Tara Tindall and the Native American Readiness Module: Setting The Record Straight (Part 2 of 2)
Tara Tindall is the Title VI coordinator for the Madison Metropoliotan School District and works to imbue truthful information about Native people into MMSD’s curriculum.
By Jonathan Gramling
Tara Tindall, the Native American lead teacher for the Madison Metropolitan School District and the coordinator of the district’s Title VI efforts, has been busy trying to promote equity. Act 31, passed in 1989 in response to the displays of ignorance displayed at boat landings by protestors objecting to the Ojibwe treaty rights to spear fish in the 1980s. While Act 31 dictated that Native Americans be covered in curriculum once in high school and twice in elementary school, its implementation has been sporadic and almost non-existent since the state legislature eliminated the WI Dept. of Public Instruction’s enforcement budget. It’s left up to individual initiative
“There is a class being taught at the high school level by Carrie Bohman,” Tindall said. “She teaches ‘Wisconsin First Nations.’ She’s been teaching that, I believe, since 2018. And now the parents have been stressing that they want this taught at other schools as well. So this year, it’s going to start being taught at East High School. And then next year, we’re hoping it is going to be taught at Vel Phillips and at La Follette. This class is more like an addition to the Act 31 requirement. I’m not sure which grade it is covering. I believe it is in ninth grade when they have to have a certain class. So right now, it is an elective.”
Tindall has been working on two initiatives to ensure more quality and quantity in terms of Native American inclusion in the MMSD curriculum. One is the development of lesson plans that are inclusive of Native American culture and values.
“With the lessons that I am creating, there is one book assigned for each grade,” Tindall said. “And the lessons that are attached to it are two weeks. That’s for quarter two and then there is going to be quarter four too. It is integrated into the regular social studies curriculum. That’s just for kindergarten through fifth grade. I’m sure in the future, that is going to include increase too.”
The lessons are integrated into the overall curriculum. So there isn’t a section on Native Americans. Rather the concepts are part of what the children learn in different subject areas.
“I find that their elementary lessons, there aren’t enough,” Tindall said. “Elementary social studies is not well covered as a whole. There needs to be more emphasis on that, especially when you consider the social civic responsibilities because a lot of things happened with COVID-19 where they missed out on certain skill building around social skills. For me, developing these lessons allows me to focus on a lot of these skills that the Native American people encourage like respect, responsibility, being kind to each other and that kind of thing. It also entails a sense of community. It also means being responsible for the caretaking of the land and water. If you would see the lessons, they are about the environment. Sometimes with social studies and Native American in general, it combines social studies with science because of the environmental aspect. We respect water and water would be considered under science. Because of our view, our value for water, I include a lot of that in social studies lessons.”
The lesson plans are a beginning, but not the end all.
“Right now, it’s a plan and it is just starting. It was supposed to be for the quarter too. However the teachers are just learning a new English language arts curriculum. It was decided that this was going to be optional for now. But they have the resources there. And they can teach it if they choose.”
One thing that has been required is that every teacher needed to complete the online Native American Teacher Readiness Module by October 28th. While teachers have been encouraged to include information about Native people, there has been little guidance on the quality of the information that students would be provided. In many cases — before the emphasis on quality and accuracy — teachers could reinforce stereotypes that they themselves had learned, unaware of their inaccuracy and hurtful nature.
“It covered certain things like ‘Don’t do this. Don’t do that,’” Tindall said. “It contained words to avoid and lessons to avoid. For example, this might sound silly, but there are still teachers who start lessons wearing a headdress. And there are still lessons where the teacher will say, ‘Let’s make up a tribe. Let’s make up an Indian name.’ Those are culturally inappropriate. And they are also appropriation. There are a lot of stereotypes that still exist. But a lot of teachers are not even aware sometimes that what they are doing is offensive. They may have Native students in the classroom and sometimes they don’t even know that they have these Native students in the classroom. Here’s an example. One parent told me that her daughter who is Native overheard a teacher saying, ‘There are too many chiefs.’ There was another comment like, ‘We need to have a pow wow.’ You don’t think those are very harmful, but when there is a Native student in the room, it makes them feel uncomfortable.”
One of the biggest, continuing resources for understanding the best practices, lesson plans and resources appropriate for the public schools is the annual Indian education conference, being held in Madison in 2023.
“The WIEA Conference, the Wisconsin Indian Education Association conference is going to be in Madison in April 2023,” Tindall said. “We are making plans. We already have planning committees. It’s going to be held at the Double Tree Hotel on E. Washington Ave. Our theme is ‘In Beauty and Unity, We Walk the Healing Path.’ The focus is going to be on healing and wellness. We’re going to collaborate with UW Indigenous Wellness Place. And Earth Day is on April 22. This is the two days before Earth Day. And on Earth Day, there is going to be a pow wow at Madison College. So there are a lot of people who are collaborating and helping out with the planning for this.”
All of us, adults and children, could learn more about the diversity and complexity of Native American cultures. Today is a good day to begin.
