I have been reading Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz' book, An Indigenous Peoples'

History of the United States, which informs some of the ideas presented here.

Question of the Week #2

Over the last week, what are 3 things you learned that stood out to you, 2
feelings you have experienced, and 1 question you still have?

3a) I have been thinking about what it means to teach pupils about nature.
Dunbar-Ortiz unleashes a deserved1 critique to the conception that the US was
a terra nullius prior to European and US settler colonialism. I think it relates very
much to what it means to teach about natural 2 places as a science educator.
Even if we, as educators, acknowledge that there were people here prior to us
(whoever that may be) the land is regarded as pristine prior to US history. This
refusal to consider how the land was actually used does students a disservice.
For example, in the Midwest, indigenous peoples actively managed land with
fire to encourage habitat for economically important large grazers and thrived
via a network of trails/roadways/trade routes that connected an entire continent.

To fail to mention these relationships as we explore an natural space in the

Midwest (or anywhere else) is to deprive students of the intellectual richness of
really understanding the tensions of a particular space.

3b) And we should not stop there. Following settler colonialism were other
conflicts and struggles that inform our understanding of a place. My own
understanding of Bainbridge Island fails here, but in Chicago, I know that my
neighborhood, in addition to its identity before there was a City of Chicago, has
been contested ever since: The home of Lucy Parsons (obliterated to create a
highway) is within walking distance of my home. The site of the assassination of
Fred Hampton is a 10-minute bike ride away as well. The dynamics of
contestation of spaces requires more study.

3c) We are not done. In the same way that it was poignant to consider the fact
that immigration courts in the US are currently overwhelmed with a need to find
translators for K'iche', Mam, or other indigenous languages of Central America,
we should also consider the rhetoric used to justify breaking up families of
immigrants and considering ending birthright citizenship for children of
immigrants.
1 What was not deserved, in the least, was the critique of Woody Guthrie and This Land...I found this aspect of
her work to be completely distracting. Surely, we can all acknowledge that there are other, completely
subversive verses to the song that go beyond the campfire cowboy song trope...
2 Also, what does this even mean? Are there places that are removed from nature? Is an urban landscape
outside of the realm of nature? Maybe not during a heat wave, rain storm,. etc. This is an artificial designation
that obscures much.
2a) I am feeling excited and curious to explore these issues more and have the
time to apply them to my own teaching. I have been very pleased to gift myself
the license to go down many intellectual rabbit holes to explore the complexity of
teaching what I teach3.

2b) I am concerned that the inclusion of politics 4 into the act of teaching may
shut down dialogue among colleagues. I am concerned that during discussions
and so on, we could be deploying progressive shibboleths that result in richer
conversations being shut down. I am also aware that social justice is very much
in the description of the program, but I am not sure to what extent everyone has
really bought into that enterprise. I am reminded of the fact that seven years ago
when I went on strike, when we picketed downtown and disrupted traffic, it was
the first such protest for the majority of my colleagues. They were often fearful -
in a protest that was widely acclaimed all over the US – because they were
unaccustomed to really speaking out. Even when it could not have been clearer
how the issues that affected us affected our students and demanded a
response, resistance is learned behavior, as is acceptance of the status quo.

1) My question is regarding my own instruction over the past several years, am I

doing enough? Will this program help me do enough? Fairly open-ended, but all
the important questions are.

3 And I have not even begun to explore the recent history that adds to the complexity. What about my Muslim
students? What about the Polish immigrants?
4 I get it: nothing can be removed from the prevailing power dynamics (or economic, or politics of gender, etc.),
but we do not all have equal familiarity with this analysis.