada Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780874179088
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildung Allgemein

The role of Native American teachers and administrators working in reservation schools has received little attention from scholars. Utilizing numerous interviews and extensive fieldwork, Terry Huffman shows how they define their roles and judge their achievements. He examines the ways they address the complex issues of cultural identity that affect their students and themselves and how they cope with the pressures of teaching disadvantaged students while meeting the requirements for reservation schools. Personal accounts from the educators enrich the discussion. Their candid comments about their choice of profession; their position as teachers, role models, and social service agents; and the sometimes harsh realities of reservation life offer unique insight into the challenges and rewards of providing an education to Native American students. Huffman also considers the changing role of Native educators as reservation schools prepare their students for the increasing complexities of modern life and society while still transmitting traditional culture. He shows that Native American educators meet daunting challenges with enduring optimism and persistence. The insights these educators offer can serve those in other communities where students navigate a difficult path out of discrimination and poverty.

CHAPTER 1

Hope for a Better Tomorrow

Affinitive Educators and Facilitative Educators

I know I am affecting their lives in ways that they might not comprehend now and I might not comprehend now … [and] that I've made a little bit of a dent in their lives and in the Indians finding a better way. … Hopefully my legacy when I'm gone is that I gave these guys a lot of hope for a better tomorrow.

—Montana principal discussing his role as educator on the reservation

I had a little time between interviews and decided to look around the small community served by the elementary and high schools. The crumbling remains of a sidewalk led across a bridge spanning the creek and up the hill to where most of the village buildings lay. I carefully stepped over the broken glass scattered on the ground outside a large building that at one time had housed the tribal community college. Even though badly in need of repairs, the building now holds an assortment of tribal service offices. The few individuals gathered outside seemed to give me little notice, but I could feel their eyes following me, and occasionally I would catch a glimpse of their curious glances.

The cluttering of small, battered houses with tiny yards seemed older than they likely were, and I noticed even the lone tribal police SUV had cracked windows and dents too numerous to count. A softball field overgrown with brown weeds, partially bounded by a broken-down fence, the infield littered with shattered beer bottles, hinted of better use in former days. Clearly, no games had been played there for some time and it would take quite an effort to ready it again for its intended purpose. Only a monument honoring the reservation's veterans appeared preserved and untouched by vandals. Indeed, small, personal memorials placed by grateful, sincere hands lined its base.

Unfortunately, many people do not get past these and similar images common to many American Indian reservations. As a result, they frequently form oversimplified perceptions and explanations that in turn give birth to sympathy from some and distain from others. Yet these images reveal only part of reservation reality. Life is hard, but hope pervades. The hardships are easily found, but so is the hope, if one knows where to look. Perhaps more than anywhere else, educators display that hope in their resolute service to reservation schools.

THE GREATEST ACT OF OPTIMISM

The American Indian educators who participated in this research possessed a determined desire to serve their people. The theme of service permeated the interviews and their voices portrayed individuals of caring, concern, and commitment. Certainly, these qualities describe most teachers and principals. But I sense a unique essence in the desire to serve, among the participants of this investigation. These Native educators recognized the stakes are high; it is not a cliché to say the future of the reservations depends on their efforts. If, as educator and author Colleen Wilcox says, “Teaching is the greatest act of optimism,” for the educators of this study it is also an act of hopefulness tempered with urgent realism. The stark social conditions of their respective reservations served to underscore the importance of their work. Some of the educators in this study expressed frustration, despondency, even despair. A few indicated an inclination to throw up their hands and quit the profession. Virtually all identified vexing difficulties for which they have few answers. Yet, with a heart for service, steeled by the constant reality of human tragedy, and fortified by hope for the future, they persevere.

The notion of vocation generally has two meanings. In a more mundane conception, “vocation” simply refers to an occupation, a set of skills and practices necessary to perform a job. In its original and more powerful sense, “vocation” invokes the idea of service (Hansen, 1994). People frequently associate a vocation with professions incorporating a higher calling, such as the clergy or medicine (Gustafson, 1982). Likewise, most people esteem teaching as more than merely an occupation. Teaching, too, is a vocation involving a noble purpose. As Liesveld, Miller, and Robison (2005) remind us, “More than a job, teaching is a calling” (p. 12).

