U & D

What the Indians ate is the title of an article in the current (June, 2009) issue of Down East magazine. The first page was slipped mysteriously into my mailbox today and, luckily, I had the perseverance to track that gift down. The article is taken from a new book, Notes on a Lost Flute: A [...]

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When I was in 11th grade, my Humanities teacher instilled in me an interest in ideas through the simple tactic of hanging the walls of the room with flags. Each flag contained a powerful, interesting quotation. We discussed these as the ideas connected to what else we were doing, reading, viewing. Throughout the entire [...]

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This fairly heady image illustrates a “tranformative schools model” proposed at a recent conference by EduCon participant Dennis Richards, an ed. guru and school administrator from Andover, MA. My purpose is not to have you think about Native Studies in terms of this model – but to have your think about this model in terms [...]

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It would have been rude to blog our meetings of the last two days during the meetings. I could never say that about a meeting of teachers, half of whom are generally checking email while I or someone else is talking.
This group was different. For starters, Jana Boody did a wonderful, professional job of chairing [...]

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Today begins a 2-day session in Augusta led by Jana Boody, Maine’s Social Studies Specialist. We, a coalition of educators and tribal leaders, will be looking at LD 291 from a pragmatic point of view. Can we unify and produce a k-12 curricular design that will be functional in today’s classrooms; that will, in fact, [...]

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We will be looking at this road sign after our week at Camp Kieve. It is a powerful reminder that bias and stereotyping are alive and well in Maine. It’s not funny.
But there are puns and irony in the sign as well – it is a Literacy lesson. Tradin’ is one. Trade was the [...]

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Civilization: from the Latin civilis, pertaining to the citizens (as opposed to the soldiers), polite, courteous. Not until around 1600 did the French and English begin to use the verb civilize, meaning to bring out of barbarism. Civilization was not used consistently until the late 1600’s, about the same time that barbarian came to mean [...]

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It was just a matter of time before YouTube and Google Video became LD291 resources. Give them a look (you won’t be able to do this from your Maine school, probably):

Go to YouTube and enter “Wabanaki” into the video search window. What you will find is a wonderful set of audio files from [...]

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If you are like me, you might feel a little bit weird about GoogleEarth. This powerful application on the MLTI laptops (and freely available for download) allows you – anyone – to zoom in to look closely at just about anywhere on Earth. If you haven’t already, zoom in to find your own school or [...]

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This weekend, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is screening Native American films. Highlighted are the documentary films of Alanis Obomsawin, Abanaki, originally from New Hampshire. In Quebec, there is a year-long “First Nations” program, organized as part of the celebration of 400 years of history. Her documentaries are also being shown in New [...]

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