letter from north dakota: inviting the people to see

Letter from North Dakota: Inviting the People to See

Eve Strickler currently works with teachers in the Brattleboro, Vt., public schools.

Eve Str ickler Ft. Yates, N.D.

s unrise. The blue-white reflections of the frozen Missouri River ricochet across the mile of its own ice to highlight clear pink hills. Day begins

quietly. By 8, children from buses, dorms, and town are swarming in the yard. And despite all the official efforts, they explode in and out of the halls as well.

My own day begins by readying the Probe Room (resource, high interest activities for all k-3 classes). It is a joy to be able to have the mixed ages helping each other. We have been consistent and rigorous about the way we use the room. Children have no problems, now, understanding about choosing and caring for materials. But it is hard never having enough time.

Every afternoon now I visit a different classroom. With three I do science - from nature walks and terrariums to seed books and clay boats. With three others I do movement - from parachutes to plays. With others we do cooking or social studies projects. It seems to be going very wetL

Recesses are hard. The playground is bare. The tire swings are going up for the third time. We now have a big old tree trunk for climbing, and are trying to get at least one other. There are so many small things that seem difficult to realize in action.

The programs that contribute to the "support" of the school are another complication: Follow Through, Teacher Corps, Title I, federal and state, Title VI, Future Indian Teachers, Vista, University Year in Action, B.I.A., and so on. The logistics of coordinating all these programs would not be bad, if the programs didn't have very different bureaucracies to support.

The problems in the school are big ones. My one main goat doesn't sound particularly related to children learning to read. Nonetheless I want each teacher here to gain a better sense of her own convictions and real strengths. On paper, that aim doesn't seem so small, but I 'd be happy for just a start. And indeed I think it's happening.

We are struggling with real problems. The teachers I work with are dedicated. They each have different potential. But we are battling with Time. Within that constraint how do you strike a balance between the need for positive rein- forcement and drastically needed program revision? Exciting, frightening problems. I 'm glad we are beginning to talk about them instead of about how to keep the big kids out of the bathroom while the little kids wash up for lunch.

The people here are beautiful, sensitive, vital, vulnerable to pain. On week- ends, much of the latter as well as the general tedium is sopped up by drinking, fighting, and feuding. During the week, people fight to make sense of the bureaucracy and the endless flow of "new" ideas to "improve" conditions~ to get people to "participate," to encourage them to be "responsible," even as they are daffy trained and reinforced to rely on the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The community is a study in contradictions even more than, say, New York City. Here there is still a heritage and a living culture at war with what everything printed says will 1cad to "success." What is success? Why don't the many programs work towards indigenous needs? Why is there so little

Strickler." Letter from North Dakota

that reinforces the wisdom that lives here, and so much that reinforces the doubts?

263

Nothing Fades Away Here

The Whats and Wheres have got me. Dream silhouettes and shadows cast on cardboard.

I wish they would talk about the extremes here As much as how hard Mr. Indian is on.

About the clash between competitive and complacent, Taut strings and untied aprons.

About the range o f tingling coM preservative from minus forty, To Mainstream fires close sure burn.

About the distance between untouched seasons, or dry domain reaching Down to the flooded cemetery o f drowned oak skeletons. . .

beautTf~l old Sioux warriors.

Nothing fades away here, Either it explodes like the shots in our back yard, Or hovers on the undersurface - motionless.

FT. YATES IS AN ISLAND in the Missouri River. Its one main road is a causeway and link to the mainland. Whenever rumors spread that AIM (the American Indian Movement) "is coming," the first reaction of many townspeople is to fear the road being cut off. Ten years ago, thousands of acres, north and south of the town, were flooded by the Army Corps of Engineers for the dam down river at Mobridge. This act eliminated the most fertile farm land on the whole reservation and caused untold ruin. Even now, the miles and miles of weather- beaten great oaks stand stark, white, and dead in the water. They line both banks of the river like the faded ghosts of a logging camp.

Once, at the University in Grand Forks, which is about 400 miles east and north of Ft. Yates, I heard Justice William O. Douglas admit that about all he knew of North Dakota was what he had seen riding across the country as a freight hobo when he was a young man. But during this speech, he also singled out the Army Corps of Engineers as the greatest sponsor of ecological disasters in the country. (The second honor went to the Atomic Energy Commission.) Those giant old oaks stood out in my mind, then, and I could deeply feel one loss that the Standing Rock Sioux had suffered through government bureaucracy.

