UNSETTLING THE WEST: Montana’s “Indian Education for All” Law and the white undergraduate university
Dr. Seán Patrick Eudaily*
Introduction[1]
“I remember taking twenty-five of my students to visit one of our elders who also was one of America’s longest sitting tribal chairmen, Roger Jordain, from Red Lake Reservation. I remember him talking, and these students, boy, one thing about the students in those years: when an elder like Roger talked they were alert. Roger, in his uncanny way, he was a gruff guy, nice as hell, but gruff in his approach to strangers— he said there’s only three things that you have to remember about American Indians. Here it comes, I thought, the pearl of wisdom, the three important things in Indian life. My students were creeping up on the edge of their chairs and getting engaged, and he said: the first is sovereignty, the second is sovereignty, and the third is sovereignty.”
- John Red Horse[2]
As the epigraph to this article suggests, when one confronts the issue of Indian education it is inevitable that one is addressing Indian politics as well. My purpose in writing this piece is to confront the politics surrounding Montana’s unique “Indian Education for All” (IEFA) law. This law requires that all educational personnel in all public schools (including the state’s universities and colleges) incorporate culturally-sensitive information about native peoples in general, and the 12 native nations who inhabit areas within Montana’s borders in particular, into all levels and aspects of the curriculum.
The first section will address the historical background of the IEFA law and its roots in the Montana Constitution of 1972. The next section attempts to connect these experiences in Montana within the wider debates about Indian education. I argue that (for analytic purposes at least) the similarities and differences between IEFA and Indian education writ large are clarified by distinguishing between Indian Education for Indians, Indian Education by Indians, and Indian Education for All. The article concludes with an investigation concerning the implementation of IEFA, in particular at my home institution of the University of Montana Western. Montana Western is a small, residential comprehensive university with few native students, faculty, or even a specific native studies program. By tracing the development of Montana’s IEFA policy, grounding it in the broader concerns over Indian education, and examining how the policy is faring in one of Montana’s institutions of higher education, I hope to both increase the general awareness of IEFA and also to place the policy under the scrutiny of the critical debates about education and politics in Indian Country.
The History of IEFA: how did we get here?
How did Montana arrive at the current policy of providing “Indian Education for All” of its citizens? The beginning of an answer lies in the unique circumstances surrounding the 1972 Constitutional Convention. Most notable among these details is that no elected officials were allowed to be a part of the convention; a grass-roots group of Montanans gathered in Helena to craft the state’s new constitution. As rare as such an expression of citizen democracy may be in the United States, it alone cannot account for the provision placed in the new constitution pledging that, “The state recognizes the distinct and unique cultural heritage of the American Indians and is committed in its educational goals to the preservation of their cultural integrity.”[3] Although stronger language and reparative measures had been proposed, this provision’s inclusion in the final document stands as evidence to the progressive results seen from the democratic process in the 1972 convention. As Brian Messinger, Superintendent of Helena Public Schools, writes, in reflecting on the need for Indian education:
“The heritage of the American Indian is an essential part of Montana’s history, but students, parents, and teachers know little or nothing about the American Indian tribes and how Indian culture has influenced the history of our state. Indians and non-Indians live together in the same communities, yet many of us lack an understanding and appreciation of American Indian culture.”[4]
However, the intent behind it was soon to be abandoned in practice.
The first attempt to legislate the implementation of the Indian education clause in the Montana Constitution came when the state legislature passed the Indian Studies Law in 1975. This law required that all teachers in schools on or near one of Montana’s seven reservations would have instruction in American Indian Studies. From the start this law was plagued by conflicts over which schools and personnel were to be held accountable under the act, funding issues, and backlash from vested social interests not in harmony with the more progressive elements of the new constitution. In the very next legislative session, the law was amended to reduce its requirements to optional status – effectively repealing the law.
Between the failures of this first attempt to implement an Indian education agenda in the state and the eventual passage of IEFA in 1999 lies a “lost generation” of nearly 25 years. During this time, Indian educators and their allies both in and outside of state government continued to organize calls for implementation of the Indian education clause in the constitution. Steps towards what would become IEFA were made in 1984 when the Montana Supreme Court ruled in Helena School District v. State that the constitution did indeed impose a special burden upon the state to implement Indian education; in 1990 when Indian educators across the state once again met to formulate a “state plan” for Indian education; and in 1997 when state Rep. George Heavy Runner (Blackfeet) carried a bill for the creation of American Indian Heritage Day as a state holiday celebrated each September.[5]
In the following legislative session, Rep. Carol Juneau (Mandan/Hidatsa) sponsored the bill that would become the existing “Indian Education for All” law. The operative sections of IEFA are as follows:
“20-1-501. Recognition of American Indian cultural heritage — legislative intent. (1) It is the constitutionally declared policy of this state to recognize the distinct and unique cultural heritage of American Indians and to be committed in its educational goals to the preservation of their cultural heritage.
(2) It is the intent of the legislature that in accordance with Article X, section 1(2), of the Montana constitution:
(a) every Montanan, whether Indian or non-Indian, be encouraged to learn about the distinct and unique heritage of American Indians in a culturally responsive manner; and
(b) every educational agency and all educational personnel will work cooperatively with Montana tribes or those tribes that are in close proximity, when providing instruction or when implementing an educational goal or adopting a rule related to the education of each Montana citizen, to include information specific to the cultural heritage and contemporary contributions of American Indians, with particular emphasis on Montana Indian tribal groups and governments.
(3) It is also the intent of this part, predicated on the belief that all school personnel should have an understanding and awareness of Indian tribes to help them relate effectively with Indian students and parents, that educational personnel provide means by which school personnel will gain an understanding of and appreciation for the American Indian people.”[6]
Notable is the clear direction of the law at non-Indian students and personnel at school serving primarily non-Indian students. Juneau describes what values she hoped to see the law instill in the wider non-native population, saying:
“In 20 to 25 years, perhaps a new group of Montana legislators will come together and debate all sorts of issues with mutual respect. Perhaps they, too, will make knowledgeable decisions on behalf of all Montana citizens.”[7]
Juneau is not alone in seeing long-term social and political transformation as the measure of the law’s intent. Former State Superintendent of Public Instruction (current State Auditor) Linda McCulloch writes in a similar vein:
“As I look toward the future, I see our state becoming even better because of Indian Education for All. When members of this next generation of students become state and tribal leaders, they will have a better understanding of one another and forge better relations to bring Montana into its next stage of development. When tribal voices are included in all curriculum areas, and all students graduate from our high schools understanding the rich histories and contemporary issues of tribal nations and Indian people, Montana can be acknowledged as the ‘last best place.’”[8]
Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer also affirms this strongly normative aspect of IEFA in writing, “I say we have a moral obligation to make it happen. Making Indian Education for All a reality in Montana means that such cultural awareness must be an integral part of all children’s lives, every day, in the classroom and beyond.”[9] Yet, for all of the high hopes so many placed on the passage of the new law, as was the case in the 1970s, actual implementation of Indian education was far easier said than done.
