In my first year of teaching, I worked in a community where 95% of the students were American Indian. I earned my teaching degree at a school well known for developing strong teachers. That said, my training did not contain a single class on teaching the Native student, and upon further reflection, I don’t remember it ever been mentioned, even in a lecture. The irony is that, I went to school out west in Indian Country! Looking back, I was poorly prepared to adequately teach the students I encountered. I wish things had been different. I have spent nearly 40 years since those first days learning to recognize and incorporate culture in my lessons, mostly focused on American Indian populations.
We often forget we are all cultural beings. Our thoughts, beliefs, and actions are the result of the enculturation we receive in our families and through our communities. If a child’s teacher is not from their community, in a sense they are of different worlds. There is a high probability that the student will be taught in ways foreign to their natural ways of knowing and what the child sees is often very different from what the teacher is intending. My hope in my presentation is to share several ready-made mathematics activities I have used successfully with American Indian students that you will be able to use immediately. I also want to teach you strategies for transforming virtually any math lesson you will teach, to be more inclusive of the culture and the natural ways of knowing of your students. Indigenizing the curriculum can be extremely energizing, successful, and fun. Let’s seek it together to get the numbers dancing for our students!