The Sioux history is, of course, filled with such injustices suffered at the hands of the federal government. However, Standing Rock Reservation takes great pride in the accomplishments of its people, though it may not be expressed in the usual way. Sitting Bull's grave is the town's most outstanding tourist attraction. The sign at the entrance to town used to say, "Welcome to Ft. Yates, Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Center, home of Sitting Bull." But last year, Ft. Yates high school became the Class A state basketball champions, no small feat for a bunch of "dumb Indian kids from some hick town." Now there is a second sign above the old one which adds that fact as a message of pride in the current community.

264 The Urban Review

When I first arrived to take up my job as resource teacher for a Follow Through Program sponsored by the University of North Dakota, the site director picked me up in Bismarck, 80 miles north of Ft. Yates. As we drove south, we discussed the needs and problems he hoped I would be able to address. I realized he was trying to be gentle about the difficulties they were having. Also, I realized I was entering another culture. The fear that I would not be able to understand what people were really saying suddenly hit home. I blurted out the plea that was to become our working pact: "I don't mind hearing about all the problems, but you have to promise one thing. Don't give me any bullshit."

So the facts came out, along with the interrelated intricacies. First we talked about the children. Teachers were having a hard time getting them to "settle down to school." Everyone seemed to be fighting a great deal, and to be unresponsive to "school rules." People wanted the children to have nice things to use, but because so many children were "destructive," many materials had been put away. Next, we talked about teachers - the individuals and their apparent struggles. For example, one very creative, young, intelligent teacher had no control over her kids, and one older traditional teacher treated children harshly and unfairly.

A third area that we talked about was the co-ordination, scheduling, and communication between the many programs in the school. Yet another program, the Teacher Corps, had been voted for in the summer by the school board, and it had complicated obligations on the part of teachers, interns, and classroom programs. The teachers had never been consulted or fore- warned about tile Teacher Corps program and, understandably, bore some resentment. They were also confused by the new systems. Still, they were giving it a chance, for the internships would mean more local certified teachers for their school, as soon as the interns could graduate.

In addition to the demands made by the new program, the Follow Through sponsor had certain expectations. Teachers were showing some resentment about attending workshops and having classroom visits from specialists who visited the site once a month. Teachers had also expressed resentment about a third program, which conducted classes for interns in Grand Forks just when these people seemed most needed at home. Since all three of these programs were sponsored by the University, although through different departments, the University as a whole met less than an enthusiastic reception from most teachers in Ft. Yates. It is worth the risk of being repetitive to say this was not because of the programs, but because of the conflicting philosophies and co-ordination.

My role had its own complications. First, the new school principal, in the confusion that comes with a new situation, gave me false billing as an additional regular classroom teacher. Secondly, the unit leader of another program expected me to be an automatic rival for political power.

The BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs), the North Dakota Department of Public Education, the state Title III, the federal Title III, Title I, Title VI, the Tribal Boarding School principal, the Future Indian Teachers, the Teacher Corps, and Follow Through were entirely too much for me to try to cope with. So I just went to all the k-3 classrooms, took my own inventory of needs, and decided what I felt to be pertinent to my skills and talents.

I saw in every room the imposition of systems, the pull of outsiders' expectations against the daily, real experiences that the children lived. There

Strickler: Letter from North Dakota 265

was nothing to be seen that suggested the children were learning about their own environment. There were very few times when they seemed responsible either for making choices, or taking some responsibility for their own learning. The role of adult authority was stereotyped either by yelling or more secret pulls and pushes. At the other extreme were teachers who meant well, but simply were ineffective. Most of the children were highly spirited, openly defiant, yet happy, curious, and eager to try new projects.

Although the country here is predominately Indian, the town had more mixed-blood and Anglos than the district schools. There were about as many well-cared-for children as those who were neglected. Part of this balance is due to the number of BIA employees in Ft. Yates. Services to children were strictly regulated by whether they were registered on the reservation books (tribal standing and place of birth) and by the percentage and kind of Indian blood they could claim. The classic story of how children themselves per- ceive these categories tells of the fourth grade Anglo teacher who allowed herself to be given the same blood test as the kids. When she told them it didn't really hurt, one child piped up, "That's because you don't have as much blood as we do."