In the early 21st century a number of years would pass with IEFA on the books and yet no enabling legislation was ever passed to bring it to fruition. It would take yet another lawsuit on behalf of students’ right to a “quality” public education in Montana to get the ball rolling again on Indian education.[10] Finally in 2005, thirty four years after the inclusion of the Indian education clause in Montana’s Constitution, the legislature (responding to the Supreme Court’s decision in Columbia Falls Elementary School Dist. No. 6 et al. v. State) finally defined “quality education” to include the provisions of IEFA, and for the first time allocated significant monies for its implementation. As Denise Juneau (Mandan/Hidatsa and Blackfeet), current Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Mary Smoker Broaddus (Assiniboine and Sioux) write:
“Although some schools have taken a “wait and see” approach, many others have taken this initiative to heart and have begun implementation. Inspiring stories are emerging from these schools about the transformation taking place in classrooms as discussions of cultural issues begin. Implementation efforts are also changing teachers’ hearts and minds, as stereotypes are dispelled and misconceptions are replaced with understanding.”[11]
However, implementation would require a concrete curricular program to be created. In order to lay the foundations of the program, educator and tribal representatives formulated the “Essential Understandings” of Indian Education for All in Montana.
The “Essential Understandings” are a set of seven touchstones for which detailed grade-specific standards have been built. These seven statements of value and purpose define the normative core of the IEFA effort.
- #1 – There is great diversity among the 12 tribal Nations of Montana in their languages, cultures, histories and governments. Each Nation has a distinct and unique cultural heritage that contributes to modern Montana.
- #2 – There is great diversity among individual American Indians as identity is developed, defined and redefined by entities, organizations and people. A continuum of Indian identity, unique to each individual, ranges from assimilated to traditional. There is no generic American Indian.
- #3 – The ideologies of Native traditional beliefs and spirituality persist into modern day life as tribal cultures, traditions, and languages are still practiced by many American Indian people and are incorporated into how tribes govern and manage their affairs. Additionally, each tribe has its own oral histories, which are as valid as written histories. These histories pre-date the “discovery” of North America.
- #4 – Reservations are lands that have been reserved by the tribes for their own use through treaties, statutes, and executive orders and were not “given” to them. The principle that land should be acquired from the Indians only through their consent with treaties involved three assumptions: I. Both parties to treaties were sovereign powers, II. Indian tribes had some form of transferable title to the land, III. Acquisition of Indian lands was solely a government matter not to be left to individual colonists.
- #5 – Federal policies, put into place throughout American history, have affected Indian people and still shape who they are today. Much of Indian history can be related through several major federal policy periods: Colonization Period 1492 – current, Treaty Period 1789 – 1871, Allotment Period 1887 – 1934, Boarding School Period 1879 – current, Tribal Reorganization Period 1934 – 1958, Termination Period 1953 – 1988, Self-determination 1975 – current.
- #6 – History is a story most often related through the subjective experience of the teller. With the inclusion of more and varied voices, histories are being rediscovered and revised. History told from an Indian perspective frequently conflicts with the stories mainstream historians tell.
- #7 – Under the American legal system, Indian tribes have sovereign powers, separate and independent from the federal and state governments. However, the extent and breadth of tribal sovereignty is not the same for each tribe.
Addressing these seven topics requires individual teachers and the public education system as a whole to touch upon sensitive issues of culture and politics in a manner bound to invite controversy. Ellen Swaney (Confederated Salish and Kootenai), Director of Indian/Minority Achievement in the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education, addresses this consequence of IEFA:
“Moreover, really exploring culture raises thorny issues about the culture of the American school system. Honestly engaging IEFA requires us to consider the political, economic, and power issues involved with including people who are culturally different. Such discussions will be difficult, but anything less will result in superficial treatment of a fundamentally important component of this law.”[12]
For all of the difficulties inherent in such an undertaking, by far the greatest is that the effort is aimed at all students, all schools, and all school personnel. As Bobby Ann Starnes notes:
“Almost everyone would agree that Native American students need to know their tribal histories. […] However, IEFA is not just about Indian peoples learning their own histories and cultures. It is about all Montanans. Meeting the law’s letter and spirit means that learning the histories, cultures, and contemporary issues of Montana’s first peoples is no less important for students who live hundreds of miles from reservations than it is for students living on or near them.”[13]
It is this unique aspect of Montana’s policy which both links it and distinguishes it from the wider debates about Indian education, which will be the focus of the next section.
Comparing Issues in Indian Education
While there is much to be said for highlighting the uniqueness of Montana’s “Indian Education for All” law, it is also necessary to place it into the wider context of Indian education writ large. In order to clarify both the similarities and differences between IEFA and the preexisting debates about Indian education more generally, I will refer to issues under three broad headings: Indian Education for Indians (primarily concerned with native students), Indian Education by Indians (primarily concerned with native teachers and other educational personnel) and Indian Education for All (in Montana). While these are by no means exclusive categories, their separation is useful for analytic purposes. In the following sections I will attempt to draw out both what is distinctive, and also what is shared by these three labels.
Indian Education “for Indians”
The education of native students has long been a concern (not always driven by sympathetic intensions) of the government and American society at large, as well as native parents, communities, and the students themselves. When reviewing the recent literatures in American Indian/native studies, education, and public policy, three major themes emerge. The first is the continuing practices of racial and cultural disadvantage, stereotyping, and pressure for native students to conform to white cultural norms. Next is the study of potential disparate effects of educational standardization (both in curriculum and assessment/evaluation) on Indian students. Finally, there are increasing calls for an incorporation of truly indigenous knowledge and pedagogical practice into the schooling of native pupils. I will begin by discussing the longstanding problem of ethnic discrimination and pressure for cultural assimilation in mainstream education.
