Teaching at the interface: Curriculum and pedagogy in a teachers' institute on Virginia Indian history and cultures

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Teaching at the interface: Curriculum and pedagogy in a teachers' Teaching at the interface: Curriculum and pedagogy in a teachers'

institute on Virginia Indian history and cultures institute on Virginia Indian history and cultures

Lisa L. Heuvel College of William & Mary - School of Education

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TEACHING AT THE INTERFACE: CURRICULUM AND PEDAGOGY IN A TEACHERS' INSTITUTE

ON VIRGINIA INDIAN HISTORY AND CULTURES

A Dissertation

Presented to

The Faculty ofthe School of Education

The College of William and Mary in Virginia

In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree

Doctor of Education

by Lisa L. Heuvel February 2011



By

Lisa L. Heuvel

Approved February, 2011 by

\

o1z5rnn~~~ Chairperson of Doctoral Committee

JjJa.~,~ ml A. McEachron, Ph.D.

g_~~ W& . .• &?m. Woody Holto , Ph.D.

ii

Table of Contents

List of Tables .............................................................................................................. .............. vi

List of Figures ......................................................................................................................... vii

Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................. viii

Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... x

Chapter One: The Context for This Study ................................................................................ 2

The Statement of the Problem ............................................................................................... 7

Research Questions ............................................................................................................... 9

The Significance of the Study ............................................................................................. 11

Limitations and Delimitations ............................................................................................. 13

Chapter Two: Review of Literature ........................................................................................ 16

The Relationship of Education and Colonialism ................................................................. 17

The Sociology of Knowledge .............................................................................................. 21

The Influence of Critical Pedagogy, Social Justice, and Subaltemity ................................ 25

The Emergence of Indigenous Agency in Education .......................................................... 27

Related Indigenous Research Methodologies ..................................................................... 33

The Relationship of Collaboration to Transformational Educational Change .................... 35

Chapter Three: Methodology .................................................................................................. 40

The Conceptual Framework ................................................................................................ 41

European-American Tradition of Teaching ........................................................................ 47

Curriculum ....................................................................................................................... 48

Pedagogy ......................................................................................................................... 50

Indigenous Ways ofKnowing ............................................................................................. 52

Curriculum ....................................................................................................................... 53

Pedagogy ......................................................................................................................... 55

Methods .................................................................................................................................. 57

Risks .................................................................................................................................... 58

Privacy and Confidentiality ................................................................................................. 59

Data Analysis ...................................................................................................................... 59

Ethical Considerations ......................................................................................................... 61

iii

Chapter Four: The Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute and Its Presenters ....................... 63

BJTI Program Participants: An Overview of the Target Audience .................................... 64

The BJTI Presenters as Cross-Cultural Collaborators ......................................................... 67

Contesting Virginia's Dominant Narrative ......................................................................... 69

The BJTI: A Virginia Indian-Directed Epistemology ......................................................... 78

Group Characteristics of Presenters .................................................................................... 84

The BJTI Presenters as Cohorts .......................................................................................... 86

Chapter Five: The Keepers: Surviving the Fallout of the Racial Integrity Laws ................... 89

The Keepers ......................................................................................................................... 90

Tribal Affiliations ............................................. : .............................................................. 91

Childhood Memories and Parental Protection ................................................................. 91

Personal Experience and Education ................................................................................ 96

Transmitting Their Heritage ............................................................................................ 98

Experience and Transcendence ..................................................................................... 100

Chapter Six: Bridge Builders and Synthesizers: Sharing Pain, Pride, and Commitment.. ... 104

Inroads in Public Education .............................................................................................. 105

Cohort Two ....................................................................................................................... 106

Tribal Affiliations .............................................................................................................. 107

Stewards of Heritage and Identity ..................................................................................... 1 09

Cohort Three: The Synthesizers ........................................................................................ 113

Connections between the Keepers, the Bridge Builders, and the Synthesizers ................ 116

Chapter Seven: Characteristics ofBJTI Native Curriculum and Pedagogy ......................... 117

The Native Cohorts' Paradigms ........................................................................................ 118

Native Cohorts' Curricula ................................................................................................. 123

Core Beliefs ................................................................................................................... 131

Knowledge Integration .................................................................................................. 134

Format and Content ....................................................................................................... 136

Intended Outcomes ........................................................................................................ 139

Native Cohorts' Pedagogies .............................................................................................. 141

Objectives ...................................................................................................................... 144

iv

Techniques and Technology .......................................................................................... 149

Classroom Dynamic ...................................................................................................... 154

Outcomes for Audiences ............................................................................................... 157

Chapter Eight: Characteristics ofBJTI Non-Native Curriculum and Pedagogy .................. 160

The Bridge Crossers' Paradigm ........................................................................................ 161

The Bridge Crossers' Backgrounds ............................................................................... 161

The Bridge Crossers' Curricula ......................................................................................... 165

Core Beliefs ................................................................................................................... 165

Knowledge Sources and Knowledge Integration .......................................................... 167

Format and Content ....................................................................................................... 170

Intended Outcomes ........................................................................................................ 1 71

Bridge Crossers' Pedagogy ............................................................................................... 172

Objectives ...................................................................................................................... 173

Techniques and Technology .......................................................................................... 175

Classroom Dynamics ..................................................................................................... 178

Outcomes for Audiences ............................................................................................... 179

Chapter Nine: Conclusions ................................................................................................... 183

Collaboration ................................................................................................................. 184

Transformation .............................................................................................................. 187

Education ....................................................................................................................... 188

Recommendations ......................................................................................................... 190

Appendix A: Participant Invitation Letter ............................................................................ 197

Appendix B: Participant Informed Consent Form ................................................................ 199

Appendix C: Presenter Interview Protocol ........................................................................... 201

Appendix D: Interview Codes and Descriptions .................................................................. 202

Appendix E: Researcher as Instrument Statement ................................................................ 205

References ............................................................................................................................. 206

Vita ........................................................................................................................................ 225

v

List of Tables

Table 1: Comparison of European-American and Indigenous Teaching Paradigms .............. 46 Table 2: A Model of the European-American Tradition of Teaching .................................... 47 Table 3: A Model oflndigenous Ways of Knowing ............................................................... 54 Table 4: Paradigms of BJTI Native Presenters .................................................................... 119 Table 5: BJTI Native Presenters' Teaching Traditions: Curriculum .................................... 130 Table 6: BJTI Native Presenters' Teaching Traditions: Pedagogy ....................................... 144 Table 7: BJTI Non-Native Presenters' Paradigm ................................................................. 164 Table 8: BJTI Non-Native Presenters' Teaching Traditions: Curriculum ............................ 169 Table 9: BJTI Non-Native Presenters' Teaching Traditions: Pedagogy .............................. 173

vi

List of Figures

Figure 1: A Model of the BJTI as Virginia Indian Epistemology .......................................... 83

vii

Acknowledgments

Every culture has its stories. Some chronicle spiritual and physical journeys in which the seeker encounters obstacles, guides, and through them, transformation. The doctoral dissertation process has been my journey of understanding across cultures. As a descendant of Massachusetts Bay colonists and Ellis Island immigrants, I appreciate America's appeal to people beyond its shores. However, the dark outcomes of that attraction for Native American peoples cannot and should not be denied.

My life has been immeasurably enriched by teaching and writing about Virginia history, and that interest drew me to the museum field. In 1998, I joined the Jamestownyorktown Foundation as an education instructor. In the process of seeking answers to my own and others' questions about the Jamestown narrative, Terry Bond, Dr. Thomas Davidson, Nancy Egloff, Samuel "Running Deer" McGowan, and Sharon Walls were generous with their knowledge of Virginia history in relation to Native peoples. At the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Frances Burroughs, Richard McCluney, and Dr. William White encouraged this research during my doctoral studies. I thank them and my colleagues at both museums for their support.

I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Barbara Carson, Edris Head and Dr. Helen Rountree for inspiring me over the past decade with their scholarship and guidance, and to Dr. James Swiney (Cherokee) for being a lifelong mentor. Dr. Samuel Cook at Virginia Tech became a friend and valued colleague during my doctoral studies; I greatly appreciate his insights and early review of my manuscript.

Within the last four years, I have been the grateful recipient of encouragement, insights, and trust from Virginia Indian leaders and representatives, especially Chief Kenneth Adams (Upper Mattaponi), and Chief Stephen Atkins (Chickahominy). Virginian Indian Heritage Program Director Karenne Wood (Monacan) and Virginia Foundation for the Humanities President Robert Vaughan and Grants Director David Bearinger have supported this research since its early stages, as did the Virginia Council on Indians and its Program Administrator Deanna Beacham (Weapomeoc). I am grateful to the many tribal members and educators who shared colonialism's impact upon their communities over the last four centuries and have demonstrated their unyielding commitment to future generations.

Members of the Virginia Indian Nations Summit on Higher Education and Native American Students' Summit on Higher Education have added to my understanding of Virginia Indian and non-Native perspectives on educational advocacy, as have Betsy S. Barton, elementary history and social science specialist for the Virginia Department of Education, and Patrice Ambrust, Director of Education at the Valentine Richmond History Center. Virginia educators participating in the 2007 and 2008 Virginia Indians Past and Present Teachers' Institute were articulate about their needs in teaching students about Virginia Indian heritage and cultures.

viii

At The College of William and Mary, the staff of Swem Library Special Collections graciously shared their resources, as did Director James Heller and Betta Labanish at Wolf Law Library. Dean Virginia McLaughlin staunchly supported my work on behalf of Virginia Indian education in the School of Education, and Dr. Jeremy Stoddard led me to essential sources in critical theory. My professors allowed me to work on some aspect ofthis research in their classes as a doctoral student; I was honored to receive a 2010 dissertation research award named for one of them, Dr. David Leslie. School of Education Registrar Gwendolyn Pearson has guided me cheerfully though the labyrinth of doctoral degree requirements.

My committee members, Dr. Gail McEachron of the School of Education and Dr. Woody Holton of the University of Richmond were integral to this dissertation's development. Dr. McEachron and I share the commitment to teaching with respect about Virginia Indian history and cultures. Dr. Holton's teaching and writing about Virginia history has been a model for me. I am truly grateful for their insights and support. From our first conversation, my chair and advisor Dr. Dorothy Finnegan anchored my doctoral work with her solid belief in this research and her commitment to academic excellence. She has had a profound influence on my life and scholarship.

The Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute faculty members participating in my dissertation study share a passion for bringing history to light. They are all exemplars who contribute significantly to education for and about the Virginia Indians. These individuals chose to stand by their words without anonymity, and I truly hope I justified their trust in me: Chief Kenneth Adams (Upper Mattaponi), Ashley Atkins (Pamunkey), Deanna Beacham (Weapomeoc), Rhyannon Curry (Creek), Dr. Jeffrey Hantman, Samuel McGowan (Mattaponi), Arlene Milner (Upper Mattaponi), John Milner (Cherokee/Upper Mattaponi), Dr. Kent Mountford, Powhatan Red Cloud-Owen (Chickahominy/Mohawk), Dr. Helen Rountree, Dr. Gabrielle Tayac (Piscataway), Gerri Reynolds Wade (Rappahannock), and Karenne Wood (Monacan).

My husband Johannes Jacobus Heuvel, Jr. demonstrated his love and faith in every way, beyond words to describe it. This dissertation is dedicated to him. I thank my beloved relatives in the Heuvel, Liberati, Rose, and Swift families, my friends, and my pastors for being there for me during nine years of Master's and doctoral studies.

Also, I cannot imagine this path without my study group: Holly Alexander Agati, Beth Deer, Dr. Jodi Fisler, and Michael Kaplan. Their friendship helped me to meet the demands of comprehensive examinations and dissertation writing over the last four years, knowing we were there for each other.

Finally and most significantly, I honor the Virginia Indian peoples past and present for their faith, their patriotism, and the many contributions they continue to make to the Commonwealth and our nation. I honor the advocates for social justice who have stood by them.

Their collective story became my story. I hope that in some way, it will become yours.

ix



Abstract

In the 1990s, as Virginia Indians faced the 2007 quadracentennial of Jamestown's

founding, they initiated plans to publicly correct inaccuracies and omissions embedded in the

historical narrative. The Beyond Jamestown: Virginia Indians Past and Present Teachers'

Institute was one such initiative through the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities'

Virginia Indian Heritage Program. Designed for educators' professional development

regarding Virginia Indian history and cultures, the Institute's first two years (2007 and 2008)

featured a Virginia Indian-developed curriculum with both Native and non-Native presenters.

This qualitative, interpretivist study sought evidence of teaching at the interface of

cultures by these invited presenters using pedagogy and curriculum as units of analysis, and

questioned whether they shared an educational vision or paradigm despite different cultural

backgrounds. The study revealed that the Institute demonstrated effective collaboration

among presenters influenced by both Indigenous and European-American paradigms. It

exposed participating educators to a little-known period in Virginia history-the era of the

Racial Integrity Act of 1924 and segregation-through the stories of tribal experts who

experienced the attempted eradication of cultural identity. These oral histories contributed to

the distinct Virginia Indian epistemology that emerged in the program. The BJTI also

demonstrated Virginia Indians' 21 st_century agency in inviting its non-Native presenters and

participating educators to collaborate in decolonizing Virginia education.

LISA L. HEUVEL

PROGRAM IN EDUCATIONAL POLICY, PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP

THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY IN VIRGINIA

X



xi

Chapter One

The Context for this Study

The 16th and 17th -century Spanish and English explorers who arrived in modem-day

Virginia characterized its Indigenous peoples as exotic and unequal. Through the Doctrine

of Discovery established by the Roman Catholic Church, it followed that although King

James was not Catholic, he and other European monarchs also considered the lands already

inhabited in the Western Hemisphere ripe for colonization (Miller, 2008, p. 1 ). Once the

English established Jamestown in 1607 as a permanent English claim in America (British

after 1707), the Native peoples whom they encountered endured the effects of

marginalization and minority status over the next four centuries.

As Szasz (1988, p. 53) observed, "The colonists' ethnocentrism made it impossible

for them to compare their civilization to that of the Native Virginians," and the combined

forces of colonialism and segregation hindered Virginia Indians from equal participation in

the academy and popular culture. Most historians from similar cultures and worldviews

have tended to accept documents that European colonists produced as objective historical

accounts (Axtell, 1988), despite the critical silences they contained (Wood, 2009).

For generations, the colonialist perspective dominated texts portraying Virginia

Indian history, cultures, and contributions to American society, influencing educators who

learned and taught with the traditional historical narratives. The losses that Virginia's

Indigenous peoples suffered in land, languages, populations, and empowerment

compounded a public perception that their cultural identities (and thus an Indigenous

knowledge base) were gone. However, modem Virginia Indians increasingly contest this

assumption through fresh examinations of colonial records, emerging archaeological

evidence, and language reclamation (Wood, 2009). Rountree (1990, p. 277) argued that

2

surviving Virginia Indian tribes, like those in other parts of the United States, have

"collective memories of descent" supporting a distinct ethnic identity that has resisted

Anglicizing over four centuries.