The younger children were struggling with the confusions of changing rooms and teachers in order to "read and do math by skill level." (Every six weeks those placements were re-evaluated and possibly shifted.) On the other hand, there were small groups, plenty of local interns and aides, wonderful materials, many of which were teacher-made, and very good physical conditions in every room.

One room was in the process of being converted by the leader of another program from a classroom to a high interest activity room, which she called the Probe Room. She had tapes, science experiments, paints, and small manipulative materials for children to use. The Follow Through field representative had helped her put the idea into action. The function of the room had not been totally decided, but was already enthusiastically welcomed by the children.

The staff seemed uneven in both experience, self-assurance, and under. standing of the children's developmental needs. Their understanding of how to cooperate with other staff members for their own teacher needs seemed diffuse and uneven, as evidenced by how individuals would approach separate administrative personnel, each with a different, unshared concern or mission. Although individual teachers were polite to me, I understood immediately by their "explanations" about their classes which people were defensive, which were uninterested, and which were receptive to the idea of a resource teacher.

After this survey, I met with the director, the university field representative, and the principal about my role, priorities, and goals.

The direction of my work then evolved into two specific strands. First, I would model a program by accepting responsibility for running the high interest Probe Room, setting up the curriculum, working with the children. Secondly, I would try to find the special talent or strength each teacher showed in her work with children which I could most enthusiastically support, given my own and the sponsor's bias. I hoped that this support would lead to greater trust between the teachers and myself. I felt that trust was vital in working with teachers towards a school life for the children more suited to their developmental needs (block-building as three dimensional map-making, for example) and more related to the rest of their total lives: their "reality."


I spent time in each classroom, deciding what strengths I would build on. Wherever possible, I looked for the means to enable teachers to use the enormous amounts of wonderful materials locked away in closets and ware- houses. Sometimes we had to teach each other what things were good for. Sometimes we had to do repairs. Each item had a different story.

The first three weeks I spent in the kindergarten making cookies with the children. In trying to provide a model, I was trying to demystify and clarify cooking as rich curriculum material. I first talked with each group of children to find out how much they already knew about cookies. Everyone could "read" the recipes because they were composed of pictures. We planned carefully for the children to be cooks, not the teacher. Our recording of the process in pictures and stories later made a delightful book, and it included the processes of cleaning up, baking, frosting, and finally eating. The teaching teams were tolerant of the mess, although they were hesitant to try very much cooking themselves. We had started out on a much more sophisticated level than appropriate for these youngsters. They could have started out with orange juice, boiled eggs, pudding, any number of healthy goods, then work on repeating the food preparation in a variety of ways. That way the children could become fluent and competent both in the concept of the process and in the necessary skills, as well as in their sense of their own responsibility. This could mean spending two weeks making boiled eggs in every form from soft to hard to egg salad.

The cooking curriculum seemed to me to be adaptable to both kindergarten teaching teams' strengths. While one team had high expectations for traditional skills, within a well-defined framework, the other team encouraged a more autonomous, creative, and indigenous approach to learning.

The other grade teachers were a great deal more defensive about my presence in their rooms at the beginning of the school year. In fact, I felt it to be a distinct measure of the progress we all made in gaining trust that by the end of the year I had open access to every room, as did each teacher.

Predictably, the first teacher who asked me to come into her room was the most comfortable about her success as a teacher in Follow Through. During my visits, I admired the deep understanding and skill she used to bring out a real sense of competency among the children in her group. Her sense of priorities was very clear. The children understood her expectations, but they were given ample opportunity to make choices. They also understood what was considered to be acceptable behavior. This teacher asked me to help her set up a math center. Suitable furniture was not available, so we improvised. We set up a balancing activity, beginning with ordinary objects that would be suitable for an activity based on independent choice. However, the physical problems of the center and the attention demanded to keep interest and learning positive were constant; it was more than the teacher could keep up with, considering all the other choices children had, and the expectations she had for herself.

