Learning Native American history starts with building a sense of place
DUPONT, Wash. — A yellow school bus carefully chugged up a curving gritty driveway, past early 20th-century dairy barns to the top of the hill of what used to be known as Braget Farm.
Birdsongs and cool, late April morning air greeted the Meadows Elementary School fourth graders as they bounded down the bus steps and gathered outside the Nisqually Cultural Center. The former cattle barn has been reclaimed and retrofitted as a modern longhouse, with smooth concrete floors and timber walls covered in photographs and artifacts representing the tribe’s history and heritage. On the exterior by the building’s entrance in red lettering is the Lushootseed phrase “sxwdaAdYb” meaning “a place to gather your spirit power.”
The children, their teachers and chaperones hushed as tribal leader Hanford McCloud called their attention to the sprawling Nisqually Valley below them. He asked how many of them had visited the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, named after the late tribal leader and environmental activist. Several visitors raised their hands.
Beyond the boardwalk, McCloud pointed to what’s labeled McAllister Creek on a Google map. “You see this water system that flows through there?” he asked. “We call it Medicine Creek where the treaty was signed, right out in front of I-5 ... . ”
North Thurston Public Schools has embraced tribal learning in a big way. The Nisqually Indian Tribe flag flies alongside the Washington state and American flags at all 22 of the district’s schools. Students learn about the Treaty of Medicine Creek from Nisqually government leaders who visit their classrooms. Billy Frank Jr. Day is celebrated on March 9. There are current efforts to revive field trips and educator training — halted by the pandemic — on the Nisqually reservation.
But North Thurston is an exceptional case, in a state where teaching tribal culture, history and sovereignty has been required by law since 2015.
Legislation passed in 2005 set precedent for the Since Time Immemorial curriculum, but only “recommended” it be taught. In 2015, a new law passed making it required learning. In 2018, the state Legislature passed a bill requiring teacher preparation programs to include this curriculum. But schools are still lagging.
According to a fall 2021 state Board of Education report, only about half the state’s 295 school districts surveyed have adopted a tribal history and culture curriculum. Failing to implement the curriculum could result in a recommendation from the board to the Superintendent of Public Instruction to withhold funding, but that has never happened. Stephanie Davidsmeyer, communications manager for the board, said a new survey underway will ask districts for more information about their timeline.
Opponents argued that the mandate was underfunded, took away local control and demanded too much of schools. Still, the base curriculum to teach across grade levels is free and endorsed by all 29 of the state’s federally recognized tribes, many of which have invested their own time and money in helping schools. New training webinars on the curriculum are being offered this spring by the state’s public instruction office.
Bill Kallappa II, of the Makah Tribe, chairs the Washington State Board of Education and works in Native education. He said that while pushback has subsided, there’s still resistance and hesitancy from individual educators and schools.
He argues that it’s important for educators to learn about the history and cultures of all the students they teach. “When a student walks in, you don’t just see them as a math student, you see them as a human being. You can understand that kid now because you have the history and context,” Kallappa said. “The stronger the relationship you have with a student, the better they’ll learn.”
It’s one thing to acknowledge the land you’re on. Supporters of tribal education believe it’s another thing to learn about it, to understand and appreciate its history, culture and people.
The Treaty of Medicine Creek that McCloud referenced was initiated with little explanation and interpretation by Gov. Isaac Ingalls Stevens. Signed in December 1854 by several Puget Sound tribal members, it effectively turned over 2.5 million acres of tribal land to the U.S. government in exchange for smaller reservation parcels, cash payments and fishing rights. Those rights, however, became the basis for the fights Billy Frank Jr. and others led to retain treaty rights and tribal sovereignty.
This history, along with ongoing efforts to protect and sustain tribal heritage and governance, is what the Nisqually and other tribes want all students and educators to learn.
“It should be more than checking off a box, and let’s not put a period at the end,” said McCloud, the 6th Nisqually Tribal Council member whose children have attended North Thurston Schools.
A 2019 report from the National Congress of American Indians found that 87% of state history standards in the U.S. do not mention Native American history or contributions after 1900.
Non-native people, Kallappa said, often speak like tribes no longer exist or that they are a “deficit-based” community that only struggles.
“When really we’ve known all along that we’re asset-based. Our communities are an asset. I mean look at our language, look at our culture, look at our art, look at our food, look at our locations where we’ve lived for thousands of years,” he said. “We’ve coexisted here and we didn’t mess it up. Someone else came in and messed it up.”