For clarification, I use the terms aboriginal, American Indian, First Nations,

Indigenous, Indian, Native, and Native American as descriptors of Native peoples where

geographically or otherwise accepted. The tribes of Virginia prefer the terms Indian and

Virginia Indian. When known to me, tribal affiliations are added for individuals. When

comparing and contrasting concepts across cultures, I use the descriptors European

American, Anglo, European, non-Native, or White to identify those concepts, group, and

individuals under discussion that are non-Native in origin; Western is used in some cases by

this study's participants, in related literature, or by me when appropriate to modem usage.

For the term Indigenous, I draw on Bruyneel's 2007 definition recognizing Indigenous

people as descendants of those who experienced, or who themselves directly experienced,

colonial rule. By using comparisons such as Native and non-Native, or European-American

and Indigenous, I am not placing these constructs in opposition. Instead, they are reference

points for the discussion of commonalities as well as differences in the nature of knowledge,

and in transmitting that knowledge as a human endeavor.

In essence, I am looking for the interface of cultures through education within the

context of one Virginia Indian education initiative. As questions arise related to racial or

cultural identity, I hope to incorporate the insights study participants may provide as most

relevant to this research study.

Native Americans historically have adapted to change as a dynamic process, yet

retained their sense of identity and community (Kidwell & Velie, 2005). Today's Virginia

Indian tribes and nations demonstrate that these are complementary processes. They are

3

reclaiming their past from the majority culture while pursuing economic and educational

empowerment through the channels of media, education, and government. Their education

initiatives are integral to the focus of this study, the Beyond Jamestown: Virginia Indians

Past and Present Teachers' Institute, and to placing it within a broader cross-cultural

discussion of pedagogy and curriculum. The origins of the institute (hereafter referred to as

the BJTI) are described below.

In the 1990s, as they faced the 2007 quadracentennial of Jamestown's founding,

Virginia Indians initiated plans to publicly correct inaccuracies and omissions embedded in

the historical narrative. Educating teachers and students about Virginia Indian nations'

heritage and cultures was an intertribal goal. Six of Virginia's eight state-recognized tribes

at the time intensified their efforts to achieve Federal recognition. 1 By jointly

communicating the message "We're still here, we've always been here, and we're not going

away," Virginia Indians constructed connections across worldviews, institutions, and

knowledge systems to expand public awareness of their stories nationwide. With the

Virginia Council on Indians and other statewide organizations, individual tribes

strengthened Native and non-Native alliances across the Commonwealth and worked

actively within their own communities to promote heritage preservation.

The Virginia Indian Heritage Program has emerged as one major result of these

efforts. It was established in 2005 as a partnership between the Virginia Foundation for the

Humanities (VFH) and the eight State-recognized tribes of Virginia, working toward public

1 H. R. 1385, The Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of2009 sponsored by Rep. James Moran [D-VAS] extends Federal recognition to the Chickahominy Indian Tribe, the Chickahominy Indian Tribe-Eastern Division, the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe, the Rappahannock Tribe, Inc., the Monacan Indian Nation, and the Nansemond Indian Tribe (Retrieved from http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=hlll-1385).

4

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd7bilHhl

5

outreach and public preservation. 2 Additional developments within the last decade include

partnerships with the Virginia State Department of Education and the Virginia Indian Nations

Summit on Higher Education. 3

Important revisions in the Virginia K-12 Standards of Learning concerning American

Indians and Virginia Indians have also been made; more textbook publishers now are

consulting Virginia Indian scholars and tribal leaders. As early as 2005, the Virginia Council

on Indians (VCI) sought inclusion of Virginia Indian representatives on Standards of

Learning (SOL) review committees. The VCI proposed to the Virginia Board of Education

and the Virginia Department of Education that the General Assembly should approve a

revision ofthe SOL. The new standards would "include more extensive, accurate, and

culturally sensitive information on Virginia Indian history and cultures, stressing intellectual

honesty in presenting both positive and shameful episodes of the past" (Virginia Council on

Indians Executive Summary, 2005, para 11 ). In 2007 and 2008, a committee including

Native educators and representatives reviewed the Virginia Standards of Learning in Social

Studies in 2007. The revised standards for American Indian and Virginia Indian history and

cultures were approved in 2008. The new items were field-tested in the spring 2010 History

and Social Studies SOL, and are incorporated into the 2010-2011 SOL assessments.4

In today's learning environment, Virginia educators face increased accountability for

student performance and education for citizenship in a culturally diverse society. However,

2 In addition to those seeking Federal recognition, the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway), Mattaponi, Nottoway, Pamunkey, and Patawomeck Indian Tribes complete the list of those that are currently State-recognized. The Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribe of Southampton Country, Virginia, the Nottoway Indian Tribe of Virginia, Inc., and the Patawomeck Indians of Virginia were most recently recognized in early 2010. 3 The VINSHE members include Virginia Indian tribal representatives and currently, three State universities: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, the University of Virginia, and The College of William and Mary (in the order they became members). 4 The Virginia Department of Education Web site (http://www.doe.virginia.gov/VDOE/Instruction!History/hist ss framework.html) contains the revisions.

in the K-12 history and social studies curriculum, time constraints make it difficult for

teachers to cover topics such as Jamestown's founding or the Eastern Woodland Indians.

The Virginia Indian Heritage Program supports educators' professional development

related to Virginia Indian history and cultures through the Beyond Jamestown: Virginia

Indians Past and Present Teachers' Institute. Virginia Indian scholars lead the seminar, with

guest lectures by tribal leaders and non-Native faculty on tribal histories, ethno-history,

archaeology, and environmental science. Evolving from the Beyond Jamestown: Virginia

Indians Yesterday and Today travelling exhibition curated by Virginia Indian Heritage

Program director Karenne Wood (Monacan), the Beyond Jamestown program was designed

to address Virginia schools' curricular and knowledge shortfalls by providing Virginia

Indian perspectives on the Commonwealth's history and Native cultures.

The University of Virginia hosted the first annual Beyond Jamestown Teachers'

Institute (BJTI) in June 2007. The School of Education at The College of William and

Mary hosted the second in June 2008. This seminar produced over fifty graduates statewide

between 2007 and 2009. 5 Its curriculum has incorporated lectures by Virginia tribal

speakers, chiefs, and academic experts as well as readings, instructional materials,

discussions, and field trips. The BJTI focuses on dispelling misconceptions and historical

errors about Virginia Indians that have persisted in popular culture and classrooms. The

VFH offered thirty-two hours of curriculum development credit toward Virginia re-licensure

for 2007 and 2008 participants. The Virginia Indian Heritage Program and a We the People

grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities funded the institutes in both years.

5 Fifteen more Virginia teachers attended an abbreviated version of the BJTI at the University of Richmond in 2010 through the School of Continuing Studies. That summer session did not include the full roster of presenters from the previous sessions. It is discussed in this study's epilogue.

6

As a milestone in cross-cultural transmission, the Beyond Jamestown Teachers'

Institute offers a significant opportunity for studying the pedagogy and curriculum of its

Native and non-Native faculty members. The BJTI presenters include Virginia Indian

scholars, tribal leaders, tribal educational representatives, and non-Native scholars working

actively as collaborators and teaching across cultures. My observations during the 2007 and

2008 summer seminars suggest that these individuals balanced traditional teaching

approaches within the academy and within Virginia Indian cultures, and that Native teachers

and the non-Native teachers demonstrated some differences in their approaches that deserve

further exploration. Yet, researchers to date have not documented descriptions and analyses

of pedagogical methods and curricular content in this innovative cross-cultural program.

What sort of intentions do these teachers have for their audiences as they approach the

construction of their lessons? Why are there differences? Are these differences related to

their cultural heritage and positions, to their formal and informal education, to their values

and beliefs about passing on a divergent narrative?

The Statement of the Problem

This study's problem is to document the curriculum and pedagogical practices of the

Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute's Native and non-Native faculty members, or

presenters, in order to explore differences and similarities in the content and techniques of

these teachers. As defined by Levine ( 1981 ), curriculum is the "body of courses and

formally established learning experiences presenting the knowledge, principles, values, and

skills that are the intended consequences of the formal education offered by a college" (pp.

521-522). For this study, Levine's concept of curriculum is mainly applied to the lesson or

lessons that the individual teachers deliver, rather than encompassing a body of courses

organized within an institution of higher learning.

7

8

To use the European-American terms curriculum and pedagogy in relation to Native

teaching methodologies and content requires acknowledging some significant differences and

challenges in portraying cultural worldviews accurately. However, they are the most

appropriate operational terms for general understanding, and these differences are addressed

in separate models.

In general, pedagogy can be defined as "the activities of educating or instructing or

teaching" (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2010, n. pag.), and this definition is

incorporated into the models of pedagogy and curriculum developed in my conceptual

framework. In looking at the pedagogy ofBJTI faculty members, I also explored Giroux's

2004 construct of pedagogy as "a discourse of possibility" that leads students to understand

and challenge ideological systems in relation to social transformation and justice (p. 73) and

Bank's concept of pedagogy as a pathway to transformative and global citizenship education

(Banks, 2001, pp. 5-16).

In this study, the term "presenter" defines individuals who are recognized within and

without Virginia Indian communities, are designated by the BJTI program director as experts

in related fields and as such, were invited to teach in one or both of the Beyond Jamestown

program's first two years (2007 and 2008). Further, the educators identified as potential

participants in this study actively support the Virginia Indians' statewide education initiative

to tell their own story.

The BJTI presenters possess varied academic and cultural backgrounds spanning

tribal affiliations, academic disciplines, and professions. They share a demonstrated

commitment to education related to Virginia Indian history and cultures. Moreover, these

exemplars walk in two worlds through their advocacy of Virginia Indian agency, in that they

consistently maintain awareness of a culture other than their own in their words and actions.

These individuals have spent years building relationships that enable them to function as

cultural mediators in the service of education for and about Virginia Indian peoples, and

potentially operate as agents of change. Specifically, this study explored the pedagogy and

curricula of these knowledge workers as the basic units of analysis.

9

Interwoven throughout is one central inquiry: Who defines knowledge, particularly in

light of the dominant historical narrative? In using the term knowledge, I define it as "what

can be known by an individual or mankind [sic]" (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary,

2010, n.pag.), with the understanding that many cultural contexts apply.

Research Questions

Mason Durie's concept of modem researchers operating at the interface of the Maori

and Pakeha (non-Maori) cultures in New Zealand (Durie, 2000) focused on the synergy

created by intellectual collaboration. Although Durie incorporates both worldviews within

the context of scientific research, his principles for moving between the mores of the Maori

community and expectations of the scientific community suggest a path for bicultural

education that is culturally sensitive to both cultures. It was a starting point for this study of

curriculum and pedagogy. Expanding on Durie's construct, this study explores teaching at

the interface of cultures, focusing on the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute faculty. By

using guidelines similar to Durie's, educators from two cultures may produce a learning

environment that demonstrates awareness of cultural dominance as an invasive and historic

issue and present counter-narratives as a teaching strategy. Such presentations are open to

cross-cultural perceptions and seek to avoid extensive cultural bias or appropriation. By

using a multi-layered approach, such educators expose their students to global perspectives

in historical analysis, empowering them to be critical observers of cultural assumptions. In

the case of the Beyond Jamestown program, lecturers may have a continuing and significant

influence on K-12 students statewide through the 2007 and 2008 BJTI graduates at a

foundational level.

Exploring the nature of teaching at the interface became an integral part of this

study. In order to do so, the research questions I addressed included:

1. What are the curricula and pedagogies employed by the Native faculty members

within BJTI?

A. Are there commonalities within the content and techniques?

10

B. How deliberate is the content and techniques? If deliberate, what are the

values, attitudes, and beliefs that are reflected in the messages that the faculty

want to promote or communicate?

2. What are the curricula and pedagogies employed by the non-Native faculty

members?

A. Are there commonalities within the content and techniques?

B. With regard to motivations, how deliberate are the content and techniques?

If deliberate, what are the values, attitudes, and beliefs manifested in the

messages that the faculty consciously want to promote or communicate?

3. Do the curricula and pedagogies differ between the Native and non-Native

faculty? If so, how?

4. To what do the faculty members attribute any differences in their approaches to

their curricula and pedagogies? Cultural differences? Educational

differences? Other reasons? Do they recognize specific strengths and

weaknesses in each?

5. Do the curricula and pedagogies of the two groups of faculty have any attributes

in common? If so, what accounts for the similarities?

11

The Significance of the Study

As the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute continues to grow as an educational

program, new assessment mechanisms and protocols may result from participant feedback,

recommendations from research and prior survey data while retaining its unique cultural

identity and mission. Because modifications may be made within the program in the future,

the opportunity to study the faculty from its first two years of operation without any

contaminants may not be possible again. In the future, the program may be adjusted in

length or content to accommodate factors such as teachers' scheduling preferences and

emphasis on the Virginia Standards of Learning, particularly the revisions previously

described and changes yet to come.

To date, both Native and non-Native researchers have written accounts of education

as a force of cross-cultural contact and collision, but have not examined the pedagogical

dynamics in 21 81-century Virginia. The BJTI is a unique portal through which we can learn

about historical narratives as well as paradigms, exploring storytelling as a dynamic tool of

educational transmission and validation across cultures. Another possible outcome of this

study is that constructs may be transferable to other educational settings where pedagogy

and curriculum have implications for cross-cultural collaboration.

Through their interviews, study participants articulated some of their core beliefs and

values in relation to the BJTI. This guided reflection represented a first for the BJTI faculty

in several respects. To date, their individual presentations have not been the subject of

formal debriefing or post-program evaluation processes; nor have their pedagogy and

curricula been tied to specific teaching goals. Each of these individuals participated in one

or both of the first two years of the BJTI program, its earliest stages; therefore, the lack of

direct feedback (for example, through evaluations that presenters see afterwards) may be

characteristic of the overall program design, or it may reflect an as-yet unrealized program

goal. Because most are experienced public speakers and educators, these had personal

insights into their performances and the receptivity of their audiences, as well as the

motivations for participating and the methods they employ.

Framing this qualitative research study within the Virginia Indian-designed Beyond

Jamestown program linked it effectively to more global cross-cultural exchanges and

collaborations at the K -16 level, including Indigenous or Aboriginal education located in

North America, Australia, and New Zealand. Such research can be particularly useful in

documenting perceptions and experiences of key actors (and observers) of a pedagogical

revolution. As previously noted, social and political forces surrounding the 2007

commemoration and the federal recognition movement galvanized the creation of the

Beyond Jamestown program. It is simultaneously an educational framework, a mechanism

of change, and a form of educational advocacy developed by Virginia Indians with support

from tribal communities, state organizations, and other allies.