Perhaps if we had been able to map out a two-week, or three-week period in which to explore what balancing activities we wanted to include, and then had some form for recording who had tried and understood what, the teacher would have felt more sense of closure. I felt hesitant, however, to ask that structure of her. I think she will sort out that necessary connection on her own. When she does, it will mean more for the initiative to have come from her. In that sense I feel all the teachers need very much to see problems,

Strickter: Letter from North Dakota 267

and then sort out their solutions, much more by themselves than they have been. It is simply not useful to be led to believe some "system" or someone else's sense of the problem is always more valid than one's own perceptions. But one's own perceptions must have some order. The real goals that teachers have for themselves and their children must be defined. One way I was successful in gaining trust was to share with the teaching teams my own struggles to define a situation and to find effective ways to interact with the children. I wanted to make the process more believable, less mysterious. For example, three of us were doing math with a group of children. I wanted the children to use more manipulative materials, but they were not used to handling materials freely. We had to try several procedures before we found the grouping, timing, and planning that allowed the material to be used to explore and understand concepts, rather than as a teasing tool.

In each teacher's case I tried to make the "next step" visible, but not to take it for them. It is within this framework that I see the university functioning - defining the strengths that improve and deepen each teaching teams' understanding of curriculum as a tool in the process of children's learning, not the goal of sterile skills memorized for test scores.

One second grade teacher was willing to try new ideas more adventurously than some of the others. She was especially receptive to working with materials, and would happily allow children to make a mess or extend their learning beyond a book assignment, if I would make the suggestion. There was, however, one important qualifying aspect to her apparent openness. Her actions were based on approval from "authority" as she saw it, and she expected the children to do the same. She relied heavily on strongly stated, clear, and consistent attention from others and as it seemed often that she didn'~ really like children, her relationships with them could be most unpredictable. Although I tried to build on her considerable musical knowledge, I felt she would contribute much more to the program as a specialist than as a classroom teacher. The classic problem of what to do with a tenured teacher bears serious consideration. Can one more year with a teacher who doesn't care about them really "hurt" the children? I would think that just as parents are now beginning to raise questions about the legality of schools that graduate children "'untaught" to read, they will come also to question the quality of the personnel their taxes support.

The younger third grade teacher had an enormous enthusiasm. She also had a tenacity to find and hang on to the things she values. I hoped to help her feel more confidence in the educational ideas to which she seemed attracted. She was very cautious about trying new ideas because she had had so little "success." The pain a teacher feels when she has committed a great deal of extra effort to making special provision for the children, only to have a child destroy it, is powerful and discouraging. This teacher had twice built a fish aquarium that came undone. I tried to encourage her to construct it a third time, but to include the children more in the process, as well as consider a more protected place for the tank. She had very bad luck with the whole thing. Again, the disappointment resulted not from inexperience, but from a certain kind of stereotypifig of the destruction she expected to en- counter - and consequently did. I would encourage her to consider a wider range of problems, more rational, or skill-oriented, in relation to the enrich- ment materials and the thinking processes she was trying to promote. It would have been important to get the kids to decide on the best place for the fish


tank. They could have measured how much water the tank held. And since they were third graders, they could have compared the living space (how many fish could it hold? Do all fish need the same room?) some water animals need with the needs of some land animals, or even the needs of people. (How much roaming space do children in Ft. Yates have on the average?) The tack of exciting projects is terribly frustrating for children who don't have enough active challenge. If they have had the taste of active learning, they will de- mand more, constantly.

The other third grade teacher had a chart up in her room which caught my eye the first time I visited. The chart displayed a group of insects pinned up in order of size. She also had an unusually healthy collection of big plants in the room. Wouldn't it be great if she would share the experience of these natural investigations with the children and other teachers. Unfortunately she was not comfortable doing activity-oriented projects. (Instead she invested her intern with the authority to do so; the intern enjoyed conducting small group activities.) On the other hand, while this teacher worked at the college in Bismarck to complete her degree and certification, no notice was taken of it by any of the programs, nor was she being sponsored by any program. On her own impetus, she drove the extra 160 miles twice a week, aside from the 30 miles a day she commuted to and from work, and the courses she took contributed directly to her trying new ideas with children much more than the Follow Through or Teacher Corps programs (which she mainly ignored). She built a number of games and enjoyed sharing them with the children. She seemed especially pleased with some manipulative math games she had made.