David Hansen (1994) contends that vocation reaches its greatest expression when an awareness of public obligation intersects with personal fulfillment. In this regard, vocation entails two powerful dimensions. First, it includes a deep commitment to others resembling a ministerial call to higher service (Williams, Massaro, Airhart, & Zikmund, 2004). Second, a vocation works to define a person's life: it renders not only meaning and purpose, but also personal identity (Lieberman & Miller, 1992; Palmer, 2007). The American Indian educators in this study articulated a sense of vocation incorporating both of these dimensions. I found virtually all the participants, especially those from more culturally traditional backgrounds, to be profoundly spiritual people. They spoke easily and naturally about their personal spirituality and how it directs their purpose as educators. Many would likely agree with the South Dakota teacher who said of her vocation, “I hope I've made some type of impact on the kids academically, as well as socially and spiritually, because I think that spiritual correctness is about who we are, how we are connected to everything. Once the kids know that and see that, it makes them whole and makes them able to move on and go on. I see a lot of our kids who are lost. I wish I could take a lot of what I have and what I know and teach it to everybody and talk to them.”

The educators also integrated service into their personal identities. Service, simply but significantly, defined these individuals. One South Dakota principal actually began our interview by saying, “I'm from here at [name of community]. I grew up here. I went to school here. I just walked right up the creek. So basically [name of the school] is who I am. I'm from a large family. I am very proud of who I am as a Native American and what I have accomplished. And I am here for the kids. That's really who I am.”

A number of scholars have documented how American Indian educators commonly regard their profession as a call to service rather than a convenient occupation (Beynon, 2008; Chavers, 2000; Cherubini, Kitchen, & Trudeau, 2009; Cherubini, Niemczyk, Hodson, & McGean, 2010; Pavel, Banks, & Pavel, 2002). Using a case study, Hill and colleagues (1995) documented the profound commitment to use the position as educator to positively influence students and communities among five American Indian educators. Especially prominent in the findings is the emphasis placed on instilling pride in their students' tribal identity.

In a series of studies, Lorenzo Cherubini (Cherubini 2008; Cherubini et al., 2009; Cherubini et al., 2010) has chronicled the experiences of Canadian First Nation educators. His investigations reveal a common vision among First Nations educators to use their profession to build Native communities. Most notable among Cherubini's findings is the felt responsibility to assist in tribal cultural preservation. Nevertheless, as he admits, the “literature is virtually silent” (Cherubini, 2008, p. 44) on the nature of the specific roles Native professionals perceive they perform as educators.

In one of the few studies designed to explore the self-described roles assumed by Native educators, Friesen and Orr (1998) found that the First Nations educators in their investigation deliberately attempted to preserve tribal culture, presented themselves as a role model to students, and worked to positively influence the community. This study notwithstanding, most studies offer global accounts on how Native educators see their professional contributions to their peoples (Duquette, 2002). While such examinations are valuable, greater insight is needed to more fully appreciate the service Native teachers and principals render to reservation communities. Thus, I was particularly anxious to learn what the participants had to tell me about the roles they perform as educators. Understandably, the individuals in this study did not perceive that they engage in just one role. Rather, multiple roles characterized their service. In fact, the participants diverged in the way they described their primary responsibilities as educators. I treat these groups as a typology consisting of two types of educators. Furthermore, I distinguish between two kinds of roles the participants described.

TYPOLOGY OF EDUCATORS

The analysis of the data led me to identify two theoretical constructs that I present here as a typology of educators: affinitive educators and facilitative educators. Essentially, affinitive educators emphasize the importance of building interpersonal relationships and chiefly endeavor to be effective role models, while facilitative educators stress the practical benefits of educational achievement and primarily strive to be effective classroom teachers.

