Volume 13 Number 1
October 1973

John Long, Lena Canyon and David Churchman

TRIBAL American Preschool is unique in many ways. First, the majority of the school’s advisory board is Indian. Second, the majority of the school’s staff is Indian. Third, the school serves urban rather than reservation Indians. Fourth, it enrolls children from many tribes, as well as a small number of white and Chicano pupils. Fifth, it employs three distinct instructional models. Sixth, it is emphasizing, rather than de-emphasizing, Native American cultures and heritage. Seventh, evaluation services are playing an important and non-threatening role in school improvement.

Tribal American Preschool was established in October, 1972, by the Tribal American Consulting Corporation (TACC) with federal funds administered by the California State Department of Education. TACC is a nonprofit, Indian-run organization which is attempting to provide a number of services to Indians in the Los Angeles area. At the moment, TACC is providing materials to, and selling the work of, urban Native American artisans to retail outlets throughout the city, providing an evening class in sewing and cooking, and operating the preschool. Plans for the near future include a daycare center, a second preschool, and training teachers of Indian children in cooperation with the Extension Program of the University of California.

The most important aspect of TACC is that it represents an intertribal effort which is a potential model for cooperation among Native Americans in our cities. Among the Board of Directors are a Blackfoot, a Paiute, a Sak-Fox and Cree, a Pueblo and a Cherokee. They were raised on reservations, speak their tribal language, and maintain ties with their reservations. They are well educated by any standard. One is Director of the American Indian Cultural Center at UCLA; one holds a law degree from Harvard, a master’s degree in African Studies from UCLA, and is completing a doctoral degree in western American history; two are undergraduates in sociology; and one is completing a master’s degree in urban planning.

Tribal American Preschool is directed by Sandy Gibbs, who is Sac-Fox and Cree. One could not ask for anyone more dedicated to the school. When one branch of the California state government - with bureaucratic delays--tied up promised money to open the school and another branch insisted that the school be opened immediately, he found the solution to this Catch-22 with a short-term loan secured by his own house.

An Arapahoe is bookkeeper, secretary and receptionist, filling jobs too often underrated for their importance to the smooth day-to-day operation of a school. Five part-time employees complete the nonteaching staff. These include the registrar and two cooks, who are of Arapahoe, Chickasaw and Pima-Maricopa descent; the custodian who is Chicano; and a white nurse who makes two half-day visits to the school each week. The three classroom teachers are white (efforts to find Indian teachers in the month between funding and opening of the school were unsuccessful) and the three paid teacher-aides include a Sioux, a Cheyenne and a Chicano. The director, one teacher, one aide and the custodian are men, providing an unusually high ratio of males for the staff of a preschool.

Tribal American Preschool draws its enrollment from southeastern Los Angeles, where approximately 15% of the 24,509 Indians in the Los Angeles area live. The school is constantly at or slightly above its official capacity of 90 pupils. Two-thirds of the children are Indian and the remainder are evenly divided among whites and Chicanos. Among the tribes represented are Apache, Arapahoe, Blackfoot, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Chickasaw, Chippewa, Choctaw, Comanche, Cree, Gros-ventre, Kiowa, Navajo, Pima-Maricopa, Shoshone and Sioux.

The school is located in a former church, which has a number of small rooms used for storage, offices, preparation of meals and meetings. All formal instruction is carried on in the large carpeted nave, from which the pews have been removed and stacked on the altar platform and in the baptism room. The nave is divided into three class areas by temporary partitions and bookcases about four feet high. One of these has a smaller special area set up as a playhouse. Most of the furnishings of the classes were made by staff members and fathers of children who attend the school. Each week some improvement, large or small, can be noticed. Appearances are distinctly ad hoc, but basically the building is adequate for use as a preschool and the staff is doing an excellent job of making improvements within the terms of a lease which precludes many desirable changes.