The Probe Room, which I mentioned above, had gotten underway before I arrived. I added a block area, a reading area, a natural science corner, a puzzle table, a collage table, and a table where different projects could be conducted, such as dissecting a fish, or doing chemistry experiments, under one teacher's direction. We worked out a tag system whereby six kids from each room would be able to come to the Probe Room at the same time. Since this meant about 40 kids and one teacher, we had to have a system everyone understood. It also forced kids to take responsibility for their own learning, as well as to help others in their area, and to stick with the choice they first made when they came to the room. Ever present was the classic question: how much more can you stretch a child's thinking by working with a small group than when kids explore materials independently. We tried to recruit any number of other adults to work as volunteers in the Probe Room, and got quite a few surprises'that way. Mainly, it was clear (1) that the children loved to come, and (2) that teachers had mixed feelings about "playing" and not spending the time doing paper work in their rooms. After three months, I felt the children had grown greatly in their ability to make choices, respect materials, and pursue independently the questions that I would pose for them. When two "special education" teachers began using the room for their small groups, and an intern brought in a small group to "cook" their snack that day, I felt the concept of relating active projects to skill needs had made sense to a few people.

Strickter: Letter from North Dakota 269

Press Coverage Isn't the Whole Story

Night time and thoughts of maybe together with maybe not/pass between the clear star puzzle.

Time to AIM for the open plains, your grandmother did your father slid your teacher lied your friend died

But we all know press coverage isn't the whole story.

Time to Be in suspended animation Against problems I wish were bigger- Big enough to blind your consciousness

to tear up your flesh to electrocute your mind,

So you wouldn't wonder What rewards are big, or risks are small.

Throughout the year, my;hopes and goals remained surprisingly constant. We were struggling to find and make available to both teachers and children some more positive images of themselves: competent learners, who could express their needs, and take action towards meeting them. I saw the programs functioning then as a curious combination of inspiration and castration. We talked often about the "institutionalization" of the Indian people. So many programs there seemed designed to "mother" and "help," even as they kept their "clients" dependent on them.

I didn't think then and don't think now that outsiders should assume all the responsibility for changing practice in a community's school system, even when the need for it is palpable and the seriousness with which the local professionals attack the problem is questionable. The question was, and is, one of balance. When are you facilitator, or resource person, and when are you acting out of your own needs? All year, Paulo Freire's words hung on a wall of my room:

"The fundamental role of those committed to cultural action for conscientization is not properly speaking to fabricate the liberating idea, but to invite the people to grasp with their minds the truth of their reality."

Similarly, it is not the teacher's role to "fabricate" the idea, but to "invite" the child to "grasp" what his or her own needs are, and to teach the necessary tools, skills, be it reading, writing, math, science, or whatever. I do not say these skills are "optional" or unnecessary, but they deserve a context that has meaning for the child who is tryirtg to master them.

In the same vein, if a teacher firmly believes that one particular system is a good way to teach reading, I don't think anything is going to change her mind until she has experienced, and becomes consciously aware of, the success she anticipated (at least partially). Only then will she be able to handle - whether


graciously or ungraciously - the shortcomings that seem so glaring to the out- sider. Part of what I 'm saying has to do with an attitude. The teachers with whom I worked, for better or worse, were terribly defensive about their assessment of what was right for their children. Some feared I would auto- matically disagree with their approach, and try to supplant it with still another system. To counter those fears, I wanted to hurry the "success" of what a teacher was involved in, hoping in the process to gain some measure of trust. But I was frustrated by the length of time it took. It was hard to remember fundamental principles.

We puzzle over how a situation needs to be structured in order that a child can gain some knowledge from it. We question what tools (skills) a child needs for problem-solving and independent (non-authoritarian) direction, for coping, for finding trust in others. We do not pretend to have all the answers, and we readily admit each child is differently motivated. Why then should we not use those same insights and sensitivities towards teachers, adminis- trators, and school boards? Why expect them to accept a system to replace their ways without taking into account their special talents? The same question must be asked about parents.

The parent coordinator in Ft. Yates was a talented, secure woman whose educational framework was compatible with my own. She didn't have the support of an active Parent Advisory Board, nor was she prepared to launch into an imaginative promotion for the Follow Through program. Instead, she visited individual homes, talked to parents about the realities of the program, related her own experiences, made herself available for everything from counseling to raising bail bonds. Since she had lived in the area so long, her influence was considerable. She was willing to balance the slow toll of change with speaking her mind to parents about expectations, fairness, and their interest in their children. I vividly remember watching her talk to a desperately angry parent who was chasing her daughter dowt~ the hall of the school with a stick to beat the girl. It was by chance that the parent coordinator was there. The principal of the school could never have communi- cated with that angry woman, being so very foreign to the ways of the people there. Nor was the coordinator's concern defined by her role as parent coordinator; rather, it was the concern of a person who was willing to take on the personal responsibility of a grandmother, citizen, person. For all the talk about nonverbal people on reservations, this woman found ways of communicating through bi-cultural standards. She was able to voice many of the problems that bothered us. She could help us observe people. She believed in FoUow Through.