Educational institutions have always been central to an overarching policy of marginalizing tribal communities and assimilating native youth into white society, both in the United States[14] and in other white settler states, such as Canada.[15] This, of course, was once openly proclaimed by the motto, “Kill the Indian, save the Man.” In the 21st century, however, it is more likely to take the more subtle form of unquestioned stereotyping and ethnic tokenism. As Walter C. Fleming (Kickapoo), head of the Native American Studies Department at Montana State University, writes: “The challenge for educators is how we get beyond stereotyping. The answers are complex but must surely include more than adding a sidebar to a social studies text or including a Native American unit around Thanksgiving.”[16] In addition to these programmatic impulses that disparage, denigrate, or marginalize native culture in general, there are a multitude of practices which pressure Indian students individually to conform with majoritarian, white culture. These range from how specific courses – such as communications skills courses – are deeply encoded with hegemonic, assimilationist norms, to the more general situation of native students being forced to renounce, hide, or attempt to defend their cultural heritage against mainstream assumptions. Nanci M. Burk engages the former issue in her discussion of how hegemonic norms about interpersonal, small group, and public speaking competencies force native students into negotiating their cultural identities within basic communications courses.[17] Linwood Tall Bull (Northern Cheyenne), consultant and Headsman for the Dog Soldier Society, Chief Dull Knife College, addresses the latter with the following anecdote:
“So many of our children cannot relate to the histories and lessons they are taught in school today. They are presented stories that do not fit within our cultural teachings. For example, our children cannot relate to the story about George Washington chopping down a cherry tree. Such stories may be told to teach certain values — in this case, not to tell a lie. But they are not teaching our most important values. To us, young George’s parents should have told him that cherry trees, like all living things, should be treated with respect. The bigger lesson that children learn from young George’s story is that it is okay to be destructive, wasteful, and disrespectful of living things as long as they tell the truth about it. That’s not a lesson we want our children to learn.”[18]
Native students are well aware of these discriminatory environments. Cornel Pewewardy and Bruce Frey’s study of the perceptions of native students at a predominately white institution bear this out. They write:
“First, American Indian students believe in the importance of student support for their ethnic group and they value multicultural courses; to increase their numbers institutions, should build on these services and strengthen them. Second, there is a perception of racism on the campus, that races are viewed differently, so this is an area that needs focus by campus faculty and staff as well as students, both American Indian and White.”[19]
These instances of direct discrimination and assimilation are compounded by (what we may generously assume to be) unintentional yet disparate effects of educational standardization on Indian students.
There is considerable general debate on the potential shortcomings of standardized curriculum and testing in western education. Much of this general debate does highlight the issue of disproportionate negative effects of standardization on various populations of minority students. However, native students (though they may be the population subject to the greatest danger) rarely get as much attention in this general debates as African- and Hispanic-American students do. The recent symposium on “Indigenous Ways of Knowing” in the journal Democracy & Education tackled this problem head on, with Mary M. Clare and the other participants discussing the disjoint between the democratic impulse at the core of American public education and the undemocratic effects of a standardized curriculum on the ways of knowing of native communities and individuals, and making suggestions for integrating indigenous ways of knowing into the general curriculum.[20] Meanwhile, David Beaulieu points us both to the challenges posed by “No Child Left Behind” for Indian education, and also the largely unheralded success of native language immersion programs contributing to their schools making “Annual Yearly Progress” under the NCLB standards.[21] These concerns over the impact of standardization have lead to the creation of a movement to follow-up the criticisms therein with a progressive program of replacing standardization with a community-based set of indigenous knowledges and ways of learning.
The first step to promoting indigenous forms of education is to acknowledge their absence in the very places one would expect to find them. Jeff Lambe notes how pervasion mainstream pedagogy is even in Native Studies programs,[22] while Steven Locke and Loralinda Lindley discuss the how uncritical approaches to the humanities and social sciences continue to appear within avowedly “multicultural” programs of pre-service teacher education in reservation schools.[23] The identification of this problem leads to assessments of how (and when) it is practicable to introduce reform aimed at indigenizing the educational establishment. Scott Freng, Adrienne Freng, and Helen Moore argue that while many proposed reforms are better labeled “quasi Native education” these effects may be key to setting the stage for more radical (what they term true Native education”) change to come.[24] Kimberly Ropollo and Chelleye L. Crow illustrate what is at stake in these efforts at educational reform:
“Education is key to American Indian survival and sovereignty. For both American Indian and non-Indian instructors who are committed to Indian learning, the opportunity exists to affect real change that can benefit not only our students but also Indian peoples. Our focus must be not on Native education, on making the learners fit our predetermined theories or essentialist notions of self or the always traditional, visually learning Native but rather on Indian learning, doing what we have to do and changing our theories in the midst of practice to make sure real learning is occurring, giving birth to new pedagogies that come, like the learners, from out of the cultures and build bridges to the mainstream, bridges that do not have to be burned afterward.”[25]
While the challenges of discrimination, standardization, and the lack of authentically indigenous educational reform undoubtedly affect Indian teachers as well as students, there is an additional set of issues raised by the increasing number of native educators within the school system.
Indian Education “by Indians”
In addition to the challenges of discrimination and cultural assimilation they share with Indian students, native educators face a number of unique hurdles. These include the struggle to establish the independence of American Indian Studies from ethnic studies and the various social sciences, as well as the responsibility owed to native communities. Both of these issues constitute important aspects of Indian education not covered by the experience of students.
Like native students, Indian teachers face an environment often hostile to their very cultural difference. James V. Fenelon discusses the racial discrimination, both overt and covert, faced by native graduate students and faculty, particularly those whose research and teaching directly address issues of genocide and culturcide.[26] J. Anne Calhoun, on the other hand, engages the issue from the side of selective incentives for native teachers and graduate students to “choose” to assimilate to white academic culture in order to avoid facing financial, career, and professional disincentives for failing to conform to hegemonic norms and practices.[27] While these situations mirror the discrimination faced by students, I will now turn my attention to those areas of unique concern for Indian educational professionals.
