Volume 14 Number 2
January 1975

David Churchman, Joan Herman, and Teresa Hall

MANY educators have argued convincingly that the pre-school years are the most strategic for improving American Indian education. This assumption stems not only from the importance of early education for all children, but also from research indicating that English as a preschool language is an important correlate of primary school success for Indian children (Brophy and Aberle, 1958).

In 1972, Tribal American Consulting Corporation (TACC) began the work of developing a program to meet the needs of Indian preschool children living in greater Los Angeles. The basic purpose of the preschool program is to enable Indian children to succeed in public school. Many recommendations have been made as to how to achieve this goal, but no data consistently supports any particular approach. Therefore, it seemed appropriate to establish an experimental school with a number of alternative models of instruction, and to evaluate the relative merits of each (Long, Canyon and Churchman, 1973). This article reports the development of one of these alternatives, a curriculum based on traditional tribal cultures but appropriate to the needs of today's American Indian children.

The first of two basic assumptions underlying the curriculum is that children will learn best in a culturally relevant context. This is a common assumption in compensatory education programs. Years of school failure have led many to the conclusion that a curriculum designed for white Americans is inappropriate for minority children. Rather, there is a need for materials specifically related to the culture, lifestyle and symbols of the minority group. Two characteristics for a culturally relevant curriculum were derived from this assumption. First, learning materials should be drawn from and designed to demonstrate the richness of tribal values, history and culture. Second, activities should be consistent with the traditional pattern of Indian communal interaction wherein individuals work cooperatively to achieve what all can share.

However, this assumption, on which several curricula have been developed, is inadequate alone. As John Dick, a member of the Rough Rock School Board, has said:

The second assumption basic to the curriculum is that preschool should prepare the Indian child for public school. It is an inescapable reality that American Indians are members of a highly technological society, and that the skills needed to survive psychologically, socially and economically are developed primarily in the public schools. The independent work of men such as Bruner, Kagan and White suggests that development of the basic skills of language, problem solving, coping, perception and coordination before the age of five makes the difference between children who can interact positively within their environment and those who cannot.

Combined, these two assumptions suggest that, while children may learn best from culturally relevant materials, the study of culture alone is insufficient. Rather, culturally relevant materials should be utilized to develop competency skills necessary to positive interactions within a complex environment. Such materials should facilitate success in developing skills which, in turn, enhance self-concept. These necessary skills are schematized in four major categories--the child in relation to: self, peers, adults, and materials and ideas. Objectives within these broad domains are based on the needs of young children to further their cognitive, social, emotional and physical development.

These assumptions require a syllabus in which social studies, science, mathematics, logical thought, art, language, music and movement are learned through content drawn from American Indian cultures. We began by identifying six American Indian "cultural areas." The decision as to what represented a "cultural area" was guided partly by ethnographic considerations, partly by geographic considerations, and partly by our perceptions of how much young children could learn and how long they would remain interested in a topic. Within each of these areas, one or two tribes were selected for actual study. The selections were influenced by the tribes of staff and children at the school, the availability of resource materials, and by the need to portray many different aspects of Indian culture. Figure 1 depicts the areas actually selected.

The syllabus includes detailed activities for each of the cultural areas studied. Life environment pictures for each tribe show scenes of Indian life in the specific environmental setting. For each setting, representations of people, animals, plants, land forms, shelters and utensils cut from felt are used for storytelling and manipulated by both teachers and children. The life environment pictures and felt boards provide essential information for the creation of a diorama, which is the climactic activity for each unit of study. The dioramas, which are of three types (on a piece of 6' x 3' plywood, in a furniture carton, or occupying a large section of the classroom), portrays the land forms, vegetation, animals, dwelling units, people, crafts and implements of the tribe (see Figure 2). Each object in the diorama is made by the children from materials selected by the teacher. Both animals and wickiups might be made from pipe cleaners; both sheep and clouds might be made from cotton. People are made sometimes by painting clothespins and sometimes by making clothes for dolls; water is sometimes represented by crumpled foil, sometimes by painted paper and sometimes by real water. The intention is to help the child develop problem-solving abilities by learning that there are a variety of ways to use the same materials and to realize that there may be several ways to solve a problem or accomplish a goal.