In January, I went to the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks for a week, which upset the teachers in Ft. Yates. They complained that they were still without a clear idea about my job, about my responsibilities there, or why I had been asked to give a dance workshop at the university. In the beginning of the year my job had been clearly outlined to the principal and unit leader. It was decided then that I would run the Probe Room as an inter-age supplement to the classroom and try to serve as the resource teacher. But I would neither substitute nor do administrative duties. On my return from the workshop, the teachers owned up to feeling that I wasn't doing enough for them - which delighted me. They asked then that I come to each of their classrooms one afternoon for a week for movement, or whatever project they might want. I agreed, happily. For me, this was a display of trust and con-


fidence that had not been shown before. What a curious process fermentation is. Even though this new dimension to my work came out of some bad feel-

ings, it turned out to be the stepping stone to another expression of confidence on the part of the staff. After several weeks of my working with each class once a week, the teachers decided to exchange their talents too. So one teacher worked out an elaborate schedule for each teacher to have time to work with other classes, go to the library, and have one afternoon with her own groflp once every week. Not an ideal arrangement, but since no one had any real afternoon program, and there was no real social studies, it turned out to be a valid experiment in teachers sharing their talents and time. What- ever shortcomings the idea had, I think the impetus that generated this kind of open support among teachers is terribly important and worth nourishing. Recognition is one way of nourishing, of course. The various projects we worked on during my visits to classrooms rewarded us in many ways during the year. In several instances, it led to establishing continuity between home and school. In three classes, for example, we made candy and cookies for the parent conferences. In addition, I made it my business to have the kids photographed when I worked with them, which meant children asked their parents to be sure to go to conferences to see the pictures of them and to eat the cookies they had made. Even when we went out into the outlying villages, we carried a set of slides and cookies with us, which provided a touchstone for parents and teachers to share.

When we went on field trips, we brought back materials for terrariums. We used the trips for math charts, for classifying, for bringing the wealth of natural sciences all the children lived with every day into some focus (and value) in their school lives.

We took an army parachute - which opened to a huge size - and with everybody in the class holding onto one edge, didali sorts of tentmaking, wave-making, circle dancing activities. It provided a complementary structure in which a group could listen, move, and have an adventure with esthetic overtones all rolled into one activity. I tried to explain things as well as serve as a model to teachers. But it was the aides who seemed to understand best what I was doing. I could foresee the time when they would try to incorporate the children's experiences in helping them develop their understandings of math, science, etc., given the chance. I had an inkling of this watching two aides, on their own time, try a new kind of puppet making. They recorded how they went about it and then tried another way, in the end comparing and choosing the way they liked best. Afterwards, they carried over the experiment to reading and writing with a group of kids who read the in- structions, made puppets with the materials they brought, and wrote stories about their puppets and about how they were made.

Towards the end of the year, a child brought in a bumblebee. The intern from a third grade class was with a group of children when they came into the Probe Room to talk about it. She picked up on their interest, and at the end of the week showed me a book containing research and drawing the kids had engaged in to answer their own questions about the bees.

For the most part, the specialists who visited the Ft. Yates school were warmly welcomed, richly prepared, and immediately responsive to teachers' needs. I will never forget one reading specialist who was working with a boy who had totally baffled all the teachers on the staff. He first gave the boy a word list. The boy read ten words or so. He tried a picture and story,

2 72 The Urban Review

but with no better luck. Then he used some techniques he had developed. He drew a cat's face and a ghost's face, and asked the boy to suggest what each would say to one another. In 10 minutes, working in this way, drawing pictures and soliciting the child's words, this specialist had taught the child 12 new words which were part of a total context. He had also given this child such a feeling of success about his reading that the child was beaming. How sensitive that man had been to understand the strengths and appropriate skills for that boy. Too, I think he understood how to look for the problem. He could probably have written a book on what he had observed about that boy in the few minutes he worked with him. (In a similar way, a university that wants to support change needs to observe and build on the strength of the school, the teachers need to observe themselves and build on their strengths, teachers need to observe children.)