Much of the concern from Indian teachers (particularly in higher education) centers on the danger of having native studies subsumed under an overarching ethnic studies (interdisciplinary) or other disciplinary and institutional framework.[28] This was the subject of a symposium published a few years ago in Wicazo Sa Review.[29] Elizabeth Cook-Lynn writes:
“One of the things I want to say is that Indian studies cannot be all things to all people; we are not multicultural, we are indigenous. We are not interdisciplinary, we are a discipline of our own. And we are attempting to design that discipline now. Everyone knows that an academic discipline has its own set of goals and its own methodologies. That’s what we must center our work on. We can no longer do the work of other departments. We can no longer use an old-wine-in-new-bottles approach to curriculum; we must develop our own curriculum.”[30]
This suggests not that connections and alliances with other ethnic studies scholars and communities should not be respected, cultivated, and even extended, but simply that such coalition-building must be done from a position of independence. In his contribution to the symposium, Tom Holm contends:
“One of the big failings in American Indian studies is its tendency to still use the methodologies of the traditional disciplines of anthropology, history, sociology, and so on. It is probably time to look at the history of American Indian studies, look at our methodological approaches, the core assumptions that have driven AIS in a different direction than those traditional disciplines.”[31]
Again, the thrust is not the abandonment of the tools, theories and methodologies of the various social sciences, but rather to avoid native studies being solely determined by them. Although these concerns are certainly most prominent within higher education, they point towards the more general need for native educators to carve out a space of their own within the intellectual and institutional structures of the educational system.
The final area identified by the literature on Indian teachers and educational personnel is the need to develop professional standards of conduct befitting of the ethical, cultural, and political responsibilities native educators have to the communities from which they come, and in which they teach and/or research. This is a topic that has received much attention in the emerging electronic public sphere. One such running e-conversation was edited and transcribed in the journal American Indian Quarterly.[32] This kind of concern with the direct, personal responsibilities Indian educators owe to their communities has no equivalent for students. One could further argue that it places native teachers and scholars in a very different position than their non-native peers as well. Rarely is a white educator professionally expected to either represent, defer to, or even maintain open lines of communications with the communities she may come from or work in.
In concluding this briefest of discussions of the literature on Indian education from the vantage point of native teachers, it is important to recognize that they face a double dose of adversity – for they were once native students as well. In this vein, Kimberly Roppolo and Chelleye L. Crow write:
“Many of us were educated in a system that was neither friendly to our learning styles nor designed to encourage our success, and we enter these situations with a hyperawareness of and hypersensitivity toward the needs of our students. Perhaps even more than non-Indian instructors, we are also aware that though there is commonality, there are distinct cultural differences between us and our students, some of which are tribal and some of which have to do with our degrees of assimilation.”[33]
Given this background, and the lasting effects these experiences have on native educators, what can and should be done differently in their professional preparation and development to both take advantage of their intimate perspective on Indian education, but also to provide them with the additional tools not thought necessary or proper for non-native professions? Addressing this issue, Jon Reyner and Don Trent Jacobs argue:
“[T]hat there is specific research-based knowledge that teachers of Native students can access that is usually not provided in teacher preparation programs. This includes knowledge of the historical background of Indian education (so teachers can learn from past successes and mistakes), an awareness of important works that summarize research on Indian education, understanding the role of reflective practice and knowing your students, and the realization that follow up support of new teachers is critical.”[34]
With these general issues of Indian education as backdrop, I now turn to the unique challenges of Montana’s “Indian Education for All” policy.
Indian Education “for All”
The uniqueness of the IEFA law is the “for All” – a policy aimed not only at Indian students or educators (although it includes those concerns as well), but rather an overarching mandate to include culturally sensitive material on native peoples in general and Montana’s 12 Indian nations throughout the public school curriculum for all of the state’s pupils. As Bobby Ann Starnes writes:
“[S]ome have expressed the notion that the work of IEFA should be driven almost solely by Indian leaders and educators. Others focus almost completely on the positive benefits to Indian children — and, indeed, research tells us that an education steeped in their own culture will help Indian students perform at higher levels. However, both of these limited approaches take us away from one of the central elements of the law — that IEFA is, in fact for all.”[35]
IEFA’s great promise (and the source of its greatest controversy) comes from the avowedly public purposes to which it calls the state’s educational personnel and institutions. Although (I would argue) this public purpose – preparation for citizenship in a diverse, democratic society – is the only vision steadfast and coherent enough to explain and defend compulsory, public funded and run education open to all citizens in this age of financial collapse, tax protests, and home-schooling, its open social, cultural, and political overtones make it often appear as a rude guest in the homogenized discourse of standardized educational reform.[36] This is even more so when the public purposes being advanced are not those of society’s dominant, white majority. Dorthea Susag poses the question succinctly when she notes:
“What happens to the relationships among children from differing cultures within classrooms? Do the children from the dominant culture develop an understanding of and respect for the similarities that unite all peoples as well as the differences that distinguish them? Or do they learn to practice discrimination against cultures different from their own?”[37]
Who would be better placed to explain the impact that IEFA can have on the classroom environment and the learners within than the teachers called upon to carry out the policy? It is to their reflections I know turn.
Wendy Hopkins (Little Shell Chippewa), a science teacher at Dodson H.S. in Montana, reflects on the impact IEFA can have on native students’ self-concept:
“Indian people have had to live in a white world; some have learned how to adapt. But when Indian kids meet non-Indian people, they know non-Indian people have ideas about what it means to be Indian and that a lot of those ideas are not very good. With IEFA, Indian kids will have more confidence that the people they meet know about them, that they are good people, and that they can be like everyone else. They will set aside the belief that being from the reservation means they are somehow less.”[38]
In this way IEFA positions Montana directly within the aforementioned debates about Indian Education for Indians. But maybe more innovative is the changes wrought by the policy for non-native teachers and students. Shirley Ingram, social studies teacher at Rocky Boy Middle School (on the Rocky Boy’s reservation of Chippewa and Cree), focuses on the potential for reconciliation between neighboring Indian and white communities after the implementation of IEFA:
“I have taught elementary and middle school at Rocky Boy’s Reservation in north-central Montana for more than 20 years. And for all of those years, I’ve driven the 30 miles that separate my community from my students’ community. But my community and theirs are separated by more than miles. They are separated by generations of misunderstandings, deep mistrust, and harsh stereotypes. I’m excited about Indian Education for All because of the promise it has for the people of these two communities to gain new understandings of one another. I’m anxious for my neighbors to learn what my years of teaching have taught me about the strength and richness of the Chippewa-Cree, their culture, and their resiliency. And I’m hopeful that such awareness will help us to close the gap that separates our communities.”[39]
This theme is extended from interethnic relations to a reexamination of the collective identity within the white majority by Wendy Zagary Warren, a teacher in Columbia Falls, MT, when she argues:
“The history of our government’s relations with Indian peoples is not something that makes me proud to be American, and creating proud citizens is a primary goal of these textbooks. There is a difference, however, between creating informed, proud citizens and fostering blind patriotism. My hope is that we are now ready to face even our toughest issues by teaching the truth about them and using our collective wisdom to work toward solutions.”[40]
It would, however, be Pollyannaish to assume that the policy has been embraced by all, successfully implemented, and has paid the dividends these teachers’ reflection suggest it may.
