0611PhiDeltaKappan.
qxp 11/7/06 10:57 AM Page 198
One Teacher’s Story:
CREATING A NEW FUTURE
OR LIVING UP TO OUR OWN
HISTORY?
For those who might question whether a law such
as Indian Education for All is necessary, Ms. Warren
offers her own story as a perfect example of why it is.
BY WENDY ZAGRAY WARREN
OMETIME during my 14 years of teaching
S
in Montana, I became vaguely aware of a
Montana law known as Indian Education for
All (IEFA). I teach junior high language arts
in a school far from a reservation, and few
of my students identify themselves as Native
American. So, because of the many other
things clamoring for my attention every day,
I felt no pressing need to learn more about the law or how
it might apply to my school or to me. If it did have some-
thing to do with me, I reassured myself, someone would
tell me. And if it had anything to do with the students at
my school, it must already be a part of the social studies
curriculum.
About a year ago, I heard Montana’s legislators debat-
ing school funding for IEFA, and I began to grow curious.
So I did a little research and discovered that the state legis-
lature had passed the Indian Education for All Act in 1999.
Written to support Montana’s new state constitution, enact-
ed in 1972, the law directs schools to teach all students
about the cultural heritage and contemporary contribu-
tions of Montana’s American Indians. According to the law,
all school personnel are also expected to “gain an under-
standing of and appreciation for the American Indian peo-
ple.”
“School personnel?” I thought. “That’s me.” With the nag-
ging suspicion that IEFA might, in fact, have implications
WENDY ZAGRAY WARREN is co-founder of Full Circle Curricu-
lum and Materials, a nonprofit organization supporting imple-
mentation of Montana’s Indian Education for All. She teaches at
Columbia Falls, Mont., and is on the leadership team of the Mon-
tana Writing Project.
198 PHI DELTA KAPPAN
for me and my school, I finally read the law. It is impres-
sive, for it is deeply rooted in democracy and reflects so
much of what I believe about the roles and responsibilities
of education in our society. As I’ve learned more about
IEFA, I’ve come to feel proud that my state is taking the
lead in what I hope will become a national movement in
American education. Perhaps most important, I now realize
that I have a clear responsibility to my students and to my-
self. And that means I have a lot of work to do.
WHY DIDN’T I KNOW?
A year ago, I knew very little about American Indian
history, and what I did know about Montana’s tribes could
have been gleaned from a tourism brochure. That’s because
I — like most other Americans — am a product of a system
of education that simply does not include Indians. In my
high school class in Ohio history, for example, I learned
matter-of-factly how the Shawnee, Wyandot, and Erie tribes
disappeared when Mad Anthony Wayne killed them off to
clear the way for “settlers” to move west. Today, I would
call that ethnic cleansing. But the authors of my textbook
didn’t even hint that it might represent some injustice. In-
stead, this process was celebrated as “Manifest Destiny.”
However, at least some Ohio Indians must have escaped
Wayne’s slaughter and the later removal to “Indian Terri-
tory” because I saw Indians once a year when my parents
took me to an Ohio Indian festival. I must have been aware
that Indians lived somewhere in the state, but I never won-
dered where or how they lived.
I don’t know why it has taken me so long to notice my
0611PhiDeltaKappan.qxp 11/7/06 10:57 AM Page 199

ignorance. Nearly 30 years ago, I lived and studied in Otoro-

hanga, New Zealand. While in school there, I learned the
history, language, and culture of the Maori, New Zealand’s
indigenous people. I attended school and played basket-
ball with Maori kids. They were a visible part of every com-
munity. You would think that I might have made a connec-
tion. I might have wondered where the indigenous people
in my country were. I didn’t see them in my high school.
No class existed to teach me their language and culture.
It was as if Indians weren’t even there — weren’t even a
part of our society. And yet they were there, and I could
have seen them if I’d known to look. With the support of
IEFA, perhaps today’s students in Montana schools will no-
tice, both while they’re in school and when they reach adult-
hood.
American Indians live in all parts of Montana, where I
now live. But I honestly can’t say that I have been any more
aware of them or of their histories and cultures than I was
years ago in Ohio. Nor have I been aware of any expecta-
tion that, as a teacher and citizen of a state where Native
Americans are so prominent, I should know. That has to
change, not only because of the law, but because it will
make our state stronger and a better place to live.