But then I was moved to despair by this same specialist. He had said that something "should be done" about the reading program in Ft. Yates. Yes, we could get a team of experts in here to do the work, teach the kids to read right now. I couldn't help wondering how in the world he could be so ob- servant of that child's strengths, and so insensitive to the strengths of the teachers around him. He was critical at the most vulnerable point. Instead of issuing an absolute judgement about the teachers' inability to teach kids to read - cutting out the ground on which to deepen their own understandings, or clarify their own attitudes - he might have begun by building on the strengths and skills those teachers evidence just in caring about, living, working, and surviving in Ft. Yates. Whatever side of a person's world one sees first, the whole is still there to be drawn upon, or to be reckoned with.

Choosing the single most apparent and concrete accomplishment from the year's work, I 'd pick the playground we built. Soon after I began to supervise the school's original playground (i.e., referee 150 kids fighting on a barren field), I had all the k-6 classes render drawings showing what they wanted for a playground. I made books out of them and took the books to a school board meeting - where board members showed genuine interest and allocated $100 for the project. Maybe $100 was not very much, but considering that it had not been solicited, it was significant. The project took three hours to conceive, nine months to develop, and three days of labor to make real. The old oak trunks from the river bank, which I mentioned earlier, were to provide the basic material, the $100 would pay for the hardware. Five students from the university volunteered to come to Ft. Yates to put together this dream. I will never be able to thank them adequately for their help. And I will always remember how, after the playground was finished, the man who headed all BIA maintenance in the area drove by. He never complimented us in so many words, but the fact that he smiled and made some rude remarks about President Nixon was the warmest, truest signal of appreciation and approval we could ever hope for. He had been very helpful all year in supplying us with trucks, chains, and tools. It is easy to say it is his job, but in fact he is in a very powerful position, and one soon learns to appreciate his approval and help. There are many people in the community with resources available to make changes, to get things done. Local school leaders are in the best position to facilitate cooperation. They, in turn, must feel the local political power is in favor of their action. In this case the school board was only a part of the power structure.


Some questions recur about school boards. What is the best way to keep board members in close touch with actual classrooms and with the real children who are affected by their decisions? How do you go beyond the dried, pat test scores that sterilize concern? I heartily endorse pictures, documentation by children, video-tapes of clear situations, scrapbooks, any personal inquiry or communication that can be set up between the people in the school (including children) and the board members. Similarly, the program directors ought to be able to communicate to the community whatever action the board members take that seems supportive of their common goals for children. It is not difficult to find ways to "invite people to grasp with their mind the truth of their reality." Another way to improve communication within the community would recognize that the Sioux traditionally give grandparents great influence. It would make great sense, then, to organize and activate a grandparents' group in the school. The question might be obvious, "What needs to be done?" Ask kids, ask the teachers, let them put their ideas down on paper, photograph them at work, collect pictures and ideas, present them to the school board. Then a group of grandparents could see if the action (maybe restarting the garden that was once successful) could get going. Somehow, ways must be found to make people in the community more aware of their own resources and abilities to affect change, independent of government stipulations.

The parents' goals are straightforward. They want their children to learn to read, write, and do sums. They want them to learn discipline and to have certain expectations. They do not want chaos. They do not want their children subjected to unfair treatment of any kind. They expect they will be kept informed of any problems their children are having. I think more parents than ever before want their children to learn about their culture in school, but I have not gotten the feeling from parents in Ft. Yates that this is as important as "skills." I think parents, too, feel it is important for children to be given a sense of the vocational and professional choices open to them. The need to motivate children towards realistic accomplishments and possibilities quite often came into conversations I had with parents.

But most of all, the parents do not want their children's joy to be slaughtered. While parents were hesitant to express their opinions in the school community, they were consistently wise about children's developmental needs in conversations that I had with them. This is the strength to which we, as progressive educators, have to connect to build our constituency for change. We need to encourage parents to trust their own intuitions, their own insights about children's development.

This, then, is a plea for more concrete recognition of specifics that we can all comprehend - accomplishments that count. This is not a call for a reactionary clampdown, or for defining "behavioral objectives," or for "modifying behavior." The invitation to see, or grasp, ones' own reality can indeed be supported by a university, or a program not totally indigenous to the community. But the focus and goal must be concerned with, and evolve from, the strengths of the people (including the children) in that community.

letter from north dakota: inviting the people to see

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