The intended audience for this study includes BJTI stakeholders in Virginia Indian

communities and statewide education, and it pertains to broader discussions of history

education, indigenous education, colonialism, multiculturalism, and social justice. Readers

may possess an individual interest in bridging cultures as mediators and advocates, or a

collective interest in policy and communities of practice. In the case of individuals seeking

12

a better understanding of cross-cultural collaboration, reflections ofBJTI faculty members

may suggest ways through which that is accomplished in individual and collective action.

The professional activities, educational backgrounds, and life experiences of BJTI faculty are

diverse. Yet, these individuals share a unique forum in which to confront persistent

stereotypes and misconceptions about Virginia Indians and potentially influence the way

BJTI participants teach history and social studies. Therefore, some of the educational

philosophies and praxis of BJTI faculty may be useful in developing other types of cross

cultural programs.

For communities specifically interested in evaluating and improving the Beyond

Jamestown Teacher Institute, understanding its pedagogical dimensions may support these

processes further by documenting how these Native and non-Native lecturers view their

teaching methodologies. Bogdan and Biklan ( 1992), emphasize the importance of such

study:

13

People who try to change education, be it in a particular classroom or for the whole

system, seldom understand how people involved in the changes think. Consequently,

they are unable to anticipate accurately how the participants will react. Since it is the

people in the setting who must live with the change, their definitions of the situation

are critical if change is going to work (p. 200).

Ultimately, the focus of the Beyond Jamestown faculty is on educators attending the

program and through them, generations of students across Virginia. Through faculty

members' reflections upon their practice over the last two years, there may be a ripple effect

on future iterations of the Beyond Jamestown program.

Limitations and Delimitations

The research study under consideration was delimited to the curriculum and

pedagogy of the BJTI faculty and included the preparations, content, structure, elements, and

relationships inherent in their presentations and the processes through which they teach. This

study focused specifically on the BJTI program rather than other teaching of Indigenous

educational content or methods. The BJTI faculty included a smaller number of non-Native

faculty members from whom to draw in designing and implementing a purposeful sampling

strategy. I made every effort to create a balanced mix of participants and to interview as

many as possible. The total number of faculty participating in the first two years ofthe

program was small, numbering sixteen possible participants. Of these, fourteen presenters

agreed to share their perceptions and experiences in interviews, and to follow up with

individual and grand member checks, and to be identified in the study rather than to remain

anonymous. Two presenters, one from each year of the program, were unavailable.

14

Although their experiences are certainly valuable and their contributions to the

program significant, several participants provided related insights based on similar

backgrounds. Although a small group may allow fewer possibilities to compare a range of

individual viewpoints, in this case it opened the study to in-depth discussions with most of

the BJTI presenters. For them and for me, it led to insights from multiple perspectives on the

power of education to transform a dominant educational system, and allowed me to explore

theoretical triangulation (Glesne, 2006) from participants' related perspectives as well as my

conceptual framework.

The program's interruption in summer 2009 due to budget restrictions presented a

major limitation in terms of potential fieldwork and also participants' detailed memories of

the 2007 and 2008 programs. No timely possibilities existed for equivalent classroom

observation of the BJTI faculty as part of my field research. Thus, the study relied on

participants' reflections on their prior experiences during the data collection. For the most

part, presenters did not recall their complete content, but remembered the situational context

and their pedagogical/curricular decision-making processes). My familiarity with both

programs encouraged richer and thicker descriptions from participants, as I was present

during both programs. I was involved with the BJTI as a 2007 participant and 2008 associate

scholar. From January 2008 to June 2009, I conducted a pilot study through the College of

William and Mary to measure teacher gains in the 2008 program and to make

recommendations for improving evaluation methods in a related unpublished longitudinal

study.

15

This research is the continuation of 13 years of increasing study of Virginia Indian

history and cultures as expressed in American culture and in comparison to the experiences

of other Indigenous peoples. I started from a limited knowledge base as a museum educator,

and can appreciate the challenges teachers have faced in gaining accurate information on

these topics for themselves and their students. Through discourse with members of the

Virginia Indian nations as well as their Native and non-Native colleagues, I continue to

expand my perspective on the complexities of this contested historical narrative, the political

landscape, and the Virginia Indians' cultural survival through specific strategies, including

education. That area is my primary focus.

Since 2006, I have worked in collaboration with a number of Virginia Indian tribal

leaders and educational representatives, teaching about their people's history and culture in

museum settings and in teacher development programs. I participate in higher education

initiatives that encourage Native student recruitment across the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Such activities have enriched my views on major differences existing between Native and

non-Native worldviews and ways in which these differences may be bridged. Because of

these insights, I view this dissertation as a work in progress. It expresses a moment in time

regarding my research on the interface of cultures, and on the power of shared experiences

and relationships as a decolonizing force in education and in society.

Chapter Two

Review of Literature

Native individuals and groups increasingly are developing networks and

relationships with scholars and interested groups within the dominant cultures worldwide.

As bridges of knowledge are constructed between cultures, such partnerships potentially may

mediate cultural differences and expand educational horizons multi-culturally. In Custer

Died For Your Sins (1972), the late Sioux activist Vine Deloria, Jr. wrote, "Unless there is a

frank understanding between the two people, red and white, so that the relationship between

them is honest, sincere, and equal, talk about culture will not really matter" (p. I 03). Four

decades later, this statement resides at the heart of collaborative teaching and learning.

Teachers and students may partner in revising centuries of misunderstanding,

dishonesty, and coercive policies and practices by exploring both Native and non-Native

worldviews. Rather than maintaining what has been the normative perspective, the infusion

of Indigenous knowledge presents educators in K-16 settings with resources for discussing

ways of knowing outside the dominant epistemologies of European-American knowledge

production (Kincheloe & Steinberg, 2008, pp. 138-140). Through the Beyond Jamestown

teacher development program, incorporating Indigenous knowledge and scholarship into the

curriculum has created the opportunity to expand teachers' educational ideologies.

To provide a context for the study, this review ofliterature identifies prevailing educational

ideologies within a sociocultural framework of historical relationships of resistance and

support in education, noting how education has influenced the development of Indigenous

agency in the 21st century in complex ways. Although no single theoretical tradition

provides a complete framework for the discussion of relevant research, pedagogy (both

16

17

European-American and Indigenous) informs it through multiple scholarly perspectives. The

literature review serves as an interface between Indigenous ways ofknowing and traditional

European-American pedagogy. It includes major European-American authors in the

sociology ofknowledge, subaltemity, critical pedagogy, and social justice as well as leaders

in Indigenous intellectual thought. It acknowledges the earliest European and Native voices

to describe Virginia's Indigenous peoples through pedagogy, and considers major eras of

educational and social conflict up to the present day.

There is a dearth of information for the 18th and 19th centuries in Virginia due to

document destruction during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars; therefore, most of the

historical literature centers on the 17th, 20th, and 21st centuries. The review includes

modem Native and non-Native authors with significant perspectives on Virginia Indian

cultures, pedagogy, and Indigenous education. Two authors participated as members of the

BJTI faculty, which may make their work of special interest to this study.

No single theoretical tradition encompasses formal European-American pedagogies

and Indigenous pedagogies. The multiple lenses in this review of literature offer insights into

Indigenous ways of knowing and dominant epistemologies in European-American

knowledge production. They do not address as extensively how practitioners of these

worldviews operate across cultures as facilitators in educational settings, which this study

proposes as a significant pedagogical question.

The Relationship of Education and Colonialism

For four centuries, eyewitness accounts written by European explorers and colonizers

have remained relatively unchallenged as the primary source interpretations of cultural

interaction with Virginia's Indian tribes. Embedded in historical accounts and education

18

from the 18th through the mid-20th centuries, colonialism privileged White epistemologies in

Virginia's historical narrative, exerting continual pressure to Anglicize Virginia Indian

culture and subjugate Indigenous knowledge (Rountree, 1990; Tarter, 2007; Wood, 2009).

Historically, education has enforced societal control and cultural assimilation; a

growing body of 21st-century literature documents the persistent effects of colonialism and

related classroom responses. Some European-American researchers have defined education

as a changing cultural product, but do so within the framework ofEuro-American teaching

methodologies. Education research described in this section does not address Indigenous

epistemologies as extensively. The resulting pedagogical analysis thus is more dependent

upon other contextual frameworks, such as critical pedagogy and social justice. The studies

of formal European-American pedagogy below are informative, but do not bridge Native and

non-Native teaching methodologies successfully.

Despite the lack of direct reference to Indigenous pedagogy or cross-cultural research,

various studies indicate that colonialism persists through the privileging of White cultural

norms in American pedagogy and practice (Bell, 2007; Carter, 2000; Chubbuck, 2004;

Miller, 1995). The effects of institutionalized cultural norms extend to preservice as well as

inservice teacher education, through students' personal schemas as well as the content and

methods they are learning in coursework.

In their 2008 meta-analysis of 46 qualitative and quantitative studies published

between 1997 and 2006, Trent, Kea, and Oh describe professional development as a

promising but unlikely catalyst for "powerful pedagogical practices and learning outcomes,"

given current cost and efficiency criteria (pp. 13 7-13 8). Preservice teachers experiencing

discomfort from encountering and acknowledging racism may use specific distancing

19

strategies to avoid it, such as silence, social disassociation, and separation from responsibility

(Case & Hemmings, 2005, pp. 606-626). Thus, preservice teachers may demonstrate

minimal skills in incorporating cultural diversity into their lesson plans, to the point of doing

so only as an afterthought (Ambrosio, Sequin & Hogan, 2001). In addition, some faculty

members' inexperience and apprehensions preclude them from teaching about multicultural

issues beyond a superficial level. These traits may instead perpetuate racial stereotypes in

the classroom (Asher, 2007; Case & Hemmings, 2005; Phuong, 2000; Sheers, 2003).

Loewen (2007) emphasizes the resiliency of American exceptionalism in curricula

materials as well as the invisibility of racism and anti-racism in American history textbooks,

and the correlation of textbook acceptance to most teachers' limited history knowledge. Van

Hover, Hicks, and Irwin (2007) found that beginning Virginia teachers coped with the

pressure of high-stakes testing by using classroom control and broad curriculum coverage as

survival strategies. Further, Virginia's testing system emphasizes recall ofhistorical facts

over skills that foster historical inquiry, such as multiple perspectives and primary source

analysis (Van Hover et al., 2007).

Accordingly, a lack of consensus on effective teaching and learning methodologies

prevails in the teaching of history at the K-12 level. In seeking to align content standards and

assessment procedures for social studies and history education, policy makers have left

teachers and students behind (Bolinger & Warren, 2007; Kelly, Meuwissen & Vansledright,

2007; Van Hover et al., 2007). These authors suggest that policy makers in Virginia and

other states have grappled unsuccessfully with the relationship of higher cost to higher

quality programs in history and social studies education, as well as the diminished focus on

those subjects in recent years. The resilience of traditional state and local standards in

20

Virginia history education programs creates an "institutional inertia" that seemingly supports

dominant narratives of the past, encouraging a focus on immediate short-term gains over

complex teaching and cognitive thinking (Kelly et al., p.135).

Specific factors may influence to what extent teachers model historical thinking and

teach students to develop critical reasoning skills in understanding history from different

cultural starting points. Personal and professional schema, concepts of history, and

perceptions of curriculum, students, and pedagogy shape how teachers interpret and

implement instruction. High stakes testing heightens these complexities, as do standards that

do not encourage historical inquiry in Virginia and other states (Kelly et al., 2007; Van

Hover et al., 2007).

In their survey of 102 elementary and 38 secondary teachers in an Indiana school

district, Bolinger and Warren (2007) discovered that teachers preferred passive methods such

as lectures to interactive methods such as debate and role-play. Further, elementary school

teachers understand best practices, but do not necessarily employ them in the classroom.

Among the variables Bolinger and Warren (2007) listed as potential factors in teacher

use are preservice preparation in history, social studies, and instructional methodologies,

prioritization of math and language arts in assessments, and time constraints in the

classroom. These authors concluded that teachers might need training to employ active

instructional methods for social studies that encourage critical thinking, in the face of current

state requirements. All these elements are important to consider in the implementation and

assessment of teacher development programs in different educational settings.

Researchers have presented strategic improvements to address the complexities of

assessment and accountability, ranging from aligning assessment measures with best

21

practices in history and social studies education in Indiana (Bolinger & Warren, 2007) to

developing strategies to help beginning teachers cope with the cognitive dissonances they

face in teaching history in Virginia (Van Hover et al., 2007). Through such strategies,

educators and policy makers guide history education away from a factual to a conceptual

emphasis, one that encourages multiple historical perspectives rather than merely the

dominant narrative.

Cumulatively, such findings and the lack of Indigenous references within them

present the challenge to 1) increase Indigenous resources available to educators; 2) include

more comprehensive perspectives in teacher development on the enduring nature of

colonialism and its relationship to education, and 3) support preservice and inservice teachers

in dealing with the cognitive dissonances that may result episodically or throughout their

professional lifetimes.

The Sociology of Knowledge

In Postethnic America (1995), Hollinger observed that the Enlightenment gave rise to

a celebration ofknowledge as authority. In the post-1945 era, the publication of Kuhn's

1962 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions heralded a new paradigm questioning the

acceptance of science as absolute truth. Within a conceptual framework of historicity

knowledge transmission and scholarship are marked as cultural products that represent an era

and convey its opinions and prejudices (Hollinger, 1995).6 Scholarship in the sociology of

knowledge supports the transformative nature ofhistory education. Mannheim's early 20th_

century conceptual framework on the sociology of political education and Foucault's

published lectures on the nature of power in society provide complementary perspectives on

6 Hollinger defines "historicity" as "the contingent, temporally, and socially situated character of our beliefs and values, of our institutions and practices" (Postethnic America (1995), p. 60).

22

the dynamics of knowledge transmission. Their work indicates ways in which new frames of

reference, new social realities, and new global worldviews can change history and the

reigning dominant ideology (Foucault & Gordon, 1977; Mannheim, Kettler, & Loader,

2001). As systems ebb and flow generationally, value conflicts always become embedded in

the process (Mannheim & Kecskemeti, 1952, p. 185).