A number of shortcomings and obstacles for IEFA have been noted, even among those supportive of the policy. Primary within these concerns is the issue of tokenism. Is IEFA just a weak form of affirmative action in lesson plans? Can material on natives be taught to the majority of students in a meaningful way that promotes greater understanding and does not bring about a white backlash? Writing about the difficulties of teaching American Indian Studies to non-natives in general (not directly in the case of IEFA), Lawrence W. Gross says:
“It is my contention that, on the one hand, the degree to which the pedagogical discussion about teaching topics to American Indians reinforces efforts at assimilation needs to be interrogated, because the goal seems to be to indoctrinate Indians into mainstream culture. On the other hand, in teaching about American Indians, although some successes may be achieved in getting non-Indians to appreciate Indian cultures as a topic of study, Indians remain the exotic other without any particular relevance to the lives of non-Indians.”[41]
However, despite these pitfalls, Montana – first through the abstract promises of the 1972 Constitution, then later through IEFA – has chosen to move forward and seek the benefits many hope to see come from this unique curricular commitment.
“Thus there is a need in the academy to revive an understanding of hospitality grounded on a sense of social responsibility and reciprocity, in which they are considered an integral part of a worldview rather than as burdensome obligations; they must be seen as dimensions of identity so much so that they cannot be ignored or neglected. In other words, in such a worldview, it would be inconceivable to do otherwise than carry one’s responsibilities as part of one’s being.”[42]
Will IEFA bring about a new age of hospitality and responsibility in the Montana citizenry’s relations with the native nations and individuals in the state? While it is far too soon to answer that question definitively, no positive answer will ever be possible if the current challenges to IEFA’s implementation are not met. The next section will address those challenges, both broadly and in the specific case of my home institution the University of Montana Western.
Conflicts over Implementation of “Indian Education for All”
The obstacles in the face of full implementation of IEFA come in both general forms – lack of funding and resources, the need for appropriate instructional materials, and the question of who is responsible to see the policy carried out – as well as those specific to the level of educational institution (elementary, secondary, higher education), specific communities (especially those on or near reservations), down to individual school districts and universities. I will begin by addressing the more general issues, and then move to a discussion of the specific case of Montana Western.
Not surprisingly, many of the initial hurdles to implementation came from a lack of funding. Just as it took over a generation for the promises made in the Montana Constitution to be fleshed out as IEFA, so too was IEFA a paper tiger until the state made it a funding priority in the 2007 Legislative Session. To this day funding for IEFA is uneven across different schools and educational levels and where funded adequately is increasingly controversial in an era of shrinking budgets.
Even when given the financial resources for IEFA, educators and schools are often still vexed by how to turn those monetary resources into useable instructional resources. After all, with Montana being alone in its policy direction (and the inherent local specificity of that policy), it is not as if the traditional sources of curriculum materials – published textbooks, prepackaged lesson plans and content modules, professional associations, etc. – have materials developed on Montana’s native peoples. This challenge has been turned by many into the opportunity to develop collaborative relationships with Montana’s tribal colleges. Yet this development, which in many ways is a successful outcome in its own right, also creates challenges for the tribal colleges themselves. As Everall Fox, former academic dean at Little Big Horn College (on the Crow Reservation), writes, “The current challenge facing tribal colleges is to meet the demands of Montana’s education community for accurate and appropriate information about tribes while still carrying out their own unique and specific functions.”[43] This point brings us to another of the general problems of implementation of IEFA: who is responsible?
While the law states that “every educational agency and all educational personnel” are charged with the implementation of IEFA, in practice the question of who are ultimately responsible – individual teachers, school districts, campuses of the Montana University System, the Office of Public Instruction, the Commissioner of Higher Education – remains in limbo. This has left many an educator hesitant to take initiative on IEFA issues until a clear line of direction is passed down the administrative chain. Often this is not out of any hostility to the policy, but rather a concern for “improper” implementation. Teacher Wendy Zagary Warren addresses these fears in saying:
“Meeting the challenge of IEFA is not without risk, and many teachers express concern about ‘doing something wrong.’ Some feel they might unknowingly pass along the same misinformation that was taught to them. Others worry that, as outsiders largely ignorant of our Native American neighbors, we may teach something in a way that trivializes the culture or might be seen as disrespectful. We will need to be patient with ourselves and with one another, because there is no doubt we will make mistakes. But the largest mistake of all would be to allow our fears to paralyze us into inaction.”[44]
Yet, as in the case of the role of tribal colleges in IEFA discussed above, this challenge has opportunity as its flip-side. The fact that few individual teachers possess the knowledge, skills, and resources to successfully implement IEFA in their classrooms without aid need then to turn to their colleagues (in both the narrow sense of other teachers, and in the broader sense of “all educational personnel” in the state) for assistance. Lynn Kelting-Gibson, Assistant Professor of Elementary Education at Rocky Mountain College (in Billings, MT), writes of her own struggles and successes with IEFA:
“One of the central lessons I learned from developing this course is the importance of broad collaboration. It is not that others do not trust us to develop these courses; it is that we do not — or should not — trust ourselves. To meet high standards for accuracy and inclusion, it is essential for our teacher preparation programs to collaborate with American Indian people, including but not limited to members of the Native American Studies departments in our universities. In addition, education programs across the state can collaborate with one another to share their successes and learn from their failures.”[45]
While these challenges of funding, appropriate instructional resources and a diffuse accountability for implementation abound throughout Montana’s educational systems, I believe that there is also much to be learned by looking at the specific challenges raised in individual institutions.