In the end, though, it was my students, as usual, who
made the most convincing case for IEFA. Last year, I took
my first small, tentative step to share with them some in-
formation about Montana’s Native peoples. In preparation
for writing magazine articles of their own, my class studied
several well-written articles. One was about a boy’s experi-
ence in an Indian boarding school. A student in my class,
a popular seventh-grader, told me that his grandpa went
to boarding school. It turns out his grandfather is Black-
feet. I hadn’t even realized this student was American In-
dian, and he had never mentioned it until this moment:
the moment when he saw himself in my classroom for the
first time.
I should have known this, too. I learned a long time ago
about the correlation between students’ academic success
and whether they were able to see themselves in schools.
That was the reason leaders of the women’s movement de-
manded that textbook companies begin to write stories with
girls as protagonists, to include pictures of girls, and to ac-
knowledge that women have played a role in this coun-
try’s history. Soon after, people of non-European cultures
also began to appear in classroom texts.
Yet American Indians still haven’t made a serious ap-
pearance, except as stereotypes in war bonnets and moc-
casins. Even a growing emphasis on multicultural educa-
tion often overlooks Native voices and perspectives. For ex-
ample, turn to the authors’ page of any textbook, and you

NOVEMBER 2006 199

0611PhiDeltaKappan.qxp 11/7/06 10:57 AM Page 200
are likely to see people of many different colors and
cultures. Rarely will you see an American Indian. Sim-
ply by reading one article and sharing it with my stu-
dents, I had come to realize that some of them were
truly seeing themselves in school for the first time.
In this way, my own students led me to the most
compelling reason to learn about Montana’s Indians. In-
dian children are participants in my classroom; they live
in my town, just as they are a part of classrooms and
towns all over this country. You can’t tell who is Native
American and who is not just by looking. “They” are a
part of “us.” I have just been blind to their presence. But
I’ve finally learned enough to decide to take off the blinders.
THE HARD WORK BEGINS
I’m so appalled at my own ignorance that I have begun
to learn eagerly — indeed, almost defiantly. And what I’m
learning is interesting, exciting, and thought-provoking. When
I think about it, it seems logical that, when the first Euro-
peans came to this land, there were things they could learn
only from the people who already lived here. Those new
ideas and ways of doing things have become a part of a
collective American culture. But I never knew what they
were. For example, when our Founding Fathers wanted to
create a new form of government, different from the famil-
iar models they knew in Europe, they looked to the Iroquois
Confederacy. Yet I knew nothing about the Iroquois Great
Law of Peace and had no idea that this document influ-
enced the writing of the U.S. Constitution.
I’m also beginning to understand why social studies text-
books have avoided the topics of Native American history
and contemporary life — or have watered them down so
much as to be almost unrecognizable. It is easier not to
know. The history of our government’s relations with Indi-
an peoples is not something that makes me proud to be
American, and creating proud citizens is a primary goal of
these textbooks. There is a difference, however, between
creating informed, proud citizens and fostering blind pa-
triotism. My hope is that we are now ready to face even
our toughest issues by teaching the truth about them and
using our collective wisdom to work toward solutions.
Teaching a more accurate history, however, and intro-
ducing contemporary topics and cultures will be fraught
with problems. Many of the ugly and embarrassing epi-
sodes that in the past were largely omitted are difficult to
address and make us uncomfortable. Yet we teach other dif-
ficult subjects as a matter of course. Most students, for ex-
ample, learn about the Holocaust and the Middle Passage.
Yet we do not routinely teach that our nation’s first slaves
200 PHI DELTA KAPPAN
were Indians or that the Sand Creek Massacre falls within
the legal definition of genocide.
And it will be just as difficult to teach about contem-
porary issues facing Native peoples. Historic treaties con-
tinue to go unrecognized. Money kept “in trust” for the
tribes is still “unaccounted for,” and it seems that even to-
day some lobbyists feel free to simply steal tribal money.
Traditional sacred sites are constantly in danger of disap-
pearing in the name of “progress.” Some tribes are now mi-
norities on their own reservations, as the devastating effects
of failed government policies grow more significant with
each generation.
