Jioanna Carjuzaa is the author of numerous articles,
including "The Give Away Spirit: Reaching a Shared Vision of Ethical
Indigenous Research Relationships" in the Summer 2010 issue of the
Journal of Educational Controversy (co-authored
with J. Kay Fennimore Smith, read the article
here). Dr. Carjuzaa teaches
Multicultural Education at Montana State University--Bozeman and gave a
presentation on April 8th at Western Washington University's Center for
Education, Equity and Diversity. Her presentation focused on the history of
Indian Education in Montana, especially on the fight to put Indian Education
for All into effect. Indian Education for All is a state-level initiative in
Montana that requires public schools to teach the histories and cultures of
American Indians to their students. Jioanna explained some of the methods she
and her colleagues had devised for teaching American Indian history and culture
at the secondary and post-secondary education levels as well. Keep an eye out
for a video interview with Dr. Carjuzaa on the
Journal of Educational Controversy's website.
Nat: You mentioned in
your presentation that Indian Education for All first became law in Montana in
1972 and that it had been 40-years in the making. So, from 1972, it's been a
work in progress?
Jioanna Carjuzaa:
Yes, there's no question that a lot of work has been done. As I highlighted, it
was not until 2005 that we actually had the money to back what we wanted to do
to implement the initiative.
Nat: And you mentioned
that compliance too was an issue in some areas?
Jioanna Carjuzaa:
It's a difficult thing--we don't have something in place to measure
implementation. We're working on that. We want to know.
We have a lot of anecdotal information and I'm sure they use
James Banks' "Levels of Integration [of Multicultural Content]" here as
well. It's an easy model for us because the acronym spells 'CATS' and we're the
Bobcats at MSU. We really want our students to aim for that third level when
they're writing lesson and unit plans. The truth is, though, that's the
transformation level--you start with just the superficial level. We want them
to get to social action. That's what we're really hoping and we have wonderful
examples of it.
In Missoula or Helena, there was a group of students who
read James Welch's Fool's Crow and
decided it was terrific. They wrote to the school board in Laurel, a district
where that book had been challenged and actually banned, and said, "This was a
very beautiful piece, it helped us to understand the Blackfeet and what
happened historically. We think these students should be able to do that." We
have other examples where Indian students are now proud of who they are and will
stand up and share cultural things. Their parents are now welcomed into the
classroom. So, we know the climate is changing. We have also seen some progress
with the closing or narrowing of the achievement gap, but we know we still have
some work to do.
Nat: You mentioned the
history of Indian education as one of the subjects of your courses and I wanted
to know more about the boarding school period in Montana history specifically.
Jioanna Carjuzaa:
It's a difficult thing because most people are totally unaware of what happened:
how students were forcibly taken from their homes and what happened to strip
these young children of their cultures.
In Montana, we had mission schools and boarding schools. People always want to hear about the
Fort Shaw mission and the girls' basketball team. Peavey and Smith wrote a
book, Playing for the World, and
there's a PBS video as well. What they tried to look at was how these young stars
became basketball heroes. The team actually won the 1904 World's Fair
competition. It's interesting to look at because I guess if you're imprisoned
in boarding school, you might as well have fun playing basketball. People don't
understand these children were stripped of their spirituality and
beliefs--everything--and don't understand
how traumatizing it must have been. The students were taken to schools
all across the United States.
When I was working with the school leaders in the "I
Lead Social Justice" class, we talked about how indigenous school
administrators, principals, and superintendents could share the lasting effects
and the generational trauma of the boarding school era with their faculty, who
were, for the most part, non-Indian. It was really hard to say, "what do we
share?" Some people argue that it's "ugly" and I have even heard "get over
it"--things that are inappropriate. We need to share those histories.
We had talks about what resources they thought were useful
and how to use them as Indian school leaders working with non-Indian faculty
members. Somebody mentioned the film Rabbit-Proof
Fence, for instance. My students were Indians from across Montana, and some
of them said, "we have relatives and we know people who walked from Carlyle
back to Fort Peck" and things like that. Can you imagine? It ended up being
almost like a therapeutic session. People started sharing hard stuff. It is
really hard stuff. A lot of people don't want to talk about it, but everyone
has been impacted somehow.
We use a lot of different resources to help people
understand. Our Spirits Don't Speak
English is a wonderful DVD that a lot of the school leaders I worked with
thought was one of the most authentic resources to use. Walter Littleman, a
Lakota, has written his memoir and there's also a PBS special about him. I like
to use other primary resources as well and there are tons out there. You can
find things not just from Montana and across the United States, but, of course,
from the residential school period in Canada and the Stolen Generations in
Australia. The parallels are frightening.
As for Pratt's famous quote that we want to make sure we "kill
the Indian to save the man": well, you can't strip somebody of their
cultural being. The boarding school children were no longer Indian as they were
before, but they were never white men or women. Often they were just prepared
to be domestics or to work in servitude forever. Their education was not
anything that would be acceptable today.
The brutality: people really don't know what happened and
the extent of the abuse. It was, of course, emotional, psychological, and
physical, but it was also sexual and it was rampant. It's a very dark period in
our history.
Nat: Can you tell
about culturally responsive pedagogy and if, in some way, that's an attempt to
bring things to light, or am I misconstruing it?
Jioanna Carjuzaa:
All those terms are so hot now: everything is social justice and educational
equity, culturally responsive pedagogy or teaching in a culturally relevant
manner. I hear those terms everyday and I don't think a lot of people really understand
what they mean.
I teach a class in "Indian Education For All:
Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Practice" and I think Indian Education
For All in Montana is a really wonderful model to look at. In an ideal world,
how would you implement Indian Education for All in a culturally responsive
manner so that every student comes to school feeling like their cultural
heritage, however they define themselves, is valued? So that their life
experiences are validated in their educational journey? I think that there is
nothing neutral in what we teach in schools. If you're mainstream and you
identify along that line--if you're an English-speaker, you're middle-class,
you're heterosexual, whatever the criteria--then you fit in and school is really
comfortable for you. Anywhere you deviate and feel like your school culture is
different from your home culture, it is very challenging to be successful in
the school model.
Nat: What is your
favorite piece of advice for aspiring teachers or activists?
Jioanna Carjuzaa:
I always use the motto, "hooked on hope," because it's very
challenging and difficult work. There is always going to be resistance. If you
don't stay strong and surround yourself with support systems--whoever that is,
and however you have to reach out--then it is a very difficult journey.
[This oral interview was edited slightly to improve readability--N.B.]
Nathaniel Barr is the Editorial Assistant for the Journal of Educational Controversy. He is completing his Master's degree in English Studies at Western Washington University. You can reach him at barr.nathaniel@gmail.com.