IEFA Implementation at a Predominantly White Undergraduate University
“A stark reality of educating American Indian students in predominantly White institutions is the acute difference between the cultural backgrounds of their instructors versus those of their classmates. Although colleges and universities have become increasingly diverse in recent years, the composition of the faculty and student body has remained predominately White, middle class (Fenwick, 2001). The dissonance in mores, customs, and values between faculty and students has profound implications for the success of American Indian students attending predominantly White colleges and universities.”
– Cornel Pewewardy and Bruce Frey[46]
The University of Montana Western is an institution of approximately 1200 students granting both 2- and 4-year degrees. The University is located in Dillon, MT, a small, rural community of just over 4000 despite being the county seat of Beaverhead County. The student body, the faculty, and the community at large are overwhelmingly white. Montana Western has a small number of native students, no faculty members with active enrollment in a native nation (though some faculty do have native heritage), and no native studies department.
One of the first local challenges to implementation of IEFA is the uneven distribution of Indian Education courses among the departments and faculty on campus. Montana’s Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education (OCHE) evaluates which courses may be approved and officially listed in the catalog under the IEFA banner. As of the 2008-09 academic year, at Montana Western these courses are: ENG 330 Mythology, GEOG 102 Human Geography, GEOG 202 Regional Geography of North America, HIST 111 American History to the Civil War, HIST 112 American History Since Reconstruction, HIST 263 United States Since 1945, PHIL 100 Introduction to Philosophy, POLS 121 American National & State Government, and POLS 250 Political Theory.[47] Of initial note is that all of these courses are taught within existing programs/disciplines rather than under a specific native studies prefix. While this is a child of necessity at Montana Western – as stated above we have no native studies department or faculty – I would argue that this actually becomes a strength our implementation approach, as tasking a single (often small, under-funded and understaffed) department with the lion’s share of implementation responsibility for IEFA as is done on some of the other MUS campuses seriously undermines the “for All” of the IEFA policy from the start. However, when one looks further at this list it may be made clear that all but one of these courses (ENG 330 Mythology) are being taught by a single department (History, Philosophy, and Social Sciences), and indeed most of these eight courses are taught primarily by a single faculty member (namely myself). This suggests that we are not nearly as far ahead on implementing an overarching commitment to IEFA as I would like to claim. This small list of courses is somewhat misleading – OCHE only lists Indian Education courses which contribute to General Education (all 100- or 200-level), neglecting those taught at the upper-level in major programs (Montana Western routinely also offers SOC 425 Montana Indian Sovereignty and ED 425 Multicultural and Global Education, both which would qualify under IEFA guidelines, as well as occasional offerings in Indian literatures and indigenous peoples and the law). This being said, there still clearly remains a lack of buy-in from disciplines outside the social sciences, English, and education. What may explain this lack of IEFA contributions from other departments/fields? A review of a heated debate which broke out among the faculty at the beginning of the fall 2008 term may help illuminate some of the academic/disciplinary and cultural politics which stand in the way of IEFA implementation at Montana Western.
As part of the opening of the new academic year, our institution (as most) has a days of meetings and presentations. In 2008 the featured speaker was brought in to address the issue of IEFA implementation. While the presentation itself went off with only a small amount of discussion and debate, it engendered a heated email exchange lasting the next week to ten days. Over the course of this debate, well-defined battle lines between the social sciences and education on one hand and environmental sciences on the other emerged. By examining a number of extended selections from this debate, the patterns and positions relative to the academic politics of IEFA come to the surface.
Environmental Sciences Professor A: The inclusion in our science classes of Indian creation stories/mythology or the supernatural stories of any other cultural / religious tradition….. as if these stories and beliefs are to be respected as having equal credibility to the science-based world view that we offer…… would not only be unconscionable from the standpoint of scientific integrity. but it would also be unconstitutional for our science faculty members to do so in the classrooms of a public educational institution (i.e., violation of the separation of church and state).
Social Sciences Professor A: The wide range of Indian experience would seem to offer multiple opportunities to integrate examinations of Indian practices (traditional or modern) involving things like land and resource management, especially in comparison to other historical or contemporary practices. Or to put it another way, I think there would be scientific or science oriented aspects of Indian practices and behavior that can be empirically studied quite apart from any spiritual dimension those practices might hold for the Indians themselves.
Social Sciences Professor B: Like tribal worldview science is embedded in a cultural worldview that is culturally and historically specific. The way science has been used in the past it is embedded in a political agenda that some have people benefited from at the expense of many other victims of our progress. We scientists when we teach the history of science should teach the cultural history surrounding the rise of science. This should include the class background of the scientists, the role their research played in replacing feudal society with a new society with its own exploitive class structure and colonial domination of the rest of the world. We also should teach how the social sciences of the 19th century and most of the 20th century were ethnocentric as a matter of course. The natural science has been able to avoid confronting the ethnocentrism of their own worldview. This also should be explored.
Environmental Sciences Professor A: As you may surmise from my comments….. I am not inclined to, in your words, “show sensitivity to different perspectives” to other cultures or religions in my biology classroom if those “perspectives” or “world views” are linked in any way to the supernatural. […] But those “make believe” versions of our world have no place in a science classroom. Period.
Social Sciences Professor A: There are two, maybe nitpicky, points I do disagree with though. One is that Indian culture is “primitive,” given that many such cultures exist today and are engaged in modern enterprises (however much tradition shapes those enterprises). The other, is the implied message that we can challenge our students with different ideas, but that we needn’t accept similar challenges from them.
Environmental Sciences Professor B: I appreciate the materials that [Education Professors A & B] are making available. From a personal interest standpoint, I would find these worth reading. However, I don’t believe that this type of preparation qualifies me to address multiculturalism in my courses and I would hope my colleagues feel the same way. My educational experience taught me how little I actually know about the topic that I know the best. That humbling experience leaves me knowing for certain that I don’t know enough about multiculturalism to present it in my courses, and I don’t think I can significantly change that through the readings.
Environmental Sciences Professor A: Those are the features that make science somewhat unique, as compared to some other supposed sources of human “wisdom” about our world. Our scientific “wisdom” does not derive from holy scriptures, oral traditions or adherence to the words of elders, wise men or prophets.
So, in my opinion, science does appear to offer the best approach to arriving at the best approximation of the “truth” about our world that we can ever hope to achieve.