A fenced parking lot adjacent to the building serves as a schoolyard. Playground equipment and toys have been purchased and donated and are receiving hard use. The variety of this equipment and its usefulness to development of large motor skills is constantly improving. The playground is full before and after classroom sessions: children ride tricycles and pedal trucks, climb on the jungle gym, play in the sandbox or on the slide, exercise on makeshift teeter-totters and ramps, or simply run. Teachers or aides and one or two parent volunteers are normally present to supervise the line at the slide, intervene in squabbles, prevent overly adventurous assaults on the chain link portions of the fence, or supervise games using the painted circles, fines and boxes painted on the macadamized portion of the playground.

Each day, Monday through Friday, two preschool sessions are conducted in this setting. Half of the children attend the morning classes; half attend the afternoon classes. Within each session, the school is progressing toward its goal of implementing three distinct models of education. One third of the 45 children in each session are assigned to each model.

Following a period of free play, the morning session begins when the children go inside, stopping just inside the door to wash their hands before going to their respective classes. In one class, best described as traditional, the day begins with the children sitting in a group around the teacher. The date of the month is counted off in unison and children are asked to describe the weather and place an appropriate picture on the flannel board. Frequently, the teacher selects a child for an individual activity by holding up a piece of paper with a name on it, and asking all the children to read that name. This is followed by an introduction of the main topic of the day. Typically, this involves a story illustrated with pictures held up for all to see, followed by a singing game which reiterates some aspect of the main topic. Where possible, physical activity is incorporated into the instruction to provide an orderly channel for the children’s energy. Each activity is kept to about five minutes in deference to their short attention spans.

The class then divides into two groups, one of which works with the teacher and one with an aide, for small group or individual activities based on the main topic for the day. Integrated into all this activity is an emphasis on learning vocabulary, identifying colors and the like. This series of activities is related to such goals as self-awareness, awareness of and respect for peers, pre-math and pre-reading skill, awareness of the physical forces of the world, and understanding of the community. For example, the morning after the local fire department had sent a truck over for the children to explore, they heard a story about firemen while in the large group, reported a fire over toy phones to the aide while in small groups, and worked alone to color a picture of a firetruck.

Freddy, a three-year-old Navajo boy, is one of the members of this class. On the playground, when equipment was still in short supply, Freddy always had a tricycle, and even five-year-old boys twice his size learned not to try to take it from him. He enjoyed the splashing and subsequent flooding from faucets running full force, and liked nothing more than to play in a puddle. In the classroom, Freddy always explored things on his own, refused to sit with the group, and punched anyone who tried to make him do so. Freddy never spoke and the only English word he understood was "lunch." Things were at a crisis in February, with parents threatening to empty the school to save their children from Freddy. The evaluation staff recommended some simple behavior modification techniques to minimize his aggressiveness. At the same time, playground equipment began to arrive in large quantities and Freddy found two friends among the evaluation staff--one who spoke Navajo and one who would play with him. Soon he was asking in English for whatever he wanted. Although he is still reluctant to speak, and he still decides for himself what he will and will not do, he has learned enough English to sit through the group sessions, is more interested in playing with other children, and is no longer aggressive.

Many of the children enrolled have similar backgrounds. Their families have only recently arrived in the city from a reservation. Often, the parents speak little or no English at home. Thus, each child must learn a new language, new behavior patterns required by the school setting, and he must begin to learn about the workings and customs of the city and its people. The second instructional model attempts to make this easier by basing the curriculum on the environment and on Indian cultures. The diversity of cultural backgrounds in the school is one major obstacle to the development of this model. Another is the degree of understanding that a preschool child has of his own culture. A third is finding the time and energy during and after a full day of teaching preschool children to think through and solve the many problems associated with developing an innovative approach to learning.

Thus, for example, no practical way of reaching pre-math, pre-reading and other goals through a cooperative learning style, theoretically consistent with many Indian cultures, has been found. However, the two Indian aides are teaching the children Indian dancing, the class area features a large number of pictures of Indians, and some of the art work and daily projects have an Indian theme. Consultants who can help the staff develop lessons in Indian art and music have been identified; storytellers are being recruited from among the Los Angeles Indian population; a curriculum guide is being adapted from one generously contributed to the school by the Pasadena City Schools; and useful materials which are available commercially are being identified and obtained.