Mannheim's schema suggests that all past and present historical eras may have

multiple perspectives, despite the silencing and suppression of some voices. The historian's

position is or should be a non-positivist stance during a systemic and in-depth analysis of

each era's multiple perspectives and standards. Using those constructs, Native and non

Native worldviews in Virginia are different sides of the same history, should be

contextualized accordingly, and may be translated to worldwide applications. In tum, we see

that the transmission of knowledge between English and Indigenous peoples reflected the

relativization of ideas between them, as the cultures accepted or rejected ideas from each

other in interactions. This concept suggests how Virginia Indians and members of the

dominant culture maintained most of their own social realities as a form of cultural

resistance, but practiced cultural adaptation when necessary or beneficial.

In considering why cultural resistance occurred, Mannheim's construct of the

dynamic of orthodox thinking is apposite: "Every act of thought" operates as a defense

against open thinking in an otherwise closed system that rejects anything new coming into it

and relies upon orthodox patterns of thought (Mannheim et al., 2001, p. 54). In closed

educational systems, academics may attempt to reduce a new thought or emerging

construct's significance by de-valuing or over-simplifying it (Mannheim et al., p. 54), thus

resisting critical thinking or discourse as alternatives. This concept of closed educational

23

systems grouped Virginia Indians with the Irish in the early colonial era: Elizabethans

stereotyped both as primitive uncivilized cultures, because neither accepted Anglicanism in

England's first wave of colonial expansion (Gibbons, 2000). That English colonizers and

philanthropists continually emphasized the need for Indian schools in America underscores

historical outcomes for its Indigenous peoples. Although Virginia Indians were willing after

first contact to accept the English God into their pantheon of deities, they would not renounce

the others (Rountree, 1989). The Indians' polytheism was an unacceptable compromise to

the English, fueling British philanthropic funding and efforts to convert Indians to

Anglicanism through education. What began as a seemingly benevolent desire to bring the

word of God to New World inhabitants evolved over time into a formidable rationale for

cultural domination.

In Power/Knowledge (1977), Foucault outlined the implications of education as a

societal tool. Foucault critically analyzed mechanisms by which power works in organized

forms of Western social life, particularly the power of knowledge and truth. Education

(incorporating knowledge and its transmission) thus functions as a tool of domination or

emancipation. Therefore, the surfacing of subaltern studies, critical pedagogy, teaching for

social justice, and Indigenous studies can be defined as emancipatory responses within

European-American society. Stringer (2007, p. 197) uses the Foucauldian postmodern

perspective on power to discuss how teachers, researchers as members of the "power elite,"

build an organizational framework defining language and meaning. In America's European

American-based educational systems, the production of meanings encompasses textbooks,

curricula, and both the formal and informal communications that take place in school

settings.

24

This understanding of education as an ideological product enhances the convergent

discussions of history education, teacher development, and Indigenous advocacy. From that

perspective, the historical narrative of education for and about Virginia Indians during the

last four centuries illustrates how domination operates; actors in that narrative simultaneously

represent "the vehicles and the articulated effect ofpower" (Foucault & Gordon, 1977, p.

98). Foucault's constructs provide insights into the deconstruction of education as a key tool

of the domination/emancipation of the Virginia Indian narrative. Accordingly, asking where

power is applied and where it has produced results are important to discovering how

subjugation works. For example, Rennard Strickland ( 1997), a legal historian of Osage and

Cherokee heritage, points out that as Indian policy developed in America, it followed shifts

in public perception of the so-called Indian problem over four centuries. Christianity,

military power, resettlement, and training and education were control mechanisms attempted

as social solutions at various times, modified by each era's prevailing attitude toward

Indigenous peoples (Strickland, 1997, p. 110).

Perpetuating dominant majority epistemologies in the classroom and popular culture

ameliorates the ambiguity of America's origin and silences disturbing questions of rights and

accountability as well as the intellectual and ideological devaluation ofNative cultural

constructs. To acknowledge the "terrible past" contests idealized historical accounts of

American freedom and democracy (Huhndorf, 2001). However, the development of

subaltemity as a major area of study provides evidence of the transformative potential of

education.

25

The Influence of Critical Pedagogy, Social Justice, and Subalternity

Ghosh (2008) posited that the collective body of work representing the sociology of

knowledge, which evolved from the early 19th to the mid-201h- century, explains changes in

knowledge production as cognitive shifts creating cultural, social, and ultimately institutional

innovation. Examples are subaltern studies and other conceptual models related to

postmodernist and postcolonial scholarship.

In his conceptualization of critical pedagogy, Paulo Freire (1994) envisioned

education as emancipatory. He emphasized that education is not only a cognitive act but also

an inquiry into the societal forces surrounding it. Freire clarified education's potential

transformative role for oppressed peoples, but warned that merely understanding social

reality does not in itself constitute a change in reality. Nonetheless, awareness can energize

educators to join a global political struggle against oppression. Teaching students to engage

as "agents of their own history" with an awareness of social, political, and economic

conditions, prepares them for active and potentially transformative roles in society rather

than passive participation (Rossato, 2005, p. 134).

Freire's ongoing work inspired American educators to examine pedagogy as social

activism, which has generated education reform in areas such as teacher development. By

envisioning teachers as cultural workers and social agents, Freire, Shor, and Pari (1999) and

other scholars offered new means to empower them. To Cajete (2004), Freire's 1970 concept

of education as social consciousness closely parallels what Cajete saw as the "natural

democracy" of Indigenous education, a process that encourages authentic dialogue between

all participants.

26

Shor (1992) noted that a "critical paradigm of empowering education" is one in which

teachers and students reach a middle ground between cultures, one which disallows any one

culture (including academic) to predominate (p. 204). Tejeda (2008) described a

decolonizing pedagogy as one that enables students to understand the present as a product of

the past and to develop a critical approach to the understandings and interpretations of history

(p. 27). When a critical pedagogy empowers students, the resulting philosophy of education

is transformational rather than simply a transmission of knowledge (Klug & Whitfield,

2003).

In related research, subaltern scholars have examined Indigenous perspectives from

the view of cultures and populations experiencing inequality under colonialism, particularly

in Southeast Asia and Latin America. Beverly (1999) discussed the academy as a tool in

relationships of power and privilege, aligned with academic resistance to legitimizing

subaltern texts in classrooms. Investigating such power relationships challenges one of

education's traditional missions, which is to educate citizens to maintain their position in

society-some for the dominant group and others for the subordinate. Subaltern voices

interfere with this normative process by contesting the inevitability of the dominant narrative.

Beverly (1999) also makes the case that the academy did not represent oppressed peoples

accurately as subalterns in Latin America in the 1960s-1970s.

The challenge he posed to academics seeking to advocate for oppressed or

marginalized peoples is significant to this study: How can academic knowledge represent

subalterns when it has been used to subjugate them? That inquiry points to the significance

of continuing reflection in education, through which beliefs, fallacies, and biases may be

revealed and critically examined. While the previous discussions of historical context,

27

power, critical pedagogy, and subaltemity contribute to understanding aspects of the Beyond

Jamestown program as a mechanism of change, they are not the sole factors. To appreciate

the scope of this phenomenon, we must recognize the increasing body of Native scholarship

nationwide that encompasses education, critical theory, and intellectual thought, and

juxtaposes them with European-American constructs as an expanded discourse.

The Emergence of Indigenous Agency in Education

Modem Indigenous advocacy contributes an essential understanding in comparing

formal European-American and Indigenous pedagogies. Post-modernist and post-colonialist

theories have influenced worldwide Indigenous educational movements. Centering on North

America, cultural struggles between Native and non-Native peoples have focused on a

complex interplay of historical and current power relationships, competing value systems,

and contested definitions of land ownership arising from economic and political forces.

Recent interdisciplinary scholarship in and about Virginia has expanded the range of

topics beyond politics to social, economic, and cultural issues. Within the last 40 years, new

scholarship has transformed the old master narrative of the Commonwealth into a complex

and empowered blend of races, genders, and social classes, all with stories to tell (Tarter,

2007, p. 44). In the 21 81 century, Virginia Indian peoples are actively advising educational

institutions and textbook publishers on how to revise K-16 curricula and content to make it

more historically accurate and representative of their cultures.

The development of the Virginia Indian Heritage Program of the Virginia Foundation

for the Humanities (2005), the publication of the first, second, and third editions of the

Virginia Indian Heritage Trail Guide (2007, 2008, 2009), and direction of the Beyond

Jamestown teacher development program have all increased the visibility of Virginia's

modem Indigenous peoples. Virginia Indian tribal leaders and educators travelled

nationwide during 2007 and since then have continued to build relationships with other

American Indian tribes and nations. For example, Chief Stephen Adkins (Chickahominy)

and Chief Kenneth Adams (Upper Mattaponi) were invited to become trustees of their alma

mater, Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Along with other tribal leaders, they are

active in higher education initiatives for Indian students to develop a rising generation of

leaders. In addition to national academic conferences and cultural events, Virginia Indian

educators' statewide presentations include the Virginia Forum, the Virginia Council for the

Social Studies, and the Virginia Association of Museums. They work with the Virginia

Department of Education and Virginia universities on online college courses, American

Indian Studies programs, and programs for K-12 educators.

28

The growing empowerment and visibility of Virginia Indians in education for their

own communities and others echoes similar advances in other parts of the world. In his

description ofNative experiences in Canada and the United States, Valaskakis (2005) has

pointed to current Aboriginal studies as part of a cultural renaissance. Canadian research and

development related to cultural diversity education compares to similar collaborations with

the Maori in New Zealand (Consedine & Consedine, 2001; Durie, 2000; Ritchie, 1995).

Working with the University of Alaska, Native Alaskan educators have contributed to the

Guidelines for Cross-Cultural Orientation Programs (2003) as part ofthe Alaska Knowledge

Network. This body of theoretical and applied research readily applies to teacher

development applications. Cardinal (1999) suggests a new perspective on aboriginal

education and curriculum integration within the framework of the Western Canadian

Protocol Social Studies K-12 Project. Using Banks and Banks' Multicultural Education:

29

Issues and Perspectives (1997) and Manitoba Aboriginal Perspectives for the Social Studies

(1998), Cardinal outlined several strategies for curriculum reform.

These action steps build upon each other in successive degrees of knowledge building

and social activism, and may provide a model for multicultural education strategies in the

United States. From an initial and superficial focus on Aboriginal contributions to culture,

the next step is adding some historical Indigenous content to an existing curriculum. After

presenting Aboriginal cultures and history from Aboriginal perspectives, the fourth

curriculum development step is formally empowering students and teachers as social activists

for Aboriginal issues.

In New Zealand, the debate about Maori sovereignty has involved both Maori and

Pakeha (non-Maori) residents of New Zealand in conflicts over rights for two centuries. Yet

education advocates in both cultures have written extensively about bridging New Zealand's

colonial history and multiple identities to build a strong multicultural relationship (Consedine

& Consedine, 2001; Durie, 2000; Ritchie, 1995). Their recommendations resonate with

American Indian educational advocacy. Consedine and Consedine (200 1) recommended

valuing individual cultural identity, understanding the nation's colonial history, raising

awareness through education workshops, and supporting the Maori in their quest for social

justice.

The Maori people's demonstrated progress in attaining self-determination and in

moving beyond colonial relationships as the accepted epistemology suggests the importance

ofbicultural facilitators. Experience in contesting hegemony inherent in State policy,

institutionalized bureaucracy, and schooling in New Zealand has supported the Maori in

addressing issues from intellectual property rights to the cultural competency of pre-service

and in-service teachers with policy makers (Tomlins-Jahnke, 2006).

30

In comparison to these international efforts however, cross-national comparative

studies of the U. S. education system suggest "educational rhetoric in the United States

remains essentially one-dimensional" (Chabbott & Emerson, 2003, p. 5). Possible factors are

the imperviousness ofU. S. education policy to domestic and international education

research, the embedded nature of the dominant majority view, and a pervasive belief that

international perspectives are irrelevant (Chabbott & Emerson, 2003).

Shklar ( 1991) noted that throughout American history, tensions have persisted

between a national ideology of equality and the exclusion of American Indians and other

minorities from full rights as citizens. American Indian intellectuals and other

representatives today call for authentic representation of their peoples through intellectual

sovereignty and cultural preservation. This movement represents Native peoples' collective

demand to own their pasts. With the support of popular and scholarly movements like those

cited previously, these persistent efforts are changing the "dualistic paradigms" of Bum

American thought (Shanley, 2001). Deconstructing the hegemony surrounding Indigenous

peoples is part of changing that paradigm, and decolonization represents reparation for the

cultural genocide of the past (Gabbard, 2006). Research by scholars across cultures indicates

that Indigenous education still suffers from a persistent dualism, with Indigenous peoples

viewed as commodities or threats to Euro-Americentrism (Kincheloe & Steinberg, 2008).

As discussed earlier in the review of literature, Foucault (1977) deconstructed

education as a key tool of domination and emancipation. By asking where power is applied

and how it produces outcomes, we can identify intersections of power that have historically

hindered American Indian empowerment or more recently, have supported it in significant

ways.

31

Stringer (2007) discusses power and control extensively in his outline of postmodem

European-American philosophical foundations. To Stringer, the mechanisms of knowledge

production in human organizational and social life outlined by Foucault (1972), Derrida

(1976), and more postmodem theorists represented significant perspectives in social research.

Stringer (2007) connected the need for more participatory discourse (Derrida, 1976) and

other voices (Huyssens, 1986) with an understanding of the relevance of social texts (Fish,

1980; Lyotard, 1984).

Holistically, these constructs intersect with Warrior's 1995 discussion of eras in

American Indian intellectual tradition in comparing the prominent 201h -century Native

writers Vine Deloria Jr. (Standing Rock Sioux) and John Joseph Mathews (Osage). Deloria's

critical analyses of the United States and Indian America evoke cross-cultural comparisons

which, combined with work of other Native theorists, creates a substantial framework for

studying Native curriculum and pedagogy. His commentaries acknowledged the competing

dynamics of oppression and endurance, yet continually advocated American Indian

intellectual sovereignty and self-determination.

Deloria and Lytle (1983) concluded that it is impossible to understand American

Indians in their contemporary setting without first gaining some knowledge of their history.

Deloria ( 1995) explored the issue of intellectual sovereignty in Red Earth, White Lies, noting

an inherent racism in academic communities: "The bottom line about the information

possessed by non-Western peoples is that the information becomes valid when offered by a

white [sic] scholar recognized by the academic establishment; in effect, the color of the skin

32

guarantees scientific objectivity" (p. 50). Shanley (200 1) also noted that perspectives derived

from Indigenous peoples were mostly "absent, marginalized, or mediated" until Native

Americans wrote or taught in significant numbers within related fields of study. Shanley

further observed that Native academic influence could filter downward as far as kindergarten,

which underscores the importance of studying Virginia Indian academics' roles in the

Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute.