Compare my description of science as an ongoing, ever expanding and ever improving endeavor with your simplistic depiction of science as some kind of static product warped by ethnocentric biases.
Education Professor C: The claim that a particular Native American legend has “no scientific basis” is irrelevant in terms of it’s value or importance; only that it probably isn’t based on science. (Though when you look at a diagram of an atom in an eighth grade text or read the “proof” for ubiquitous subatomic sized black holes, you get a sense that marginally accurate metaphorical representations of reality and fantastical creative imaginings are not limited to Indian legends.) […]
Finally, a word about the multidimensional concept of “Primitive/Advanced Culture”. I think it’s a Western affectation that the critical attributes of how to distinguish between primitive and advanced cultures boils down to “How much are these folks like us?” or “How much electronic crap can they afford?”
Social Sciences Professor C: While it is understandable for us to concentrate our teaching in those areas where we have the most expertise and highest comfort level; as we all have surely found, teaching GenEd courses as part of a small faculty often puts us in the position of having to train ourselves up to reach well beyond our academic specializations. Indian Education is a case of this, but it is a case with one major difference: we are all LEGALLY obligated be or to become minimally qualified to do so.
Environmental Sciences Professor A: But how many of our classrooms on campus will be populated by a majority, or a substantial minority (or any?) native Americans? If our classes were being held on a Indian reservation, then the [Education Professors B&C’s] article might have some actual relevance to us in regard to our teaching methods here on campus. […]
So…. Again, I argue that those faculty who can see a relevant and appropriate place for incorporating Indian education into their classes should certainly be encouraged to do so.
Those of us who teach classes that don’t lend themselves to the inclusion of Indian education, should not feel compelled to wedge in something phoney or contrived, simply as a cursory way to comply with the Act. […]
My sense of “academic freedom” and what I consider to be my proper role as a professional educator in the sciences inform my opinion that I shall not be willing to be forced to interject into my class any materials that I feel are not relevant…. and that are mainly being promoted by someone else’s social agenda.
The email debate excepted above brings the discussion of Indian edcaution back to the issue of Indian politics. It does this on two levels. On the surface, this debate reflects the practical problems of implementation in terms of both the struggle for normative “buy-in” across the university for the policy, and also the departmental/disciplinary conflicts in which Indian education merely becomes the lastest in a long series of battles. However, there is also something much deeper going on in this debate. Just as Indian education may become the pretense to fight out academic turf wars, so too may the academic arena become the occasion for the underlying colonizing impulses of white settler society to shine through liberalism’s thin veneer of multicultural commitment. I would argue that the political character of this debate is yet another example of a general pattern of depoliticization of indigenous peoples’ justice claims within a liberal, white settler state. The political discourse of liberal governmentality may be said to be a colonizing discourse to the extent that rhetorical tactics employed within the discourse have the effect of depoliticizing the status of indigenous peoples within the settler states. Following Edward Said,[48] one may call neo-Orientalism any discursive tactic which sees indigenous peoples as an inferior cultural Other, and thus, “through a lens complicit with, but not identical to, a [national] programme of political domination [within settler states].”[49]
Additionally, following David Cannadine,[50] one may call a discursive tactic which sees indigenous peoples as a reflection of the social structures and perceptions of settler society neo-ornamentalism.[51] Although Cannadine’s concept of ornamentalism was intended as a critique of Said, I argue that they are rather complementary moves within a general colonial discursive framework.[52] Thus, when opponents of IEFA either reject the policy because indigenous peoples’ culture fails to live up to the standards of white, liberal, scientific civilization (native culture as “make believe” or “primitive”), or reject the agreement because, while indigenous peoples’ culture may be important, it is outside the frame of reference or experience of white faculty that it is unreasonable to include it in the general curriculum (“I don’t know enough about multiculturalism to present it in my courses” or “But how many of our classrooms on campus will be populated by a majority, or a substantial minority (or any?) native Americans?”), we are seeing the twin tactics of neo-Orientalism and neo–ornamentalism at work.
Conclusion: Where do we go from here?
As the section above illustrates, there are both general obstacles – funding, resources, responsibilities –to the implementation of Montana’s “Indian Education for All” law (as there would be for any educational reform), but also a set of very specific obstacles (sometimes specific to an individual community or educational institution) that touch on deep-seated cultural and political animosities between native and settler peoples. Issues concerning the public purposes of public education, the place of American Indian/Native Studies within the academy, and the political encoding of academic/disciplinary divides all take center stage at various parts of the discussions that continue to swirl around IEFA a decade after the law was first passed. It has been my hope in writing this article that analysis of these issues, and the connection of the Montana policy with the wider debates over Indian education, may best come from community of scholars and practitioners already working in indigenous policy. The history of IEFA serves as a test case from which we may test existing models of policy change, and potentially develop new ones. The articulation of how IEFA fits within the established topics of debate in Indian education may help us to clarify those issues with the most salience across thematic areas, and those which may be specifically tied to one or another of the discrete ways of thinking about indigenous peoples and education policy. Finally, by highlighting the obstacles to implementation of IEFA from the most banal to the most controversial, we may find once again that the politics of indigeneity, in whatever context they are raised, brings about a reaction from elements of settler society that is both typical in its structure and yet may also provide us with the opportunity to rethink the terms of the “culture wars” within the academic establishment. Hopefully it has done some or all of these things, or simply spurred the interest of others in exploring the ways in which IEFA fits or stands out from our wider discourse about indigenous policy.
[1] I would like to thank the members of the American Indian Studies Section of the Western Social Sciences Association, particularly Daniel Wildcat and Billie Jo Kipp, for their feedback on this topic. Thanks also to Steven Smith and Sara Glasgow for their time, effort, and assistance in the editing process. Their suggestions have greatly improved my thinking on Indian education, while the errors and omissions that remain are mine alone.
[2] John Red Horse, “First Panel: Reclaiming American Indian Studies,” ed. James Riding In, Wicazo Sa Review (Spring 2005): 175.
[3] Montana Constitution, Article X, Sec. 1(2).
[4] Bruce K. Messinger, “An Opportunity for All,” Phi Delta Kappan (November 2006): 202.
[5] Denise Juneau and Mandy Smoker Broaddus, “And Still the River Flows: The Legacy of Indian Education in Montana,” Phi Delta Kappan (November 2006): 194.
[6] Montana Code Annotated, Sec. 20-1-501.