Between 30 and 40 activities are suggested for each of the six cultural areas studied, the total number of activities being adequate for a full school year. Each activity is related to one of nine types of experiences that provide an organizational system for all six cultural areas. These include field trips, logical tasks, science, art, cooking, music and movement, dramatic play, building the diorama, and a culminating activity for the unit. For each activity, the teacher is provided with information on educational objectives, required materials and their preparation, classroom procedures and things to talk about with the children (see Figure 3). In addition, a number of culturally relevant classroom materials that may be used individually by children during the unit are described, and the teacher is provided with a short introduction providing background information on the tribes studied in each cultural area.

Study of each tribe and each area makes use of multiple learning materials familiar to traditional school contexts, such as number and word books, lotto boards, ditto masters, concept transparencies and felt boards. However, all these materials have been adapted to the tribe and cultural area under study. For example, a sequence puzzle used when the Northwest is being studied requires the child to put four pictures depicting the making of a totem pole in logical order. A lotto board used during study of the Cahfomia tribes requires matching geometric and natural shapes, such as a turtle shell to an ellipse, a winnowing basket to a circle and a hunting net to a square. A lotto board used during study of the eastern woodlands tribes requires matching a paddle to a canoe and a maple syrup bucket to a tree.

Art experiences include making artifacts appropriate to the tribe under study, and include shell necklaces, false face masks, totem poles, sand paintings and pottery. Indian games involving counting or in developing physical coordination are included. Field trips designed to expand the children's background and to provide concrete experiences related to the diorama for each unit include a trip to the beach during study of the northwestern tribes, a canyon trip during study of the Great Basin and California tribes, and a trip to Farmer's Market during study of the ancient agriculturalists. Cooking experiences introduce the children to the wide variety of Indian foods, while music and movement includes appropriate dances and imitating animals. Social studies and science experiences stress the way Indians in various regions of the country adapted their way of life to the variety of environments of the continent.

Traditional school materials, activities and events have been adapted to the intent of the cultural curriculum. Instead of learning "A is for Apple, B is for Boy, C is for Cat," and so on, the children have an alphabet that begins "A is for Arrow, B is for Buffalo, C is for Canoe. . . ." Instead of a scrap book, the children keep a chronicle of school events, such as field trips, in the Plains Indian fashion of drawing spiraling pictures on a piece of leather. Both English and Sioux month names are learned. Because the children often have siblings in the public schools, the preschool calendar is of necessity closely tied to the public school calendar. But, rather than celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas, the school holds a Green Corn Festival and a Potlatch. Instead of commemorating men such as Columbus, Washington and Lincoln, the school celebrates the achievements of Indians such as Sequoyah, Tecumseh and Chief Joseph. Rather than Good Friday, the Trail of Tears is remembered. The timing of these commemorative days during the year is a major factor in establishing the order in which the cultural areas are studied. For example, the potlatch, which involves giving of gifts and provides a substitute for Christmas, suggests that the unit on the Northwest end late in December.

The TACC cultural curriculum for Indian preschoolers is a cooperative effort that drew on the talents of many people. Parents provided enriching cultural detail and solved many of the problems related to teaching Indian culture to young children. Educational specialists conceptualized the program and developed the objectives. Teachers planned activities to achieve the objectives, and the children put all to a practical test. An evaluation team (Canyon, Gibbs and Churchman, forthcoming) is assessing the success of the program (Churchman and Young, forthcoming).

Dugout Canoes

The cultural curriculum meets the requirements stemming from our two basic assumptions of being culturally relevant and educationally sound. Rather than attempting to make a traditional curriculum culturally relevant by adding a few war dances and having the children make some pottery, the TACC curriculum draws almost exclusively on Indian culture for its content and activities, but draws on modern educational theory to organize the content and activities suitably for children who must know both worlds.

1. Quoted in E. Fuchs and R. Havighurst, To Live on This Earth. Emphasis added.

2. L. Canyon, S. Gibbs and D. Churchman, "Development of A Native American Evaluation Team" (Forthcoming).

3. D. Churchman and J. Young, "Evaluating Preschool Educational Models." Paper presented at the March 1975 meeting of the American Educational Research Association.

4. J. Long, L. Canyon and D. Churchman, "A Tribal American Preschool," Journal of American Indian Education, 13, 1, October 1973.