I began to recognize that the participants differed in the way they described their roles before completing all the interviews. I made numerous theoretical notes on this issue in my field notes, and thus while still in the field I began to develop an analytical framework. After all the data were collected and the interviews transcribed, I discovered overlapping themes in the way the participants discussed their roles. For instance, five themes consistently clustered in the responses of one group of educators. These themes are serving as a role model, developing personal relationships with students, providing encouragement, interacting with parents, and functioning as a family member. I consider these themes to be specific dimensions of the theoretical construct I call affinitive educators. A second set of five themes tended to cluster in the responses of other educators. These themes are performing the role of an effective educator, promoting the benefits of education, acting as an academic and personal motivator, operating as an agent of change, and acting as a caretaker of children. Consequently, I treat these latter themes as dimensions of the theoretical construct referred to as facilitative educators.

I then arranged each individual participant into the theoretical schema. Specifically, I classified each participant based on the way the themes clustered in his or her interview along with the global description of the roles he or she performed. Generally, the participants offered clear portrayals of their perceived roles, so classifying individual educators as either affinitive or facilitative proved a relative easy task.

As is the case with virtually all social science research, however, the findings disclosed complexities compounding intricacies. A close examination of the data revealed two kinds of roles identified by the participants. Some of the roles appear to cluster together and thereby define the two kinds of educators as described above. More to the point, the participants I refer to as affinitive educators tended to articulate five roles that are more or less idiosyncratic to that group, whereas the participants I call facilitative educators outlined five different roles more or less distinctive to them. I refer to these roles as definitional roles because they essentially distinguish one type of educator from another in terms of how the participants described their responsibilities (and presumably their professional identities).

In addition to definitional roles, I also found the participants shared important common ground in their professional experiences. Both groups described two significant roles they perform. In relative equal proportion, they expressed the necessity to use their profession as a means to help preserve tribal culture, and they related the need to be involved in the community. These two roles I refer to as foundational roles because they appear to undergird the efforts of virtually all the participants, regardless of the definitional roles they described. Thus, while working to preserve tribal culture or involving himself or herself in the community may not have been the first roles the participants discussed, they were two roles that virtually all the participants seemed to agree they must perform as Native educators.

Definitional Roles Delineating Affinitive Educators

Affinitive educators emphasized the similarities between themselves and their students. They regarded themselves primarily as role models and thus reported cultivating interpersonal relationships with students and the wider community. I classified twelve of the twenty-one participants as affinitive educators. While they recognized the need for Native children to receive a quality education, they nevertheless tended to focus on meeting personal or emotional needs as much as academic ones. As mentioned, the five definitional roles tended to converge, and thus I delineated affinitive educators as serving as a role model, developing personal relationships with students, providing encouragement, interacting with parents, and functioning as a family member.

Serving as a role model constitutes the most prominent theme defining affinitive educators. All twelve of the participants I classify as affinitive educators identified being a role model as a critical function they perform. These educators regarded themselves as examples of academic and personal success. Many Native students do not have successful role models to emulate, thus the educators understood how significant their example could be to students. Typical of this sentiment, a Montana principal explained the role of a principal in a Native school:

My role right now is number one to be a role model. This is what you can achieve. You don't have to leave here. You can go for a while and come back and all sorts of things. But you can accomplish what you want to accomplish. I think that is the main focus right now: I want them to have role models that they can look up to that they can see as people in positions of authority that are doing a good job and are helping them see that education is important no matter what others may say or what may be going on.

Affinitive educators realized the power of role models to American Indian children. They regarded their own personal experiences as illustrations of potential opportunities their students might not otherwise recognize. For instance, a Montana educator said, “I think my role to Native children is to be a role model, first of all, to show kids that there's more. I mean, you can be whoever you want, whatever you want to be, whoever you want to be, and there are choices. … You can choose to stay here, which I did for twenty some years, and work with my people, or I can choose to go out to someplace else, which I've also chosen to do.”