In a 1995 National Council for the Social Studies publication for library media

specialists, Harvey, Harjo, and Welborn proposed using specific organizing concepts and

generalizations to build a K-12 curriculum in social studies. The general principles they

recommended also relate to pedagogy and curriculum: 1), Use the date when the material

was first written or produced as a guideline, 2) whenever possible, seek Indian authors, artists

and community resources, 3) seek diversity of thought and perspective, and 4) continue to

question, to learn, and most important, to experience (Harvey, Harjo, & Welborn, 1995, p.

19).

The 21st century development of educational resources about American Indians by

American Indians compares to the expansion of Indigenous-based teaching materials in other

parts of the world. In North America, Aboriginal peoples in Alaska and Canada are among

those linking to major educational systems and instructional media, preserving Native

heritage and tradition for their own communities as well as non-Native students and teachers.

These initiatives may predict a growing acceptance and institutionalization of Indigenous

worldviews with an accompanying de-emphasis on dominant cultures' precepts in modem

educational systems.

33

Interdisciplinary scholars working across cultures posit other ways such research is

advancing along new frontiers of discourse. Linguistics may transform North American

Indian studies as researchers delve into Native language materials; further, as theorists extend

the boundaries of current cultural definitions, new concepts of "Indianness" may emerge

which expand meaning and knowledge communication through more balanced perspectives

(Shoemaker, 2002). Morrison (1997) also seeks balance from a historian's viewpoint, but

advocates a "true emic-etic perspective" that synthesizes multiple voices for a more balanced

American narrative.

Researchers offer differing strategies for decolonizing education, including 1)

exploring historical and political gaps in knowledge rather than ignoring them (Epstein,

2001); 2) including Indigenous knowledges and developing and evaluating Indigenous

methodologies from a non-European-American perspective (Morgan, 2003); and 3)

recognizing that standardized forms of measurement cannot function effectively across

cultures in comparing systems ofknowledge (McGovern, 1999). Non-Natives should also

consider the validity of other schemas of time, history, and values through cultural

comparisons from ethno-history, Indian studies, anthropology, and folklore (Nabokov, 2002)

and respect the centrality of historical grief and trauma to any discussion of culture and

knowledge (Duran & Duran, 1995). Shoemaker (2002) also contends that all theories by

definition imply "a universalism that is at odds with the cultural relativism that serves as the

basic premise underlying Indian cultural and historical studies" (p. 68).

Related Indigenous Research Methodologies

Kincheloe and Steinberg (2008) noted that Indigenous knowledge represents ways of

knowing that fall outside of the dominant European-American epistemologies. However, the

public emergence of Indigenous knowledge reveals dominant culture ideologies to be

exclusive rather than inclusive (Epstein, 2001; Huhndorf, 2001; Shanley, 2001; Shklar,

34

1991 ). Therefore, the recognition and acceptance of Indigenous research constructs calls for

awareness of foundational beliefs outside the perimeters of European-American

methodologies (Nee Benham & Cooper, 2000; Martin, 2008; McGovern, 1999; Morgan,

2003; Reagan, 2005; Smith, 2008; Wilson, 2008).

Speaking as a Maori researcher, Linda Tuhi Smith observed, "From the vantage point

of the colonized, a position from which I write, and choose to privilege, the term 'research' is

inextricably linked to European imperialism and colonialism" (2008, p. 1 ). What Smith

referred to as the "counter-stories" to the history of European-American research is directly

related to the widespread taking and commodification of Indigenous knowledge that has been

resisted through those stories.

From an Indigenous perspective, what European-American cultures have

institutionalized as scientific or academic research is an articulation of imperialism (Deloria,

1995; Smith, 2008; Wilson, 2008). Further, as Christensen (2008, p. 37) has pointed out in

his discussion of standardized versus customized teaching, there is a correlation between

specific subject matter and specific intelligences. He contended that "intellectual cliques"

composed of curriculum developers, teachers and students who excel in one pattern of

thinking exclude those whose strengths lie in another. This portrayal of multiple

intelligences as exclusionary within a classroom also applies across cultures. The types of

intelligences predominant in the majority culture can take precedence in education, to the

detriment of cultures with different learning styles.

In comparison to traditional European-American research agendas, Indigenous

35

approaches begin within a decolonizing framework. Smith's model (2008) reflected four

processes for an Indigenous research agenda: decolonization, healing, transformation, and

mobilization, which reflect a more political stance than an objective one. As she noted,

Maori people conducting projects or activities in New Zealand at the community, tribal, or

local level or within more academic settings deliberately may use Indigenous terms reflective

of their worldviews to describe their research, rather than European-American terms. For

knowledge workers within the traditional European-American culture, these may be new

concepts in theory and application. However, operating at a higher level of global awareness

mandates honoring alternative epistemologies.

Morgan (2003, p. 47) argued that "Higher education needs to provide an environment

where these methods can be developed and evaluated from a non-Western perspective." To

Morgan, academia can transform itself to provide a culturally sensitive setting. In tum,

Indigenous research can resolve its inconsistencies in methodology and evolve to meet the

needs of Indigenous peoples (2003, p. 47). Martin (2008) has emphasized principles of

cultural respect and cultural safety as the foundational constructs for an Indigenous research

paradigm that "articulates its assumptions, theory, methodology and ethics as these are

embedded in Aboriginal ontology, epistemology and axiology and underpinned by

relatedness" (p. 145).

The Relationship of Collaboration to Transformational Educational Change

Cultural and disciplinary differences in teaching constitute another significant line of

inquiry. To be successful, both teaching and teaching environments have the responsibility

to "understand the importance of Native knowing" and to honor Native worldviews (Ah Nee

Benham & Cooper, 2000, p. 19). Yupiac educator Oscar Kawagley (1995) argued that

36

Indigenous knowledge and scientific knowledge in the European-American tradition are not

incompatible pedagogically, which suggests the potential of a synergistic interface between

them. However, Pueblo educator Gregory Cajete (1999) posited that creativity- and ecology

based worldviews critical to Indigenous societies have been de-valued in comparison to

technology-based skill development and cognitive training. He contended that key

Indigenous understandings might guide teaching for cultural and ecological literacy and

transactional competence. In tum, this alternative educational practice can inform or inspire

solutions to current environmental, social, and cultural crises in America.

Intercultural collaboration for the advocacy of Indigenous knowledge and the

production of new knowledge is an emerging interdisciplinary area of inquiry bridging

Native and non-Native ontologies and epistemologies. Both Cook (2003) and Lassiter

(2005) view collaboration as a contemporary development within the profession of

anthropology. Lassiter's collaborative research with the Kiowa Indian community reflects an

awareness of history, power, and ethical and moral commitments. In describing the history

of anthropologists working in Virginia Indian communities as advocates of Indigenous rights,

Cook (2003) emphasizes that such awareness and reflection are essential if anthropologists

are to avoid taking over Indigenous decisions, thus perpetuating colonial attitudes and

outcomes. Freire (1970) also envisioned entering a community and learning about its major

issues and problems as a first step to solving social problems. Stringer (2007) incorporated

similar stages in his recommendations for action research.

Collaborative leadership theory also may be significant in understanding mutual goals

(Bourdas, 2007). Leadership qualities such as ethics and vision have been recognized in

studies across racial and ethnic cultures (Kanungo & Mendonca, 1996; Yuki, 2005). Evans'

37

2006 concept of "character in action" is a potential schema for cross-cultural collaboration in

education: demonstrating commitment to mutual values and goals through listening,

discussion, and action.

Because interdisciplinary areas of knowledge inform this study's research questions,

moving beyond existing theories and findings may contribute to theory, to practice, and to

social issues (Marshall & Rossman, 1999). Yet to be heard are the voices of these exemplars

and others like them. Their cultural perceptions, educational ideologies, and lived

experiences influence their pedagogical practices and may connect them in significant ways.

The Beyond Jamestown: Virginia Indians Past and Present Teachers' Institute is a

distinctly Virginia Indian project. It embraces the apparent dualism ofNative-non-Native

and European-American-Indigenous perspectives. Further, it presents possibilities for

interpreting the disciplinary and societal themes described in this literature review from a

phenomenological point of view. Specifically, understanding what influences these

presenters in their teaching approaches may indicate whether methods traditionally

considered as culturally distinct create a new dynamic in a shared educational setting.

This inquiry may reveal whether such exemplars begin with mutual and

transformative goals in mind when they prepare instructional materials and deliver that

content to students who are themselves educators. It also may indicate to what extent

presenters intentionally used experience as a form of mediation between themselves and the

BJTI participants to facilitate learning (Kozma, Belle, & Williams, 1978; Marzano, Brandt,

Hughes, Jones, Presseisen, Rankin, & Suhor, 1988), and if so, how this mediation functioned

in relation to other variables such as a societal role as teachers in preserving or improving

38

culture (Bigge & Shermis, 1992), or restructuring the participants' knowledge bases through

conceptual or experience-based learning (Tillema & Imants, 1995).

Additionally, comparing traditional and Indigenous methodologies may generate new

multicultural insights about the teaching interface envisioned in this study by addressing the

bond of education and identity as an over-arching and essential discourse. Wilkerson (2005,

p. 27) notes that "the Indian experience encompasses not just the present, but layers upon

layers of past people and events" that bridge modernity and tradition. Most cross-cultural

exchanges involving Native Americans and other Indigenous peoples historically took place

as appropriations of the non-dominant group's epistemologies as expressed through the filter

of the dominant group (Deloria, 2009). We can delineate this appropriation within the

framework of the documentary history primarily created by historians as opposed to folk

history as expressed through written and oral tradition (Blu, 1980, p. 216).

The inherent tension between these two constructs has surfaced with the increased

visibility of post-colonial resistance in the form of persistent reminders oflndigenous and

Indian presence: in the case of the Virginia Indians, the familiar saying, "We're still here," to

which the second phrase is sometimes added,"- and we're not going away."

Native American/American Indian studies recognize and articulate Native cultural

viewpoints as key voices to be heard (Kidwell & Velie, 2005) as part of a resurgence in re

locating story and oral text as resistance to colonial discourse as historical narrative (Smith,

2008; Bruyneel, 2007). In tum, this points to the Beyond Jamestown teacher development

program as a potentially potent expression of pedagogical sovereignty as described by

Grande (2004). It may parallel Morgan's 2003 model oflndigenous research by meeting the

needs of Virginia Indians in correcting the historical narrative and presenting a forum to tell

their own stories, while simultaneously allowing new methodologies to develop and be

evaluated from Virginia Indian epistemologies.

39

Chapter Three

Methodology

The phenomenon under study is the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute,

specifically the curricular and pedagogical practices used by its faculty members during the

first two years of the program (2007-2008). This research study seeks evidence of

educational principles and practice as a dialogue between cultures. It questions whether

Native and non-Native exemplars share an educational vision or paradigm in their teaching

within the Beyond Jamestown program. If so, this phenomenological study seeks to discover

the elements and core meanings of that synergy from their lived experiences, using

European-American and Indigenous educational paradigms to frame the inquiry.

Chapter 1 proposed curriculum and pedagogy as the study's primary units of analysis

for European-American formal educational traditions and Native ways of knowing, including

what may emerge in this study as Virginia Indian epistemologies. In the literature review in

chapter two, I discussed the prevailing educational ideologies of resistance and support as a

context for the Beyond Jamestown teacher development program and its faculty exemplars.

Chapter 3 builds upon an understanding of these forces. It introduces a conceptual

framework to guide the inquiry into the worldviews and lived experiences framing each

faculty member's pedagogy and curriculum as part of shared understandings. Additionally,

Chapter 3 lays the groundwork for exploring how my personal worldview, experiences, and

relationships affect my role of researcher as instrument. I agree with Kidwell (1999, p. 282)

that "contact between cultures must be examined from the viewpoint of both cultures." In

fact, the genesis of this project has been working with colleagues for the last 12 years on

40

education for and about Virginia Indians, and in sharing the belief that education is a

transformative social force.

The Conceptual Framework

41

Some Beyond Jamestown exemplars represent Virginia Indian tribal communities in

governance and education. Others operate within federal and state organizations strongly

connected to tribal communities and the Virginia Indian Heritage Program. Most are

members of state-recognized Virginia Indian tribes or Nations; some are members of

neighboring tribes. All of these individuals have distinguished themselves through their

substantial contributions to American Indian and Virginia Indian heritage and culture

preservation, to intertribal collaboration, and to education advocacy for and about their

peoples.

The Native faculty members of the Beyond Jamestown program all engage in

education and service activities that concern their own and other tribes. Several are

academics who have taught courses in higher education, published extensively, and

conducted collaborative projects as tribal representatives and content experts. Others work

outside of academe as historians, educators, and consultants. For all the Virginia Indian

exemplars, their public visibility increased before, during, and after the 2007

quadricentennial of Jamestown's founding as part of the educational initiatives of their tribes

and nations and an increased global focus on their peoples' history. They advocated for

public awareness of the contested historical legacy for Virginia Indian peoples and federal

recognition of six ofVirginia's state-recognized tribes. The same increased activity is true of

the non-Native Beyond Jamestown teaching faculty.

42

Conceivably, these Native and non-Native educators bring elements from the

alternate tradition into their individual teaching methods. They may demonstrate that some

aspects of pedagogy and curricula are constants across cultures, or that a new epistemology is

emerging from their collaborations. Therefore, constructing European-American and

Indigenous models of curriculum and pedagogy informs this inquiry. The starting point for

these potential intersections is considering common characteristics of education as a

worldwide human activity.

Education requires at least four components, which are the teacher, the learner, the

knowledge to be transferred or skill to be developed, and a method for doing it. Egon Guba's

1990 construct of a paradigm suggests a more comprehensive way to describe teaching and

to compare European-American and Indigenous knowledge systems. Defined as a basic

belief system characterized by a set of fundamental questions or arguments, the four elements

of a paradigm consider the nature of reality (ontology), the relationship between the knower

and the known (epistemology), the process of finding knowledge (methodology), and its

inherent values (axiology).

A generic educational paradigm includes the arguments that 1) humans are born

without knowledge and must learn to act the right way (ontology); 2) a society's young must

be taught in order to enculturate and socialize them (epistemology); 3) knowledge is

disseminated in many ways based on the right way of acting and seeing the world

(methodology); and 4) as a process, teaching reflects the cultural values and goals of specific

communities (axiology).

These perspectives represent common ground in European-American and Native

education processes. Taking this argument to the next level, Table 1 outlines two distinct

43

paradigms as a basis for comparison-one for European-American and one for Indigenous

teaching traditions. These models draw on extant literature to compare and contrast the two

elements of education for the two cultures. Neither worldview is monolithic nor are the

paradigms in this chapter absolute classifications.

