Museum Trip, Reading Buddies, and Activism

Special Request- Please bring in any shoe boxes that you can donate to the class for an upcoming science project. Thank you!!!

I've been looking forward to sharing some photos of our trip to the Museum of the American Indian in Novato. Here we are meeting our guide, Alicia. Alicia, part Mayo, Yaqui and Cherokee, is a multitalented interpretive artisan, nature guide, and musician. 

Running quietly through the woods like deer:

 Alicia taught us about the native Miwok uses of bay nuts and about her own experiences with the nuts and tree. She shared stories about hunting and gathering and expressed the importance of developing a personal relationship with nature.

 Checking out the Miwok kotcha:

 Many Native Californian tribes used strings of flat shells as currency. We used hand drills to drill holes in shells and experience how much effort went into creating a strand of shell money. 

 We played a hoop and spear game that was designed to help children with hand-eye coordination and prepare them for hunting. 

 Next, we visited the bottom floor of the museum where hunting artifacts and skins are housed.

Inside the museum, Alicia spoke about stereotyping of Native American culture and taught us to be thoughtful about word choice- such as describing traditional American Indian dress as "regalia," rather than "costume" since they aren't dressing up as something else.

 Just like at the museum, we have bay laurel branches hanging from our doors. It is a Coast Miwok tradition to purify and protect a special space. 

We ended the trip by making friendship feathers. We wrapped the end of a feather, filling it with positive thoughts for our friendship with mother Earth. 

Visiting Peggy's class to read with the Kindergartners:

Lastly, we watched this beautiful ad from the Nation Congress of American Indians and discussed the controversy around the Washington Redskins NFL team name and mascot. It was powerful to refer back to what we'd learned from Alicia at the museum about stereotyping of Native Americans and how hurtful it can be to have your rich history and culture mocked and parodied in costumes and mascots. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR-tbOxlhvE

Students wrote letters to Daniel Snyder, urging him to change the team name to something that doesn't demean diverse Native cultures. We shared our new awareness with the first and second graders and invited them to sign another letter to Snyder. We addressed envelopes and put them in the mail yesterday.

Lastly, the students are hard at work on an informational essay about the ancient culture of one Native Californian tribe. They love using voice typing on the iPads to get their knowledge and ideas down to be shared!

Stereotypes and Our Socially Responsible Library

Hi everyone! Thank you so much for all the gracious holiday gifts! I was so touched by your kindness. THANK YOU!!!

It's been great to have the students back in the classroom. On Tuesday we discussed stereotyping. I told the students to imagine that they’d been asked by NASA to hire the lead engineer and project manager for a space station on the moon! This is obviously a challenging job that will make history so it is important to hire an innovative, talented leader. I handed each student 7 cards with first names on them and explained that those seven names represented the seven candidates for the job. I then told the students to eliminate one candidate right away and they turned over one name. Then I showed them the candidates last names and they eliminated another person. They continued in this manner as I showed them the ages of the candidates, then their photographs, and more. With each bit of new information they eliminated one candidate. On the last round they saw the candidates' work experience and education. 

Then we discussed the following questions:

•      What choice did you make?

•      Are you pleased with your hired engineer?

•      Would you have made a different decision if you had the qualifications information first?

•      Why didn’t it work to judge the people with such little information?

•      What do you think influenced your decisions?

•      Do you think people judge one another like this in our everyday lives?

•      What could be the consequences of pre-judging people?

We defined the term stereotype and added this qualifier to our list of “Questions To Ask About Books In Our Socially Responsible Library”...

One way that I'm working to build a more socially responsible classroom is to periodically select some books for the students to examine. They're looking to decide if the book is one that we want to have in our Socially Responsible Library. Some questions that we ask are: What is the message of the story? Does it help us better understand other people's experiences? Does it share ideas that are biased and inaccurate? Is it full of stereotypes about certain races or genders or family structures? If a text doesn’t fulfill our criteria or if we’re not sure, we’ll either remove it from the library or put a sticker on the cover that says, “Think About It”.

I think it’s important, especially with the access young people have to media, for students to practice thinking critically about the information presented to them. Our Socially Responsible Library program is an accessible way to practice.

I will continue to stock our class library with more great novels, biographies, and picture books that help students gain perspective on the blessings and privilege in their lives, help them to feel connected with children of diverse cultural, racial, and ethnic backgrounds, and share true explanations of historical events. 

It's great to have Charlie back from his grand Tanzanian adventure! Below, the students are reading letters that the students at the Jitihada school wrote to us!

Research on Native Californian tribes:

Stay tuned next week for pictures from our Thursday field trip to the Marin Museum of the American Indian (thank you drivers!) and a spotlight on our climate change unit.