The influence of role models on reservation students cannot be overemphasized. Research has shown that impoverished children often lack adults who model academic and occupational achievement, and thus potentially develop limited visions of their own life prospects (Elliott et al., 2006). Reservation schools are commonly populated by non-Native staff whose examples likely do not include the same potency as the demonstrated success of American Indian educators (Ambler, 1999, 2006; Chavers, 2000). Little wonder, the professionals I spoke with emphasized the importance of serving as a role model and consciously worked to influence students through their personal examples.

Affinitive educators esteemed building personal relationships with their students as essential. They recognized that many students require and desire personal connections with their teachers, so they regarded relationship building as one of the most crucial roles they perform in their schools. The perspective of a South Dakota teacher illustrates this view:

Everyone has all these answers and all these ways people are going to learn today when the real answer, I think, is just in making more connections with the kids. You know, giving them that personal touch, that personal attention, because that is more lasting and that's how they learn. I think we lose that personal touch. The kids as it is grow up in a world where even the parents don't have that personal connection. Their babysitters are a TV, video games. … The kids need that personal connection and it's very hard for them to cope.

For many of the participants, their own personal example underscores the relationships they forge with students, so serving as a role model reinforces personal relationships. A Montana educator stressed this point: “That's the reason I came back. … There has got to be something I can do. [Begins to talk more slowly with emphasis.] And part of that is being a positive role model. … And I try to be that example. … The biggest thing for me is to establish the positive. To establish positive relationships with kids. Some of these kids have no sense of being, I guess is what it is. They have no ties to school.” A Montana educator echoed similar sentiments when she simply reflected, “In some ways I feel like I'm a good role model. Plus, I feel like in some ways I'm someone they can come to. Like someone they can trust. … Because, you know, I really think that, truly, relationships are the most important thing.”

Affinitive educators regarded empathy as a major component of building personal relationships with students. They appreciated the obstacles facing students and used this understanding to build personal connections. A Montana educator spoke of the visceral tie she has with students: “I guess I can relate to the experiences that the children are going through. … I believe in all the research, in all the academics that I've learned, you know, I need to be firm, fair, and consistent. But I also have a heart to understand what these kids are coming from. And I believe in Maslow's hierarchy. I always have. If those basic needs are not being met, and we need to understand, yeah, we can't just say it, we need to truly understand and empathize with what the kids are going through.”

Serving as a role model and working to build personal relationships with students represent complementary responsibilities in the minds of the educators. As their words illustrate, the affinitive educators rarely discussed building personal relationships without mentioning the importance of being a role model. Although these roles are conceptually different, the interviews also indicate just how intertwined they are in the daily affairs of affinitive educators. Indeed, both of these roles intersect with other roles educators play. Most notable is the responsibility to provide encouragement to students.

Affinitive educators saw themselves strategically positioned to offer encouragement to students. Likely this role naturally grows out of the effort to serve as a role model and build personal relationships. Clearly, affinitive educators were deeply moved by the emotional needs of their students and strove to help. They also described a variety of specific objectives they wanted to accomplish by encouraging students. Some of the educators attempted to enhance the self-confidence of their students. For instance, a South Dakota elementary teacher related, “I have always worked with my kids to give them self-esteem that they can compete anywhere they want to and be anything they want to as long as they work for it. And if they want it bad enough, then don't let anybody get them down. And I teach them how to do that, how to survive, how to look for answers. … You are going to have to learn all these things that are hard.”

For a number of the affinitive educators, providing encouragement simply involved working to develop the self-worth of students. A South Dakota elementary principal spoke of the need to encourage small children who have experienced a great deal of trauma in their young lives: “I mean you have to have that will [to survive]. And how do you teach that in some of these students? They are already so broken coming from the things that they have to go through. And you just talk to them and make them feel important. That's why I say our kids have to know who they are and be proud of who they are. [Teachers need to] just get beyond schoolwork and come in and learn the three R's and treat them like somebody important, like they are.”

For many of the affinitive educators this role required that they offer hope for the future. Toward that end, the importance of serving as a role model and building personal relationships was especially prominent in their accounts. In a powerful reflection, a Montana educator stated,

I think the one thing that I give kids is hope for a better life. I live right there, right across the street. I'm connected, I'm ...