No single set of assumptions or beliefs can capture the extensive functions of

education in either culture, particularly because they represent worldwide communities

continually undergoing processes of change. Just as there are no generic Indians, African

Americans or Europeans, many nuances of individual and societal variance exist in Native

and non-Native teaching epistemologies. Indigenous scholars such as Deloria and Wildcat

(2001), Smith (1999), and Kawagley (1995) have emphasized the massive disruption to

Indigenous cultures from colonialism and imperialism. Both deliberate adaptation and forced

assimilation have caused Native cultures to absorb aspects of European-American cultures,

yet as Yupiac educator Oscar Kawagley (1995) has pointed out, European-American

societies also contain intellectual and cultural artifacts from Indigenous cultures.

Discussing how European-American and Native cultures compare and contrast relates

to a larger vision of a universal education process. Gustavsson and Osman ( 1997) postulate

that both dissimilarities and diversity must be acknowledged in a dialogue between cultures;

in other words, people can learn about their own culture by learning about other cultures.

They noted that "A traditional humanist departure point considers the perspective that human

beings transcend themselves: that in order to learn something new one has to unlearn

entrenched perspectives" (p. 183). From this perspective, comparing European-American

and Indigenous paradigms encourages self-discovery for educators within each worldview by

generating new insights into their own cultural understandings and teaching methodologies.

In their presentations, the BJTI program's presenters discuss some of the most

difficult challenges Virginia Indians have faced, including racial bias, political and social

resistance to Federal recognition, and the lingering effects of colonialism in textbooks and

curricula. They are empathetic about Virginia Indians' ownership of their history.

44

BJTI faculty members' sharing of personal insights and actions, along with their

planned curriculum content, may be significant to understanding how they teach. The

immediacy of the Institute experience for participants suggests an important correlation to

Bandura's constructs on observational learning, in that their formal and informal behavior

may be representative of the modeling process developed in social cognition theory. As he

notes: "Learning from models may take varied forms, including new behavior patterns,

judgmental standards, cognitive competencies, and generative rules for creating new forms of

behavior" (Bandura, 1989, p. 23). The faculty's formal and informal behavior in this

specific cultural context may influence participants' awareness ofNative culture and norms,

and in tum be incorporated into their own professional schema and practice if accepted as

valid. Exploring whether faculty members intentionally incorporate the essence of

Bandura's social learning principles can help to define their instructional methodologies.

In the formal European-American teaching tradition, knowledge deemed valuable by

society is formalized as a program curriculum within an authorized educational setting (see

Table 1 ). European-American intellectual traditions are predominantly based on a scientific

or positivist perspective that is linear in nature; the curriculum is expected to produce specific

objectives and outcomes, and involves change in the learner's cognitive state. In the

European-American sense, pedagogy signifies prescribed roles for the teacher and learner,

mostly within the larger sphere of institutions that agencies accredit and thus authorize to

create guidelines for the exchange of knowledge. Completing the program usually awards

credentials or certifies the learner in a socially recognized way.

45

For the purpose of this study, non-European-American teaching traditions are defined

from Indigenous scholarship emanating from scholars in the United States, Canada, New

Zealand, and Australia. Although the concept of education as a system of knowledge transfer

remains the same in Indigenous knowledge systems, the roles, expectations, and process are

not linear, but cyclical (see Table 1). They traditionally center on the community rather than

the individual. In this worldview, extended family and community members collaborate in

experiential learning that prepares learners for their community roles. This dynamic honors

oral tradition and integrates supernatural, physical, and spiritual dimensions.

The elements in Table 1 and the two tables that follow suggest that the nature of the

Beyond Jamestown exemplars' teaching practices for the program can be analyzed using

literature from both traditional European-American and Indigenous paradigms. I seek to learn

to what extent the faculty members' teaching epistemologies are related to the constructs

within these models, and if they support the faculty's teaching practice.

Table 1 introduces parallel models of knowledge transmission from two worldviews,

drawing from the scholarship of European-American and Native theorists. My review of

literature indicates that culturally identifiable principles of teaching and learning exist, and

that comparing them would inform the frameworks developed as Tables 2 and 3. In tum,

Tables 2 and 3 are more detailed delineations of elements of European-American and

Indigenous teaching. Each paradigm draws on overall characteristics of pedagogy and

curriculum identified by European-American and Indigenous scholars.

As suggested by Ryan and Bernard (2003), themes and subthemes within collected

data may link to theoretical models. The following models (Tables 1, 2, and 3) will

continually foster my inquiry and discussion as I explore my research question. They will

provide reference points as I discover and organize relevant themes in participants'

responses.

Table 1

Comparison of European-American and Indigenous Teaching Paradigms

Ontology

Epistemology

Methodology

Axiology

European-American Tradition

A guided relationship between teacher and student, with specific roles for each

To transfer knowledge in formal educational systems deemed effective by society, predominantly in classroom settings

Knowledge is disseminated within a traditional framework of content that is validated by recognized authorities and taught by credentialed instructors in organized settings

Knowledge is rational and individually-based; it is derived from human endeavors, ideas, and experience

Indigenous Tradition

Learning occurs as students absorb knowledge from themselves, others, and the environment

To teach and learn within a community where everyone is a teacher

Knowledge is disseminated across generations through oral history, art forms, and cultural tradition

Knowledge is holistic and community-based; it is derived from human, environmental, and supernatural sources

46

Ultimately, the models of European-American and Indigenous teaching may change through

the insights gained from participant interviews. They may inform the development of a

subsequent model and define the space between both systems.

European-American Tradition of Teaching

Indigenous and European-American knowledge systems both originated as distinct

forms of cultural transmission. European-American or Western teaching traditions can be

traced from classical Greek and Roman roots, developing as predominantly European

traditions and values regarding education.

Table 2

A Model of the European-American Tradition ofTeaching

Curriculum

Contains philosophical viewpoint (values)

Creates coherence; makes prescriptive choices of key ideas or writers; develops students' higher order skills Requires practice of learned skills -particularly core skills

Integrates education and experience -provides multiple opportunities to apply what is learned Sets criteria to determine high-quality teaching and learning

Meets institutional and faculty educational guidelines

Pedagogy

Has defined teaching philosophy

Students are required to synthesize learning and skills

Organizes and re-organizes knowledge in effective and student-accessible ways

Accounts for student learning styles, motivations, and stages of development

Serves as role model and/or guides students through interactions in and outside the classroom

Accounts for curriculum constraints such as knowledge boundaries of course, course sequences, and methods of evaluation

Transfers knowledge through different learning technologies or in different learning contexts

47

48

Curriculum

As defined by McKernan (2008), a curriculum is an educational policy comprised of

the knowledge intentionally planned, valued, and offered as training or education. In

traditional European-American curriculum design, achieving coherence comes from making

prescriptive choices ofkey ideas or writers (Gaff, Ratcliff, and Associates. 1997), which

develops students' higher order skills, including critical thinking, written and oral

communications, and problem solving (Diamond, 1998). Using these foci, high expectations

of educational outcomes and attention to diverse learning styles and talents emerge as key

measures of curricular quality (Diamond, 1998). Aligning a higher education curriculum

with desired learning outcomes also creates coherency (Driscoll & Wood, 2007).

Curriculum experimentation and reform have generated different philosophies of

American higher education across time (Levine, 1981 ). Alternative philosophical viewpoints

exist regarding curriculum; among them, the perennialist perspective values, preserves, and

transmits a canon of tradition and cultures, whereas an objectivist perspective of curriculum

identifies and measures aspects of learning from an interdisciplinary perspective. Curriculum

also relates functionally and humanistically to the organizational culture of the institution it

serves; in higher education, curricular decisions made as to the nature of knowledge, its

production, and evaluation depend upon an institution's values and purpose (Gaff et al, 1977;

Walker, 2006).

Alternative models range from traditionally-based to learner-based, objectives-based,

and society- and problem-centered curricula. The latter model has particular significance for

the Beyond Jamestown program and this study in considering social change as a learning

goal through curriculum development. Using a problem-centered curriculum contests what

49

McKernan (2008, p. 35) refers to as the "null curriculum," content that is either neglected or

ignored by schools.

The multicultural educational reform movement has focused on the implicit

discrimination in Anglocentric and Eurocentric educational culture and formal curriculum,

but more importantly, has addressed how the components of discrimination originated and

continue to operate. Darder (1991) argues that dominant educational discourses have been

conservative and positivist, and that this ideology carries over into American schools'

curricula through the knowledge and content selected as legitimate for credentialing. Both

curricula and teaching methodologies have perpetuated themes and values of the dominant

culture, imparting a colonizing knowledge to students (Darder, 1991 ). Champagne (2007)

maintained that in higher education, most academic disciplines generate knowledge and

theory within the context of American and Western civilizations.

Education has been central in the social transformation of America from an industrial

to a post-industrial, knowledge-based society. Schooling (the "acquisition and distribution of

formal knowledge") is the primary institutional tool of education in a knowledge society,

meaning that lifelong educational processes will continue to increase in importance (Drucker,

1994, 3). Education's centrality in American life makes it an institutional barometer of

changing values and of societal priorities in educating its citizens. In higher education, this

emerging knowledge-based society mandates the production of students who can manipulate,

transform, and create new knowledge (Garcia-Cepero, 2008). Therefore, promoting higher

order thinking and creativity in students instills the applied knowledge needed to address

societal problems in place of knowledge for knowledge's sake (Garcia-Cepero, 2008). The

positivist and technology-driven ideology operating in tandem with these values can

influence curriculum content at all grade levels.

50

Similarly, the rise of a market ideology based on production and consumption

supports the regulation of curriculum and assessment. Thus, society holds education

accountable for producing good citizens who are contributing members, based on the needs

our changing national and global economies call for. These market-driven values are in

opposition to the construct of a "caring pedagogy" and pastoral care in education (McKernan,

2008, p. 23). The placement of curricular authority outside the classroom is another

controlling factor in curriculum, assessment, and increasingly, pedagogy (Villegas & Lucas,

2002). These values echo the positivist influence of scientific rationality that critical

education theorists have contested in the postmodem era. The historical and current contexts

for curriculum may or may not factor into the BJTI faculty's individual philosophies on

content development. However, they are significant to my understanding as an interviewer

of how these educators compare in their responses.

Pedagogy

Since the colonial American era, the European-American teaching system generally

has perpetuated lasting values and institutions that support the existing power structure

(Darden, 1991 ). This system authorizes educators to take roles in hierarchical educational

structures, influencing their teaching expectations, their performance of duties, as well as the

manner of evaluation of those responsibilities. Table 2 identifies overall characteristics of

the instructor's role in European-American knowledge transmission, not principles of a

particular theory or individual factors such as teaching philosophy, experiences, and personal

schema.

51

From a didactical perspective, the lecture model-the "sage on a stage" model, with

students as the passive recipients of students' learning-has predominated in American

classrooms from the 18th through most ofthe 20th century. A more recent constructivist

model sometimes referred to as "guide on the side" centers on teacher facilitation of students'

active learning and the co-construction of reality by instructor and learner. Expanded

learning technologies and diverse learning contexts also have increased the interactivity of

knowledge transmission in 21 st_century classrooms. In recent years, the paradigmatic shift

from teacher-based to learner-based instruction in higher education has altered pedagogy and

curriculum in significant ways (Barr & Tagg, 1995; Fear, Doberneck, Robinson, Fear, Barr,

Van Den Berg, Smith, & Petrulis, 2003). To ensure specific learning outcomes, institutions

of higher learning increasingly require their faculty members to create curriculum coherence

by aligning it with pedagogy in their course designs (Driscoll & Wood, 2007). Currently,

European-American pedagogy calls for a series of actions that serve as measures of teaching

ability. Organizing key materials concisely and coherently is one measure, as is setting

criteria for evaluating high quality teaching and learning (Bess, 1998; Gaff et al., 1997).

The European-American instructional process includes the knowledge andre

organization of knowledge generated through creating a syllabus, assembling resources,

integrating knowledge from different fields, and integrating the teacher's own experiences.

Different cultures may share these pedagogical processes in other forms; however, I

articulate them here as approaches to European-American traditions of teaching. Requiring

students to synthesize learning and skills, to demonstrate learned skills, particularly core

skills, and integrate education and experience in multiple opportunities to apply what is

learned are also significant to the teaching process (Diamond, 1998).

52

On the university level, Boyer (1990) notes that "teaching, at its best, means not only

transmitting knowledge, but transforming and extending it as well" (p. 24). The extent to

which BJTI faculty see themselves in the role of transforming education or as reflexive

practitioners is a key area of inquiry in this study. Since the Beyond Jamestown program

targets K-12 teachers, each faculty member's approach to adult education will inform my

understanding of their instructional strategies and self-reflection, as well as my own

understanding of that process. Education theorist John Dewey cautioned" ... any theory and

set of practices is dogmatic which is not based upon critical examination of its own

principles" (1938, p. 22). How BJTI faculty members 1) identify the elements of their

presentations, 2) select learning outcomes for teacher-participants, 3) evaluate their success

in achieving those goals, and 4) describe influencing factors in their backgrounds are all

integral components in formulating my interview questions.

Indigenous Ways of Knowing

Both European-American and Indigenous ideologies are rooted in previous

generations (Lomawaima & McCarty, 2006), and concepts of time, space, and process are

central to people's worldviews in both paradigms. However, although Indigenous lifeways

have followed cyclical and rhythmic patterns for thousands of years, European-American

cultures appear linear and mechanistic in comparison (Barnhardt & Kawagley, 2005).

Further, Europeans have assumed that Indigenous peoples needed their intervention

as underdeveloped societies, and should advance by European-American standards of

progress. These constructs represent essential understandings within those cultures, but also

historical and significant misunderstandings across cultures (Brown & Cousins, 200 1 ).

According to Barnhardt and Kawagley (2005), "For indigenous [sic] people there is a

53

recognition that many unseen forces are at play in the elements of the universe and that very

little is naturally linear, or occurs in a two-dimensional grid or a three dimensional cube"(~

20).

Curriculum

The communal values held by Indian tribes and nations are integral to Indigenous

ways of knowing, such as the importance of understanding culture and history both past and

present. As a knowledge system, Indigenous traditional teaching is grounded in "self

determination, cultural self-esteem, and personal vision and passion" (Ah Nee-Benham &

Cooper, p. 15). As Reagan (2005) emphasizes, education is not synonymous with formal

schooling; however, authentic assessment of experiential learning is achieved through the

demonstration of skills and knowledge by students (see Table 3).

Education stresses learners' civic, spiritual, and vocational needs; people build

knowledge systems specific to their expected societal roles and rooted in their social and

physical environments (Deloria, 1995; Reagan, 2005). For both Indigenous teachers and

learners, meaning and significance reside in everything in the physical as well as the

supernatural world (Reagan, 2005). An Indigenous curriculum sustains Native lifeways and

cultural identities and is holistic in its approach, embracing spirit, mind, and body (Reagan,

2005). It values traditional and cultural criteria as measurements of well-being and education

over standardized forms of assessment (McGovern, 1999).

