Educators want the children to know who they are. Pictured are (left to right) Rhonda Frost, Daisy Herrera, and Brandi Naranjo, all Southern Utes. Photo by Lee Marmon

Children have a special place in Indian country. Most tribes have teachings saying that all things that are planned should take the coming generations into account, evaluating the impact on the grandchildren and great grandchildren. Educators envision having Indian children take their rightful place as professionals in the new millennium. Educators also want the children to know who they are and that they belong to ancient traditions. Since the passage of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Act in 1972, there has been progress in making education more culturally relevant for Indian people at all levels, from Head Start through college.

Teachers are a major element in improving Indian education. Therefore, tribal colleges have begun to develop their own teacher training programs. American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) colleges have a long history of working cooperatively with mainstream institutions for teacher preparation. However, a number of tribal colleges have felt limited by the policies of the partner institutions, such as their residency requirements and their focus on subject matter and pedagogy that leave little room for cultural material.

When tribal colleges and universities develop independent teacher preparation programs, however, they face a daunting task. They must balance state and regional accreditation requirements against the need for innovative programs that will actually make a difference for children. At the same time, these new teacher preparation programs have a significant advantage: they have no baggage. No one can say, “It has always been done this way.” New programs can start with the needs of Indian children and then prepare teachers to fill those needs.

Turtle Mountain Community College (TMCC) is one of those colleges that is developing a teacher preparation program. The program tries to balance pedagogy, subject matter, and culture in a holistic way. It seeks to assess students in the program based on the outcomes they have achieved. As development continues, the college will test how to design an innovative program that prepares teachers for work with Indian children while satisfying state certification requirements and those of the regional accrediting association.

Organizing the program

The hallmark of this embryonic program is integration. We believe that students preparing to be teachers need to have a holistic experience that itself will serve as a model they can use in their teaching. Integration can be defined as making whole by bringing the parts together. Most teacher training programs teach the parts separately as discrete courses and rely on a series of field experiences and seminars to bring them all together. Turtle Mountain believes that integration is too important to leave to chance; therefore, the program at TMCC will provide integrative experiences throughout the course of the program.

This program envisions a cohort of some 25 students all beginning their teacher preparation program at the same time after their first two years at the college and continuing together through graduation. A major focus of those first two years will be on the Native language (Anishinabe). Students will take two, 3-hour courses and participate in two summer immersion programs.

When they enter the teacher education program, students will register for courses each semester just as they would in any program. These courses will be transcripted in the same way that other courses are. Here, however, the similarity ends. With the students taking classes as a cohort instead of designing their own individual schedules, integration can be planned. Instead of separate courses with a 10:00 MWF schedule, the program will schedule group meetings of different kinds. This approach is based on a model created by Evergreen State University in Olympia, Wash., and adapted by the Integrated Studies Program at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, N.D.

The model requires thinking about what college students need to learn and how to support that learning. They need certain required, factual, information, and so there is time in the schedule for sessions that simply impart that information. Books, oral sources, and electronic media will also be used to present the required factual material.

The students also need experience with children. Students in this program will have ample time in schools. In their second year of college, they will take an introductory course (required for admission to the program) that includes three weeks in a school. During the first three semesters of their program, one day each week is set aside for field experience. Nearly all of their last term is devoted to student teaching. A fifth intern year is being planned. Through coordinated field experiences, their classroom learning can be applied to real life situations.

Group meetings and seminars

After the information and field experiences have been provided for, the rest of the schedule will be organized around specific purposes. At one of the meetings each semester, for instance, students will use the new material to discuss in depth concepts such as constructivism and the roles of print, electronic, and oral material in teaching children. At these meetings, students in the program will follow their own interests in discussing these important matters.

Another such weekly meeting will be devoted to learning about the profession of teaching. It will orient students to education associations, journals, web sites, the U.S. Department of Education, etc. In these groups, students will develop ability to make critical judgments about trends. As they encounter the WNTY (What’s New This Year) phenomenon, such experiences will help them to make informed decisions about what is good and what is merely this year’s fad. A significant part of the group activity is preparing for the teacher competency tests that are now required in many states.

None of these groups will be specifically oriented toward technology. However, prospective teachers will become familiar with what they can use to enrich and expand children’s learning. To increase the scope of the meetings and provide resources for prospective teachers, the program will utilize web sites, productivity-oriented programs, and compact discs along with video technology.

The capstone of the schedule will be a Culture Integration Group. Meeting at the end of the week for two hours weekly, teacher education students will use this opportunity to sum up their week’s work and to set it in the context of the local community and culture.

To assure its effectiveness, the program will utilize an outcomes matrix instead of credit collecting. The matrices will specify in general terms everything that teacher preparation students are expected to learn. Teachers in the program will assess students on these outcomes. With this kind of assessment, college teachers and students both know what is expected of them. It will “prove” that teacher education students are learning what is required. Even though the program does not look like most other programs in the state, the matrix will provide evidence to state certification officials that teacher education students learn the things they would in a more traditional program.

Turtle Mountain holds its children in high esteem. With its teacher education curriculum, Turtle Mountain Community College’s graduates will provide the children with the best education possible to prepare them for participation in both their tribal community and in the larger world. It is a difficult task, and there are many roadblocks ahead. But the children are worth the effort.

Carol Davis and Jack Barden are working together on the new teacher training curriculum at TMCC. Davis is vice president of Turtle Mountain Community College in Belcourt, N. D. Her background is in middle school education. Barden is project associate for the Tribal College Rural Systemic Initiative at Turtle Mountain Community College. He was formerly a faculty member at the Integrated Studies Program at the University of North Dakota.