TOWARD INCLUSION
I’ll admit that at first I didn’t see the connections be-
tween IEFA and the language arts curriculum that I’m re-
sponsible for. “I have enough to do as it is,” I thought. “And,
really, isn’t teaching about Native Americans part of social
studies?” Then I reminded myself — again — that this law
is not only about history.
Schools divide a vast sea of intertwined and overlapping
knowledge into separate disciplines because each provides
us a lens with a different focus as we struggle to understand
our world. Acknowledged or not, the cultures of American
Indian peoples are, and have always been, a part of the cul-
ture of our country. There are Native American scientists,
mathematicians, artists, musicians, sociologists, teachers,
authors, and poets. So I asked myself why these authors,
poets, and storytellers haven’t been included in my language
arts curriculum. And for the first time I began to think about
ways to bring them in.
When I did, the ideas came quickly, which made me
realize this might not be as hard as I’d feared. I could read
0611PhiDeltaKappan.qxp 11/7/06 10:57 AM Page 201
from the work of Native American authors as part of any
genre study. We could discuss the traditions behind the
stories my students and I often tell before we write. When
I taught about stereotyping, I could include images of In-
dian mascots among the examples. No one is asking me
to rewrite my entire curriculum. Instead, I need to slowly
develop a new habit of mind so that the Essential Under-
standings (see the sidebar on page 189) become an auto-
matic part of my planning. And, with the right materials,
I’ll be able to find ways to incorporate information about
Montana’s Indians into my lessons, both to enrich every-
one’s understandings of the world and to finally welcome
my Native American students into the classroom. Not only
is that my responsibility, it is also my pleasure and my honor.
So this is how I came to understand the need for a law
like IEFA. Its very purpose is to break this cycle of igno-
rance that grips me — and many other good but naive peo-
ple. The framers of Montana’s constitution had enough fore-
sight to know that educating the next generation of citizens
is the only way to bring about lasting change.
My heart fills with hope when I see the potential for this
law to bring so much good to the world. Then I start to
worry. My biggest fear is that we might live up (or should
Indian Education for All: THROUGH OUR OWN EYES
Why IEFA?
BY DOROTHEA SUSAG
Education has the power to change the story of
your life.
— Debra Magpie Earling,
Bitterroot Salish novelist and essayist
F THE experiences in our public schools have the
I
power to change the stories of children’s lives, what
happens to those who don’t hear the stories of their
own people? And if children do learn stories about
their lives, what happens when their teachers and
texts regard those stories as inferior or obsolete, rep-
resenting wrong values of property and government,
and representing inadequate means for survival? What
happens to children whose public education is rooted in
an alien culture? How do the stories of their lives change?
DOROTHEA SUSAG is the author of Roots and Branches: A
Resource of Native American Literature — Themes, Lessons,
and Bibliographies (National Council of Teachers of English,
1998). She lives in Fairfield, Mont.
I say down?) to our own dismal history. It lurks silently in
that dark, wide chasm between American “ideals” and the
American way of life. It is in this chasm that blind patriot-
ism is spawned. We proclaim our ideals loudly to the
world — equality, justice for all — these truths that we
hold to be self-evident. Yet we turn our heads and look
away from the inequities inherent in our way of life. Once
in a while, something prompts us to stop for a moment
and look up, allowing us to take a wider view: the Civil
War, the civil rights movement, the recent immigration dem-
onstrations. Then, to our own detriment, we stubbornly re-
fuse to allow ourselves to face the inequities, injustices,
and blatant prejudice in our dealings with American Indi-
ans. If we are successful, the Indian Education for All Act
will force us to take the time to stop and look up, and do
something about what we see.
SHOW US IT MATTERS
Like many others teachers, I have learned that IEFA is,
indeed, about us, our schools, and our students. And we
want to do the right thing. But our already challenging
jobs have recently been overwhelmed with the new re-
What do they learn to value, what do they learn to reject,
and what do they learn about survival when they don’t
ever hear or read about the suffering, loss, and endurance
of their own people? How do they establish positive iden-
tities for themselves when voices within their culture are
ignored, twisted, and suppressed, and when voices out-
side their culture decide who these young people are and
who they should become? What happens to the relation-
ships among children from differing cultures within class-
rooms? Do the children from the dominant culture devel-
op an understanding of and respect for the similarities
that unite all peoples as well as the differences that dis-
tinguish them? Or do they learn to practice discrimina-
tion against cultures different from their own?