The ability to draw from the cultural wellsprings of the past yet incorporate cultural

change empowers American Indian cultures to engage with new scholarship, particularly

critical theory. It also challenges them to fully engage in identifying European-American

influences not based on Indigenous intellectual perspectives and teaching methodologies.

Table 3

A Model of Indigenous Ways of Knowing

Curriculum Pedagogy

Contains philosophical viewpoint Has defined teaching philosophy founded (values) upon Indigenous knowledge

Values cultural norms as criteria for Creates experiential learning opportunities student development and learning over based on watching and doing; both standardized forms of measurement language and silence are valued

Stresses learners' civic, spiritual, and Establishes elders and older youths as vocational needs, also awareness of teachers within communities individual's roles within the community

Supports educational pathways outside of Encourages discovery through storytelling, formal schooling with multiple levels of meaning

Affirms that the knowledge of the past will illuminate the present

Sustains Indigenous cultures and traditions; upholds Indigenous communities' rights and selfdetermination within a framework of traditional cultural understandings

Designs holistic education systems to balance spirit, mind, and body

Integrates games, oratory, myth, and sacred stories

Differentiates between public and private knowledge according to specific protocols and traditions of different families, clans, and tribal nations

Draws meaning from the natural world as well as from human and supernatural spheres

54

One resulting theory, Red pedagogy, has encouraged the exploration and discovery of

intersections of power as foundational to the histories and development of Indian

communities (Grande, 2004). As outlined by Grande, Red pedagogy's overarching goal is

decolonization: "Indeed, the degree to which Indigenous peoples are able to define and

exercise political, intellectual, and spiritual sovereignty is an accurate measure of colonist

relations. The dream of sovereignty in all these realms, thus, forms the foundation of Red

pedagogy" (p. 166). However, some Indigenous scholarship has moved beyond critical

theory (Grande, 2004; Barnhardt & Kawagley, 2005: Warrior, 1995). Grande (2004) has

observed:

55

While critical pedagogy provides the tools for constructing a more potent and overtly

challenging critique of the colonialist project, it should be evident by now that it

remains deeply informed by European-American theory. Specifically, critical

theories of education operate on the assumptions of individualism, rationality,

anthropocentrism, and progressivism, which contribute not only to the cultural crisis

but to the ecological crisis. (p. 66)

The richness and depth of recent scholarship honoring Native worldviews will be

reference points in this study. Seeking to understand how the Beyond Jamestown faculty

members view their experiences as teachers and developed their curricula and pedagogies is

central to the next phase of research described in the following section. Seeking to

understand how distinctive elements ofNative teaching and learning drawn from the

literature review correlate with faculty exemplars' insights and experiences also will guide

the formulation of my interview questions and additional probing questions.

Pedagogy

As a defined teaching methodology emerging from Indigenous knowledge,

Indigenous pedagogy possesses culturally oriented characteristics and ancient roots. So does

European-American pedagogy. Guided experiential learning sustains Indigenous cultures,

and through pedagogy, teachers create these opportunities for observation, imitation and

direct instruction (Reagan, 2005). From observation, experience, and reflection, individuals

56

learn to take responsibility for learning from the community, from the physical environment,

and from spiritual guidance (Cajete, 1999; Fenelon & LeBeau, 2006; McGovern, 1999;

Reagan, 2005). Those beyond one's own age and experience level, particularly the tribal

elders, lead learning within the larger communal circle as guides within a holistic framework.

To Wildcat (2001), traditional European-American educational methods and

organization are central to the disconnection between the European-American tradition and

American Indian education:

Therefore, the hope for American Indian education lies first in the explicit

identification of features of the Western tradition or worldview that produced many of

the problems we are immersed in today; and second, in the active reconstruction of

indigenous [sic] metaphysical systems, which, I believe, result in experiential systems

ofleaming (p. 1 0).

Indigenous pedagogy encourages discovery through storytelling with multiple levels

of meaning, and derives from the use of memories belonging to family, tribe, or clan

(Trimble, Sommer, & Quinlan, 2008). The ways in which oral history is used as a learning

tool depends upon protocol and tradition, and does not involve personal ownership of

traditional and sacred stories. Rather, the narrator may add information in telling and

retelling the stories that does not affect their meaning and structure (Trimble et al., 2008).

For modem Native scholars grappling with instructional methodologies for American Indian

studies, the dual process of transmitting and acquiring knowledge in this field presents

challenges beyond existing stereotypes.

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Methods

I approached my research question using an interpretivist paradigm to address the

curriculum and pedagogy of the Native and non-Native faculty exemplars in the Beyond

Jamestown Teachers' Institute. This paradigm supports a socio-cultural lens and humanistic

research methods, permits the discovery of other paradigms and academic disciplines, and

honors participants' perceptions about their worldviews.

The study sample was composed of participating presenters in the 2007 and 2008

sessions of the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute. By including all individuals who

taught in either or both years, a wider range of Native and non-Native educators is accessible.

The population for both years totals 16 and includes three non-Native faculty and 13 Native

faculty members. 7 Although a small group allows for fewer possibilities to compare a range

of individual viewpoints, in this case it opened the study to in-depth discussions with most of

the presenters and directors of the program.

I planned to interview as many Native and non-Native faculty members as possible,

based on how many agree to participate. Once the Institutional Review Board approved the

proposal, I sent to each BJTI faculty member a letter of invitation (Appendix A) that outlined

the research study, its purpose, and what participants might expect in terms of time

commitment, and types of data to be gathered. The letter also described how anonymity

would be maintained during and after the study. Prior to the first interview, each participant

was asked to complete and return the signed informed consent form (Appendix B) at the

interview or by mail in a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

7 As I was one of the non-native faculty members in the 2008 Institute, I am not including myself in the total.

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Based on the interview protocol in Appendix C, participants took part in an initial

tape-recorded interview of between one and one-and-a-half hours. Four participants were

contacted afterwards for specific fact-checking. During each interview, I began with the

initial in-depth, open-ended questions developed for my interview guide with additional

probing questions as needed, and then asked participants for clarification of their responses

as a first level member check. I sought further clarification and correction by having all

participants review written transcriptions of their interviews as a second level member check,

and sought the same clarification regarding artifacts that any participants voluntarily provide

as reflective of their teaching methodologies. Each participant was invited to share a

document or other artifact that relates to their individual teaching methodologies, to describe

it in their own words, and to indicate how it reflected their teaching practice as a BJTI faculty

member.

Risks

There were no foreseeable risks associated with participation in this study. If for any

reason participants wished to discontinue their participation in this study, they could

withdraw their consent at any time during the interviews or by notifying me by email or

telephone. Each participant had the right to decline or agree to provide an artifact

representative of his or her teaching methodologies, to choose the artifact provided, and to

have it returned or (if an electronic document) destroyed at the study's conclusion along with

the key to any identities if pseudonyms were used. One participant referenced a map and two

others described documents, but no artifacts were given to me as representative of

participants' teaching methodologies.

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Privacy and Confidentiality

When I asked the participants if they wanted to select a pseudonym, all fourteen

chose to be identified in all written and electronic interview transcriptions. Further,

participants were informed of the right to decline answering particular questions and to have

any information they so specified held in confidence. Participants were informed that their

interviews would be audio-recorded and that I would secure safely all recordings during the

study. All participants reviewed their interview transcripts for accuracy. Prior to the start of

the interviews, I reminded the participants of the study's purpose, the voluntary nature of

their participation, and that confidentiality would be maintained during and after the study.

At the conclusion ofthe study, all audio recordings and related materials of a confidential

nature were destroyed.

Data Analysis

Through my analysis, I sought evidence of an active interface between traditional and

emerging forms of scholarship and such evidence emerged through the reflections of this

study's participants. As Rossman and Rallis suggest, the direction of the analysis took shape

from remaining open "to the unexpected" (2003, p. 274) letting my research and the

participants' responses reveal new layers of interpretation about the BJTI phenomenon. This

aspect of qualitative research accommodated diverse perspectives presented by these

participants and their experiences and emerging themes in the research process (Rossman &

Rallis, 2003) that challenged or confirmed my original interpretations.

Participants' responses were analyzed in relation to elements in the three tables

discussed previously. I used interview transcripts, field notes, and memos to find the

meaning and significance of participants' articulation of knowledge-building. (Thirunarayann

& Perez-Prado, 2005). Drawing on the analytical process developed by Marshall and

Rossman ( 1999), I coded the data into constructed categories of meaning based on

curriculum and pedagogy as units of analysis. The next stage of axial coding suggested

patterns, themes, and codes.

Defining knowledge building and knowledge transmission occurs within socio

cultural contexts; this rationale supported a research design grounded in Indigenous and

traditional European-American research methodologies, and European-American critical

ethnography constructs. It opened my inquiry to a more comprehensive exploration of the

impact of a dominant culture on education and the impact of a related phenomenon as a

mechanism of change, in this case, the Beyond Jamestown teacher development program.

In their 2006 phenomenological study of Australian academics' perceptions of

curriculum, Fraser and Bosanquet (2006) found that individuals' conceptions of curricula

were not fixed or unchanging. Rather, educators constantly reviewed and modified their

perceptions in response to different teaching contexts, the effects of changing priorities in

academic life, and as the result of varied external influences such as access to educational

research (Fraser & Bosanquet, 2006, p. 271 ). Awareness of these changing dynamics

enabled me as a researcher to identify the effect of time and self-reflection on study

participants' conceptualizations of their curricula and pedagogies.

I explored shared beliefs and experiences by identifying the major themes from

participants' stories. Because these individuals were linked by characteristic beliefs,

perceptions, or experiences, they formed a profile of cross-cultural mediation within the

Beyond Jamestown phenomenon that extends the meaning of their roles as exemplars.

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61

Ethical Considerations

Ethical considerations required me to build a research design without potential harm

to study participants, and to create this plan with awareness of available resources and costs

to all involved (Marshall & Rossman, 1999). In discussing activist anthropology, Cook

(2008) noted the emergence of ethnographic research that purposefully seeks collaboration

with research communities (Lassiter, 2005; Rappaport, 2007). Fully realized, such

collaborative ethnography focuses on "collaboration as a space for the coproduction of

theory" with community consultants (Rappaport, 2008, p. 2).

To clarify, I utilized a socio-cultural and phenomenological approach rather than

exploring a culture ethnographically as a participant-observer. Yet within the perimeters of

this study, the Virginia Indians' cultural protocols of respect and trust relationships, their

cultural sovereignty, and forms of governance were essential factors. This study was a

continuance of my ongoing collaboration with the Virginia Indian tribes and nations in K

Adult education initiatives and in the changing of Virginia's traditional master narrative.

In the formative 2007-2008 sessions, I observed the BJTI faculty members lecture,

discuss, and interact informally with BJTI educator-participants and each other. I have

collaborated with many of these individuals on education projects and seen them teach in

other settings. Such experiences continually informed my research process as background

for the discoveries yet to come. Although it is not collaborative ethnography or action

research by definition, my research is similar to both in that 1 ), tribal leaders and the BJTI

administrators have been consulted in the course of its development, and 2), my own

orientation and prior research cause to believe in its mission and to explore this phenomenon

with care.

62

Magolda (2000) states that fieldwork contains both power and politics, with power

demonstrated in three areas: 1) the "different positionalities of researcher and researched", 2)

the power "exerted during the research process", and 3) the power exerted "during the post

fieldwork writing and representing" (p. 229). My intention in exploring the research

question was as critical as BJTI exemplars' intentions in their teaching methodologies and in

participating in this research study.

I asked Beyond Jamestown faculty members to reflect upon their theory and practice.

They chose to share deeply held beliefs and experiences trusting me to respect their rights as

respondents and to represent their perspectives accurately as individuals and as

representatives of larger social systems. These exemplars provided compelling insights into

their perceptions as Native and non-Native educators that apply in the Beyond Jamestown

setting, but also operate outside of it.

The culminating stage of collaboration is making the final study available to the tribal

communities and related institutions, including the director of the Beyond Jamestown

Teachers' Institute. I am prepared to share and to discuss my findings with the program's

collective stakeholders in addition to the study participants as a matter of respect and

reciprocity.

Chapter Four

The Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute and Its Presenters

How is knowledge exchanged, and by what process does it become privileged

between cultures? The Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute reflects a committed effort by

Virginia Indians, allied scholars, and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities to introduce

educators to an Indigenous worldview that is shared by these scholars, decolonizes Virginia

state history, and potentially shifts how participating educators teach and think by comparing

systems of knowledge, while placing value on both.

Recognizing that multiple levels of Virginia Indian agency contributed to collective

survivance of tribal identity during and after the Racial Purity Act of 1924 is critical to the

Virginia Indian counter-narrative and to this analysis. Within this chapter I discuss the

importance of the RIC as a symbol of racial injustice and survivance among Virginia Indians

living today. The term survivance is employed by a number of Native and non-Native

scholars, and I chose the definition used by Ojibwe scholar Gerald Vizenor (1998):

Native survivance is an active sense of presence over absence, deracination, and oblivion;

survivance is the continuance of stories, not a mere reaction, however pertinent. Survivance

is greater than the right of a survivable name (p. 1)

In what ways do the eyewitness accounts of survivors create a potent pedagogical

counter-narrative to challenge the silences and omissions of mainstream history? How does

the telling of these accounts affect individuals who not only experienced the effects of

Virginia's 201h-century Racial Integrity Laws, but also choose to transmit their memories to

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64

predominantly White teachers with relatively little or no knowledge of that era's oppression

toward people of color?

This chapter describes my study findings and establishes a basis for comparing the

phenomenological insights shared with me by Native and non-Native study participants

within the context of the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute, looking at it as a Native-led

product of three compelling dynamics. First, I suggest that these dynamics are the living

memories of racial inequality held by Native presenters, their families, and tribes, the vibrant

nature of storytelling and narrative in bonding Native peoples across generations, and as a

Virginia Indian-led decolonization project. Second, I present a model for understanding the

specific cohorts' roles within the BJTI faculty. Third, I discuss in what ways Native

presenters used pedagogy and curriculum to communicate across cultural boundaries with the

2007 and 2008 BJTI program participants. Within this chapter, I also provide a historical

perspective on Virginia's role in promoting racial purity through law and so-called scientific

eugenics in the early 20th century, and link this history to related scholarship and to my

informants' own experiences.