The other major emphasis in this model is on plants and animals. Stuffed animals in the classroom on rotating loan from a local museum have included a gila monster, a coyote, a rattlesnake and a fossil sabertooth tiger skull. The walls include pictures of insects, dinosaurs and other animals, and a few live frogs, turtles and fish are kept in the class. In March a local car dealer brought his baby elephant, kept as a promotional device, to the school and the children had a chance to look, pet, feed and ride him.

One lesson in this class concerned itself with Indian homes, particularly the igloo and the tipi. Among the activities was coloring, cutting out and making a paper tipi. Mike’s tipi immediately became his proudest possession. He showed it to all his parents’ friends, and told them that he went to school with Indians. Just as this white boy is learning something of Indian cultures and customs, the Indian children are learning about the white culture in which they live. For example, on February 14 all the children made valentines, most of which went to their mothers and fathers.

The third class uses the Montessori method that emphasizes teaching the child to take responsibility for his own learning, and uses very clever but simple materials to support this general goal as well as achieve more traditional educational objectives. The classroom is surrounded by low shelves within easy reach of the children. The shelves hold a wide variety of puzzles, rods, beads and other paraphernalia, each in its own specific place. Each child in this class has his own chair and desk. Any child may take anything from the shelf, use it as long as he wants, and return it for another at any time. A typical activity uses an egg carton with a number painted in each section, and a small container of beads. The task is simply to put enough beads in each section to match the number painted on it. From such a task children learn to count, learn the relationship between numbers and objects, and improve eye-hand coordination. Equipment in the classroom includes simpler and more difficult counting tasks, allowing each child to proceed from the simple to the more difficult at his own pace. The Montessori method includes some 150 such lessons which the casual observer would never be aware of, but which guide the teacher and insure that all objectives are reached by each child. In the Montessori class, the theme of individual responsibility is carried into lunch, which always includes meat, a vegetable, fruit and milk. Children are expected to set out a napkin, spoon and cup at their own desk, and to clean up their own table should anything spill or when they have finished eating. By contrast, in the other two classes, the aides set the tables, serve and clean up the food. However, teachers and aides each eat with a small group of children. In these models, the meals are seen as an opportunity to encourage the children to talk about places they have been, television shows they have seen, pets, games or any other topic that interests them. This conversation is seen as related to the goals of improving relations among peers and of increasing each child’s vocabulary and interests. Thus, lunchtime serves not only the goal of providing each child with a nutritional meal, but also serves an educational purpose consistent with the instructional techniques of each model. In all three models, children are developing the skills, attitudes and knowledge that they will need in the public schools. Among the most important of these is the opportunity to learn and practice English, as it appears that Indian children who speak English as a preschool language are considerably more successful in school than those who do not (see Note 2). In addition to the pre-math and pre-reading skills, such as counting and learning the alphabet, the children are learning to draw and paint, as well as learning about their community, the world of living things, the forces of nature and machines, and improving gross and fine motor skills through playground and classroom activities. Perhaps more important, they are learning to play with other children and how to act in school. All this will increase their chances of success in school and thus contribute to their self-esteem, so often cited in the literature as a major factor in school success.

During the first year, TACC was concerned with obtaining a building and adapting it to the requirements of a preschool, obtaining necessary equipment, selecting a teaching staff, winning the confidence of the community and enrolling Indian children in the school, and implementing three distinct models of education. All this was accomplished between October 1972 and March 1973, and the effort now is on improvement rather than on implementation. During the second year of operation, it will be possible to collect evaluative data from each of the three models that will indicate which educational objectives are best accomplished by each. In turn, this data will allow the staff to develop an eclectic model appropriate to Native American children, as determined by actual student achievement rather than on any individual’s preconceptions of the best approach to teaching.

I Peter Snyder, director of the urban anthropology field school at UCLA, estimates that this figure, based on the 1970 census, underestimates by a factor of three the number of Indians actually living in Los Angeles.

2 W. A. Brophy and S. D. Aberle, The Indian: America’s Unfinished Business: Report of the Commission an the Rights, Liberties and Responsibilities of the American Indian. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966. Chapter 5.