[7]Carol Juneau, “Building on Yesterday, Looking to Tomorrow,” Phi Delta Kappan (November 2006): 217.
[8] Lind McCulloch, “the First Best Place,” Phi Delta Kappan (November 2006): 195.
[9] Brian Schweitzer, “A New Day in Montana,” Phi Delta Kappan (November 2006): 196.
[10] Montana Constitution, Article X, Sec. 1(3).
[11] Juneau and Broaddus, 197.
[12] Ellen Swaney, “The Challenge of IEFA,” Phi Delta Kappan (November 2006): 191.
[13] Bobby Ann Starnes, “Montana’s Indian Education for All: toward an Education Worthy of American Ideals,” Phi Delta Kappan (November 2006): 186.
[14] Donald A. Grinde, Jr., “Taking the Indian out of the Indian: U.S. Policies of Ethnocide through Education,” Wicazo Sa Review (Fall 2006): 25-32.
[15] Sabrina E. Redwing Saunders and Susan M. Hill, “Native Education and In-Classroom Coalition-Building: Factors and Models in Delivering an Equitous Authentic Education,” Canadian Journal of Education 30, no. 4 (2007): 1015-1045.
[16] Walter C. Fleming, “Myths and Stereotypes about Native Americans,” Phi Delta Kappan (November 2006): 216.
[17] Nanci M. Burk, “Conceptualizing American Indian/Alaska Native College Students’ Experiences: Negotiating Cultural Identity between Faculty and Students,” Journal of American Indian Education 46, no. 2 (2007): 1-18.
[18] Linwood Tall Bull, “Preserving Our Histories For Those Yet to Be Born,” Phi Delta Kappan (November 2006): 192.
[19] Cornel Pewewardy and Bruce Frey, “American Indian Students’ Perceptions of Racial Climate, Multicultural Support Services, and Ethnic Fraud at a Predominantly White University,” Journal of American Indian Education 43, no. 1 (2004): 49.
[20] Mary M. Clare, et al. “Indigenous Ways of Knowing Symposium,” Democracy & Education 17, no. 2 (2008): 2-50.
[21] David Beaulieu, “Native American Education Research and Policy Development in an Era of No Child Left Behind: Native Language and Culture during the Administrations of Presidents Clinton and Bush,” Journal of American Indian Education 47, no. 1 (2008): 10-45.
[22] Jeff Lambe, “Indigenous Education, Mainstream Education, and Native Studies: Some Considerations When Incorporating Indigenous Pedagogy into Native Studies,” American Indian Quarterly 27, nos. 1&2 (Winter & Spring 2003): 308-324.
[23] Steven Locke and Lorinda Lindley, “Rethinking Social Studies for a Critical Democracy in American Indian/Alaska Native Education,” Journal of American Indian Education 46, no. 1 (2007): 1-19.
[24] Scott Freng, Adrienne Freng, and Helen Moore, “Examining American Indians’ Recall of Cultural Inclusion in School,” Journal of American Indian Education 46, no. 2 (2007): 42-61.
[25] Kimberly Roppolo and Chelleye L. Crow, “Native American Education vs. Indian Learning,” Sail 19, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 23.
[26] James V. Fenelon, “Indians Teaching about Indigenous: How and Why the Academy Discriminates,” American Indian Quarterly 27, nos. 1&2 (Winter & Spring 2003): 177-188.
[27] J. Anne Calhoun, “‘It’s just a social obligation. You could say “No”!’: Cultural and Religious Barriers of American Indian Faculty in the Academy,” American Indian Quarterly 27, nos. 1&2 (Winter & Spring 2003): 132-154.
[28] Duane Champagne, “From Sovereignty to Minority: As American as Apple Pie,” Wicazo Sa Review (Fall 2005): 21-36.
[29] “First Panel: Reclaiming American Indian Studies,” ed. James Riding In, Wicazo Sa Review (Spring 2005): 169-177.
[30] Ibid., 171.
[31] Ibid., 173.
[32] “A Discussion of Scholarly Responsibilities to Indigenous Communities,” ed. Joyce Ann Kievit, American Indian Quarterly 27, nos. 1&2 (Winter & Spring 2003): 3-45.
[33] Ropollo and Crow, 3-4.
[34] Jon Reyner and Don Trent Jacobs, “Preparing Teachers of American Indian and Alaska Native Students,” Action in Teacher Education 24, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 85-93.
[35] Starnes, 191.
[36] See my arguments about the lost “public” ideals of public education in Seán Patrick Eudaily, “The Right to (a Public) Philosophy: renewing the civic purposes of democratic justice and responsibility in the post-secondary public education ‘to come’,” The Good Society, 14, no. 3 (2005): 24-28.
[37] Dorthea Susag, “Why IEFA?” Phi Delta Kappan (November 2006): 201.
[38] Wendy Hopkins, “The Promise of IEFA,” Phi Delta Kappan (November 2006): 207.
[39] Shirley Ingram, “The Gift of IEFA,” Phi Delta Kappan (November 2006): 220-221.
[40] Wendy Zagary Warren, “One Teacher’s Story: Creating a New Future or Living up to Our Own History?” Phi Delta Kappan (November 2006): 200.
[41] Lawrence W. Gross, “Teaching American Indian Studies to Reflect American Indian Ways of Knowing and to Interrupt Cycles of Genocide,” Wicazo Sa Review (Fall 2005): 122.
[42] Rauna Kuokkanen, “Towards a New Relation of Hospitality in the Academy,” American Indian Quarterly 27, nos. 1&2 (Winter & Spring 2003): 285-286.
[43] Everall Fox, “Indian Education for All”: A Tribal College Perspective,” Phi Delta Kappan (November 2006): 208.
[44] Warren, 203.
[45] Lynn Kelting-Gibson, “Preparing Educators to Meet the Challenges of Indian Education for All,” Phi Delta Kappan (November 2006): 206-207.
[46] Pewewardy and Frey, 47.
[47] The University of Montana Western, 2008-2009 Catalog, 66.
[48] Edward W. Said. Orientalism. (New York: Vintage Books, 1978).
[49] Seán Patrick Eudaily, The Present Politics of the Past: Indigenous Legal Activism and Resistance to (Neo)Liberal Governmentality (New York: Routledge, 2004), 22-26.
[50] David Cannadine. Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001).
[51] Eudaily, 31-33.
[52] Ibid., 32.