Essential questions such as these prompted the crea-
tion of the seven “Essential Understandings” (see the side-
bar on page 189). In turn, that document shaped the funda-
mental nature of Indian Education for All in Montana. K
NOVEMBER 2006 201
0611PhiDeltaKappan.qxp 11/7/06 10:57 AM Page 202
quirements of No Child Left Behind and more and more
standardized testing. And as is so often the case with school
reform, teachers must be the primary players in bringing
change to the classroom.
But no matter how committed we are to IEFA or how
easy anybody tries to make it for us, we can’t do this work
alone. If we are to meet these new challenges, we’ll need
to feel strong and steady support from the governor’s of-
fice, from the school principal’s office, and from each tribal
office. This work will require some unusual kinds of col-
laborations: school leaders communicating with tribal rep-
resentatives, tribal members working together as well as with
people from other tribal nations, Indian and non-Indian peo-
ple interacting with the deepest respect. Montana’s Office
of Public Instruction will have to coordinate these efforts
so that we are all working together to implement change.
We will need to feel the commitment and support of
our superintendents, principals, and school board members.
This support will show up in what they say and do to keep
this issue on the front burner. Perhaps the most telling de-
cision they make will involve spending the money allocated
by the legislature to implement IEFA in all of Montana’s
schools. Because teachers are responsible for bringing these
changes to the classroom, it will be important to include
us in deciding how this money can best meet our needs
Indian Education for All: THROUGH OUR OWN EYES
An Opportunity for All
BY BRUCE K. MESSINGER
MPLEMENTATION of Indian Education for All (IEFA)
I
is long overdue, and it must be a priority for Mon-
tana schools. In response to the ruling of the Mon-
tana Supreme Court, the Montana legislature pro-
vided the funding needed to initiate a full-scale im-
plementation of the constitutional provision. The
heritage of the American Indian is an essential part
of Montana’s history, but students, parents, and
teachers know little or nothing about the American Indian
tribes and how Indian culture has influenced the history
of our state. Indians and non-Indians live together in the
same communities, yet many of us lack an understanding
and appreciation of American Indian culture. The public
BRUCE K. MESSINGER is the superintendent of the Helena (Mont.)
Public Schools.
202 PHI DELTA KAPPAN
and those of our students. And because this work cannot
be accomplished in a year — or even a decade — the com-
mitment by all stakeholders will need to be for the long
term. Two needs in particular must be met if teachers are
even to begin to implement the law: we must have mean-
ingful professional development for all school personnel
and classroom-ready teaching materials.
Ongoing professional development. Providing funding
does not magically change people’s hearts and minds, but
if we use additional funding wisely, it can help us change
what we know and what we do. The learning will not be
easy, and the kinds of information and skills we need will
be varied. Moreover, most of this information will be new
to many of us, and we certainly won’t feel confident in the
classroom until we feel comfortable with our own level of
knowledge.
Two separate kinds of professional development will be
necessary. The first will help us learn the information that
will gradually create new habits of mind, and the second
will increase our ability to infuse our practice with rich con-
tent about Montana’s Indian peoples. One-shot guest speak-
ers or brief attendance at institutions that specialize in In-
dian education may provide us with a starting point. But
what we learn from such brief and infrequent experiences
will not get the job done. In order to bring about lasting
schools must incorporate lessons and enriching programs
to foster increased understanding and appreciation on the
part of the entire school community. Students also need
to appreciate how the future of Montana will embrace
the unique contributions of American Indian beliefs, cus-
toms, and quality of life so that the lessons can be passed
on to future generations.
Indian Education for All should be integrated into all
content areas and grade levels in K-12 school systems. It
should become an active part of learning in all classrooms
across the state throughout the school year. Through ef-
fective curriculum integration, the essential learning out-
comes associated with IEFA will be embedded into in-
struction along with the other Montana content standards.
