Indigenous Foodways Are the Focus in a Growing Number of Classrooms

Tribal colleges like Tohono O’odham Community College provide an accessible route for indigenous students to pursue higher education, with tuition waivers available for students from federally-recognized tribes. Tohono O’odham’s enrollment has grown from about 700 in 2019 to more than 1,200 last year, but funding for tribal colleges is in jeopardy due to proposed federal budget cuts.

The Indigenous Teacher Education Program at the University of Arizona trains budding educators to better support students in Tribal communities, with the goal of increasing the number of Indigenous teachers in the school system. Since launching in 2018, the program has produced more than 50 graduates.

To better serve Indigenous students, Durango School District 9-R has created an advisory council for Native American parents, designated specific staff to help support Native students, and developed an Indigenous language course where they can reconnect to their culture by learning Diné Bizaad. Students report that the course is more engaging than learning about Navajo history via a textbook, and the district has shown progress in closing opportunity gaps for Indigenous students, with all of its Indigenous seniors graduating last year.

New Kituwah Academy Elementary provides immersive language education for members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, helping to keep the band’s language and culture alive. Students speak exclusively in Cherokee until third grade and then use both English and Cherokee throughout the school day to build proficiency in both languages.

The Nisaika Kum’tuks and Tsawalk learning centers provide alternative schooling options for Indigenous students to learn more about their culture and languages. The centers teach a total of 100 students from 23 different nations, many of whom come from single-family homes that are experiencing economic hardship or have been part of the foster care system. While the schools have recently shut down to be consolidated with the local school system, efforts are underway to create a new learning center that continues the mission of combining traditional knowledge and culture with academia.

Waadookodaading is an Ojibwe immersion school that meets state and federal academic standards but does so entirely in the indigenous language by connecting children to their cultural heritage. The school goes through 8th grade and uses the forest as its classrooms where traditional ceremonies and practices are used to teach lessons. For example, students learn math while harvesting maple sap and wild rice and biology through practicing sustainable fishing and hunting. Community elders play an important role in passing on their knowledge to students and the 100 graduates provide hope for the language’s future

Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie has repurposed a former residential school building into the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre where students can learn about their Indigenous history and heritage. In the past, indigenous people were sent to these schools and stripped of their language, cultures, and traditions. Now, educators at SRSC are teaching newer generations of indigenous students rediscover their culture.

The Sogorea Te Land Trust is an intertribal women-led organization that is working to reclaim ownership of land in the Bay Area that Ohlone people have lived on for centuries. They regained access to the land through a partnership with another local grassroots organization called Planting Justice, who will eventually hand over the land to Sogorea Te for free once it is fully paid off. Sogorea Te believes that the root of a lot of Indigenous problems is the dispossession of their land, so they hope to use this land to rebuild resiliency and a way of life for and with their people.

After generations of waiting, the Oglala Sioux prophecy of an economic, spiritual, and social renaissance is coming true. "Now the Seventh Generation is here," and they are creating dynamic change in one the least developed communities in the United States. Providing highly reduced tuition and parental efficacy at excellent schools has allowed many children to break the generational poverty chain.

A New Mexico network of native schools, called the NACA-Inspired Schools Network, addresses the failure of traditional schooling to incorporate native culture into lessons by designing a culturally relevant curriculum for students. Beyond cultural education, the network also requires students to take at least two Advanced Placement courses and apply to at least 10 colleges to help level the playing field for native students in New Mexico.