Leo Bird photo by Joe Fisher

BROWING, Mont. –Reflecting back to his childhood on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, Leo Bird thinks of his grandparents, Sam and Geneva “Wizzy” Bird.  Sam was elected to the Blackfeet Tribal Councilman by the tiny community of Seville, and Wizzy was a community health representative. Although he cannot recall the exact content of the particular conversation between his paternal grandparents, he can remember the tone and the fact that until then, he had been very sheltered. “I heard a sadness in my grandfather’s voice that made me realize I wanted to do my part for the Blackfeet people,” said Bird.

Now Bird splits his time between the University of Montana Upward Bound program and the Browning Public Schools. As a bilingual math and science instructor, he serves as a positive role model for students of the Browning School System. He credits the Blackfeet Community College bilingual math/science program for allowing him to fulfill his dream of becoming a teacher. Blackfeet Community College provided him with a solid foundation to complete a biology degree at the University of Montana-Missoula. “This program was right for me,” he said. Montana State University and the tribal college created the bilingual math/science program to increase the number of Native teachers in the K-12 classroom.

A total of 30 individuals were involved in the program in the middle 1990s before it was discontinued because of lack of funding. Other standouts from the program include Glenda Gilham, who earned a degree in anthropology from the University of Montana and now teaches developmental mathematics at Blackfeet Community College. Delmar Briere is a first-year medical student at Columbia University. Angela Bird-Johnson earned a psychology degree from the University of Great Falls and works with welfare reform in Browning. Nadalie “Nondie” Davis-Big Springs has completed a secondary education math degree and plans to start instructing soon.

After teaching at Browning for a year, Bird felt generally positive. Bird is glad that the schools’ bilingual grant focused on traveling. Instructors take students to parts of the Blackfeet traditional territory, which ranges from Yellowstone National Park to the Saskatchewan River in Canada to the Bitterroot valley in western Montana to the Black Hills of the Dakotas. “Just to get in the country where students can hike the coulees and badlands is something special,” Bird said. “Traditionally, we as Blackfeet people went out and brought back good things, but today it seems a lot of us are stuck in a 100 mile radius.”

He and his colleagues (Lea Whitford and Dale Marie Stands Alone) impart skills that often are not of the European tradition. “When the students go out into the field we tell them to get your eyes back down to the ground where they belong and realize you’re just a small spot in this universe.” Over time, Bird really noticed a change in the behavior of students that participated in the program. For example, he saw an increased respect for elders: “After they learn the lessons of  the first camp, when an older person shows up they (the students) give them a plate of food, they share with the person about the day’s lesson and offer sweet grass, peppermint, or an inamsta (buffalo stone)” he said.

“We don’t give ourselves enough credit, but we have to. Indian people are the educators of the world because of the symbiotic relationship we have with all of creation,” said Bird. Inherent to that relationship is music, and the Young Gray Horse Society, a Grammy nominated drum group, assists with the camps. “At night we sing. Music is very important to who we are,” he said.

Bird has found Blackfeet cultural lessons exist both formally and informally in the Browning Public schools. “I had these students all year and was relating to them from a gang aspect because of their music and dress, but I began to realize they were part of traditional societies without even knowing it.” Age graded groups such as the “mosquitoes” and “doves” have been part of Blackfeet culture for generations. The students are carrying on their grandparents’ part of these societies, regardless of the trappings.

Combining a wide breath of knowledge with strong teaching methods, Leo Bird serves as a positive role model for students of the Browning School System. Speaking of his work, Assistant Superintendent Mary Johnson (Blackfeet) said, “I believe my grandchildren and those of all the Blackfeet Nation will be the benefactors.”

Lester R. Johnson, III, M.Ed. (Blackfeet) is an instructor at Blackfeet Community College and a doctoral student at the University of Montana.