Age-appropriate lessons incorporating the heritage of
0611PhiDeltaKappan.qxp 11/7/06 10:57 AM Page 203
change, professional development must be ongoing and
accessible to everyone in a professional community. Ob-
viously, developing this process will take time. And teach-
ers are as diverse as any other group of learners, so these
learning experiences can’t be standardized if they are to
be effective. Professional development must offer teachers
various points of entry and enable them to progress at dif-
ferent speeds. There should also be a variety of ways to learn,
from reading groups to seminars, that allow for our profes-
sional growth over time. As classroom teachers well know,
one type of learning will never fit all.
Reliable, classroom-ready materials. Once teachers feel
confident enough to begin actually teaching about Mon-
tana’s Indians, we will need reliable, classroom-ready ma-
terials. Nothing would cause greater panic than for IEFA
to be viewed as a curricular add-on — something else for
teachers to fit into their already overloaded schedules. In-
stead, we need materials that can be used flexibly, to match
different teaching styles and situations, and that can be easily
integrated into different subject areas.
The information used to develop these materials must
originate with the tribes themselves, and most tribes have
already begun gathering the information needed to write
their own histories. Then educational experts with plenty
of classroom experience will need to “translate” this infor-
American Indians will add relevance and value to instruc-
tion in the different content areas.
High-quality professional development for Montana ed-
ucators must be one of the top priorities if we are to im-
plement IEFA effectively. Teachers are eager to learn about
American Indian history and culture so that they can in-
corporate the curricular expectations into their units of
study. To oversee the implementation of the law in the
Helena Public Schools district, we have formed an advi-
sory committee that includes educators, representatives
from the Helena Indian Alliance, and members of the
Helena community. The advisory committee will take the
lead in identifying culturally appropriate materials and in-
structional units that will be incorporated into the class-
rooms. Members of the advisory committee will actively
solicit the input of individuals who have expertise and
resource materials to help with the implementation strate-
gies. The Helena Public Schools district was recently award-
ed a state grant from the Montana Office of Public Instruc-
tion to develop an integrated approach across multiple con-
tent areas for high school students. Once this approach
has been implemented, Helena educators will share their
experience with other Montana educators.
mation into materials that will be useful in the classroom.
Meeting the challenge of IEFA is not without risk, and
many teachers express concern about “doing something
wrong.” Some feel they might unknowingly pass along the
same misinformation that was taught to them. Others worry
that, as outsiders largely ignorant of our Native American
neighbors, we may teach something in a way that trivial-
izes the culture or might be seen as disrespectful. We will
need to be patient with ourselves and with one another,
because there is no doubt we will make mistakes. But the
largest mistake of all would be to allow our fears to para-
lyze us into inaction.
HOPES, FEARS, AND DREAMS
Like most teachers, each summer I become filled once
again with hope for the coming school year. I feel that hope
now, as Montana attempts to blaze this new trail. This is
an exciting time to be an educator in this state. Indian Edu-
cation for All could have a huge impact on our students’
educations and our state’s future. The vision of the demo-
cratic ideal of a community that truly includes everyone
sparks renewed hope within me. Maybe as we blaze this
new trail, rather than living up to our history, we will create
a new future — one that lives up to America’s ideals. K
Another high priority is to supply classrooms and library
media centers with high-quality instructional materials and
resources related to IEFA. This educational venture pro-
vides a great opportunity to use different technologies to
present information and experiences to students. Such
technologies could include streaming audio and video
presentations from American Indian tribal experts. The
techniques of distance learning will help deliver lessons
across the state. I serve on the board of directors for the
Montana Schools E-Learning Consortium, and we are ac-
tively pursuing the possibility of offering professional de-
velopment to Montana educators via the Internet. The
training will be customized to target specific areas of need.
To stretch scarce resources, the consortium will develop
enrichment units for teachers to use in their classrooms.
Indian Education for All will benefit public school stu-
dents and staff members, and the diffusion of information
and increased understanding of American Indian culture
will have a positive and lasting impact on communities
large and small across the state. IEFA is an incredible op-
portunity to add meaningful historical context to the cur-
riculum and build stronger relationships and a deeper un-
derstanding among all Montana citizens. K
NOVEMBER 2006 203