BJTI Program Participants: An Overview of the Target Audience

The Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute's purpose is to help educators and other

interested individuals to "gain a richer appreciation of our collective story" by presenting

alternative Native perspectives to those Americans typically encounter (Virginia Indian

Heritage Foundation Web site, 2010). The program designers and presenters recognize that

Virginia educators-a key audience in transforming statewide curricula-vary in their

awareness and understanding of state history, in their interpretation and implementation of

that history to include a Native viewpoint, and in the extent to which they acknowledge that

65

European-American cultures have been institutionalized in American society and education.

In sum, participating educators in this program are potential agents of change in their schools

and classrooms, change that this study's participants consider a moral and educational

imperative.

Native BJTI presenters consistently expressed the belief that narratives of invasion,

appropriation, and racial bias from the 17th through the 20th centuries in Virginia have been

much less well known or taught in educators' pre-service and in-service training. Ashley

Atkins, who spoke to the 2008 BJTI participants, was exposed to this gap even within the last

25 years as a Virginia student taking fourth-grade Virginia history:

I have a very different perspective, because I grew up knowing I was Native, that

there are Native people and two reservations in Virginia, with a lot of teachers not

realizing that. And not knowing anything about it. Just the fact that I was told,

"There are no Indians in Virginia." I had a cousin who wanted to do a project on the

Pamunkey Indian reservation, and her teacher [was] saying, "There are no

reservations, you're lying." Some things like that.

Disney's animated feature Pocahontas (1995) influenced American popular culture as

a mythic portrayal of Jamestown's founding and of the relationship between Pocahontas and

Captain John Smith (Edgerton & Jackson, 1996; Pewewardy, 1997, Lacroix, 2004). Gerri

Reynolds Wade and Karenne Wood both commented in their interviews on how this

romanticized account has negatively impacted students' perceptions of Virginia Indian

history. Gerri emphasized that "Pocahontas didn't hatch, you know. She has a background.

She had parents."

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Gerri worked on the Virginia SOL revisions and discussed that process with the 2008

BJTI class, and expressed the hope that such change creates an increased focus on the entire

Virginia Indian historical narrative and greater cultural awareness: "In particular, to realize

that 'Oh, here are Indians right here. Right next door, right wherever. Who have

backgrounds, who've been here, who've given to society, who have a lot to offer.'"

Because of their own work in education, this study's participants do not

underestimate the related challenges teachers face. Teaching about major differences in

American Indian spiritual beliefs, traditions, and ways of dress in comparison to Virginia

Indians can be complex, as Rhy Curry pointed out:

To really highlight that this is what this group of people looks like, but this is what

Virginia Indians look like. That their histories at times are very similar, but at times

are very divergent. And unfortunately, I can't always think of how you explain that in

a theme. That's definitely an observed difficulty in teaching, and how do you get that

point across in 50 minutes?

As a former teacher and principal and also as a speaker, Gerri Reynolds Wade uses

her education experience in assessing the progress yet to be achieved, first, in teaching

teachers to help create sensitivity and awareness among their students, and second, in adding

more information on Virginia Indian history and cultures to the Virginia Standards of

Learning. She vividly remembers an incident where she was asked to speak to classes in an

urban Virginia school. Gerri brought the Indian regalia she wears for ceremonial occasions,

but hung it out of sight and asked the teachers not to mention her heritage in advance. After

her initial presentation, Gerri revealed she was a Virginia Indian: "And this little girl said,

and I'll never forget it, 'You're an Indian? Then you need to be on a resa ... a resa .... " She

couldn't think of the word, 'reservation.' She was five years old."

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Gerri proceeded to sit on the floor with 75 kindergarteners, let them touch her regalia,

and talk about whether clothes make a person look White. She commented, "How

insensitive they were, and how ignorant, if you will, of people in their world. They

had no idea that there were Indians in Virginia and that Indians lived anywhere but a

reservation."

Understanding teachers' needs and integrating them into the Beyond Jamestown

Teachers' Institute was part of the program developers' mission. For the 2007 and 2008

Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institutes, program participants were selected through an

application process based on their teaching experience, backgrounds, and responses to

questions such as why the institute interested them, what questions they hoped it would

address, and also what related classroom and student needs applicants described. Selected

participants included in-service K-12 teachers, art, media, and music educators, and museum

staff members presenting information on Virginia's Native peoples. Some, but far from all,

of the 2007 and 2008 cohort members had previous interactions with tribal members or

communities; one identified her tribal affiliation both prior to and during the 2007 program.

The BJTI Presenters as Cross-Cultural Collaborators

At the surface level, BJTI presenters seem to be part of a duality: those who are

Native and those who are not. However, this simplistic classification ignores their multi

faceted backgrounds as Anglo or Native academics trained in European-American-based

education systems, tribal experts with or without higher education degrees, Native educators

who may not be members of Virginia Indian tribes, and those who directly or indirectly

68

experienced the effects of Virginia's 201h -century eugenics movement, specifically the Racial

Integrity Act of 1924.

This rich diversity enhanced the BJTI pedagogy and curricula, and supported its

potential to effect change. Virginia Indians and their non-Native colleagues have used

education as a tool of empowerment by entering the public arena with a summer seminar

offered statewide and held at two major universities in 2007 and 2008.

Analyzing group characteristics of the BJTI's cross-cultural collaborators in this

phenomenological study contributes to an understanding of how decolonization and

education can interact. By seeking the Native and non-Native presenters' worldviews in my

study, joint characteristics such as commitment, goals, and values emerged. These shared

traits have united the BJTI presenters I interviewed as a teaching community of advocates

despite differences in age, education, and cultural background. Further, these similarities

point toward a distinct epistemology that ultimately synthesizes many perspectives as core

beliefs.

I suggest that the Institute represents a defining moment in Virginia education as an

innovative partnership between the Commonwealth's Indigenous peoples, K-16 teachers, and

participating education institutions that openly addresses injustices of the past and recognizes

Native agency in the Commonwealth. Moreover, power and cultural perception intersect in

the institute as differing approaches to education introduced in the previous conceptual

frameworks describing European-American and Indigenous knowledge systems. As I will

show, the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute has become a community ofunderstanding

that operates as a cross-generational, cross-cultural interface of teaching and learning. In this

respect, it resembles Durie's (2000) concept of the synergy created through intellectual

69

collaboration, in his case by modem researchers operating at the interface of the Maori and

Pakeha (non-Maori) cultures in New Zealand (see Chapter 1). There, as in the United States,

the dominant narrative has been actively resisted and contested by New Zealand's Indigenous

people in the post-colonial period. In the next section, I outline the basis for my comparison

in relation to the BJTI.

Contesting Virginia's Dominant Narrative

Throughout the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institutes of2007 and 2008, BJTI

presenters disrupted the historical narrative familiar to most Virginia teachers by addressing

stereotypes and colonialist assumptions. They shared new archeological evidence regarding

pre-contact Indian cultures and as many as 18,000 years of Indian presence on the land we

call Virginia, thousands of years longer than previously believed. They situated Indian actors

in the colonial English accounts within a different framework of interpretation-that of

Virginia Indian written and oral accounts. Simultaneously, they exposed educators to

Indigenous oral text and European-American-based historical research on the modem era.

Their work represents what Maori researcher Linda Tuhi Smith (200 1) privileges as "the

vantage point of the colonized" (p. 1 ), and it has put a human face on history through the

living memories ofVirginia Indians. Throughout the interview process, all of this study's

participants returned time and again to the importance of correcting the historical record and

creating a balanced dialogue about Virginia Indians of the past and present.

The assimilation of Indigenous peoples through conversion, training, and education

by force if necessary-was promoted by Indian schools at colonial colleges such as William

and Mary and Harvard and at 191h -century Indian boarding schools including Hampton

Institute and Carlisle. As Helen Rountree has pointed out in Pocahontas 's People ( 1990), the

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English in Virginia turned toward "civilizing" its Indigenous peoples by the mid-1 ih century.

Virginia Indians were subject to laws that restricted their interactions and agency in relation

to Whites; the separation of people by color in Virginia society continued into the 19th

century. Societal attitudes fostered increasing demands for racial purity that further

disempowered Indians' agency and identity, grouping them with non-Whites (Rountree,

1990). Tightened racial classifications in the Commonwealth continued the assault on

Virginia Indians' cultural identity in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

On the national level, Theodore Roosevelt claimed in his 1889 history The Winning of

the West, written a decade before his presidency ( 190 1-1909) that the conquest of the Indians

and the winning of the West was "the great epic feat in the history of our race" (Gerstle,

2001, p, 20). Expanding on the concept of U.S. manifest destiny and racial nationalism,

Roosevelt sought to preserve America's Anglo-Saxon heritage, urging a paternalistic

assimilation of other racial and ethnic groups in response to waves of Eastern and Southern

European immigration in the early 20th century (Trachtenberg, 2004; O'Leary, 1999). This

position in tum created tensions between his Presidential goals of civic and racial nationalism

(Gerstle, 2001). Indians were idealized nationally and symbolically in popular culture

(Trachtenberg, 2004), but actual Native people were pressured to relinquish their tribal

identities and heritage, with the goal of assimilating them into mainstream culture along with

European immigrants (Calloway, 1999, p. 350).

Throughout the South, the rise of Jim Crow laws in the late 19th century produced the

atmosphere of social inequity and racial violence there (Brinkley, 2008). At the same time,

there were growing pressures to maintain a White majority status quo. Theories of the period

positioned eugenics as a means of race improvement. These theories contributed to stronger

71

segregation laws nationally (Cook, 2000) and to more stringent racial classifications within

the Commonwealth. Such laws had been passed previously in 1705 and 1866 in Virginia

(Wood, 2009). In 1910, the Virginia General Assembly (Acts of Assembly, 191 0)

established new racial classifications for the state:

Every person having one-sixteenth or more of negro blood is deemed a

colored person, and every person not a colored person having one-fourth or more of

Indian blood shall be deemed an Indian (p. 581 ).

Two years later, the Virginia General Assembly created the Bureau of Vital Statistics

to register all births, marriages, and deaths in the state, with birth certificates documenting

parents' races. Dr. Walter Ashby Plecker immediately became the bureau registrar. Plecker,

who graduated from the University ofMaryland's medical school in 1885, was a public

health officer in Virginia before heading the Bureau of Vital Statistics. In both positions, he

helped to reduce mortality rates for babies born to poor mothers through midwife education,

and was known as a public health innovator (Fiske, 2004). Plecker began waging a personal

crusade of documentary or paper genocide aimed at eradicating Virginia Indian identity by

changing or eliminating that racial classification on birth, death, and marriage certificates.

In his alliance with John Powell and other leading White supremacists in the state,

Plecker was empowered and emboldened to wield so-called scientific racism to accomplish

his goals. As Plecker's range of influence expanded throughout the state, he promoted racial

segregation and sterilization of even thousands of poor Whites placed in mental asylums and

classified as "defective persons."8 These individuals, along with African Americans and

8 Virginia's 1924 Eugenical Sterilization Law targeted poor White southerners as "degenerates" and was enacted to prevent the their propagation. The test case of Buck v. Bell was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1927

72

Virginia Indians, were targeted to eliminate unwanted mixing of races and undesirable

genetic traits in the state population.

Plecker was hardly alone in his convictions. In the early 20th century, eugenics as

sound science and society's route to improvement was espoused by university scholars,

scientists, and psychologists, some of whom developed related intelligence tests for Army

recruits and immigrants in the 1920s. Eugenics became accepted and taught as science in

institutions ofhigher learning and high schools across America (Schrag, 2010).

Within the next decade, the Virginia General Assembly exerted further control over

people of color by passing the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 as one of a series of legislative

actions called the Racial Integrity Laws.9 Virginia's new Racial Integrity Act only

recognized Whites and African Americans as racial classifications, on the theory that

Virginia Indians no longer existed as a definable population due to interracial marriage

(Tayac et al, 2006). The Virginia General Assembly approved "An ACT to preserve racial

integrity" on March 20, 1924. It read in part:

For the purpose of this act, the term "white person" shall apply only to the person

who has no trace whatsoever of any blood other than Caucasian; but persons who

have one-sixteenth or less of the blood of the American Indian and have no other non-

Caucasic blood shall be deemed to be white persons. (p. 535)

by an 8-l vote. Between 1907 and 1956,60,166 people were sterilized in the US, including 6,811 in Virginia (Painter, 2010, p. 275). 9 Although the federal American Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 granted full citizenship rights and suffrage to Native Americans, states controlled their right to vote. Virginia did not grant that right for two decades to its Native citizens (Tayac, Schupman & Simermeyer, 2006). Indians could not vote in all states until 1968 (Malcomson, 2000).

73

The "Pocahontas Clause"- the last clause in the above quoted section of the Act that referred

to those with one-sixteenth Indian blood-permitted prominent Virginia families to openly

retain their genealogical ties to the iconic figure while remaining legally White.

Plecker, who authored the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, served as Virginia's chief

enforcer of state racial integrity policies for 34 years (Fiske, 2004). Accordingly, he sent lists

of surnames of people-often including Virginia Indians- that he considered of mixed

lineage to public agencies to ensure that they would be treated as "negro." Plecker's

eugenics publications and his continuous manipulations of the law demonstrated his firm

conviction that "pure" Indians no longer lived in Virginia (Wood, 2007, Fiske, 2004). Thus

classified as "negro," state-sanctioned racial policies in Virginia barred Indians from

marriage to Whites, from identification as Indian on marriage and birth certificates, or from

equal education.

Throughout the state, Indians refused to send their children to the "negro" schools

and thereafter faced limited in-state options that included private Catholic schools, if

admitted, and tribal elementary schools. The State Board of Education and the State

Superintendent had begun providing elementary schooling on the Mattaponi and Pamunkey

Indian reservations. This happened partly in acknowledgement of colonial treaties of 164 7

and 1677 that established these reservations, but also a 1917 ruling that these tribes were thus

wards of the state (Library of Virginia, 2010). The Chickahominy's Samaria Indian School,

the Eastern Chickahominy's Tseno Commocko Indian School, and the Upper Mattaponi's

Sharon Indian School were non-reservation tribal schools, and thus without legally-mandated

State support (Rountree, 1990; Pfeus, 1949).

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The Monacan Nation's Bear Mountain mission school was established in 1908 and

received support from the Episcopal Church, Sweet Briar College, and to a limited extent, the

Amherst County School Board (Cook, 2000). According to Rountree (1990), Nansemond

students attended White schools, but Rappahannock students largely went without any

educational support. Even so, there was a school for Rappahannock students in Alps,

Virginia, and it is discussed later in this chapter.

Tribal schools often went to only the seventh grade, forcing Virginia Indians to drop

out, leave for Bacone College or its associated high school in Oklahoma, or attend similar

institutions in other states to complete their high school and college educations. However,

Kenneth Adams pointed out exceptions in the Upper Mattaponi community to the seventh

grade restriction: His older brother Wesley and several other Upper Mattaponi students were

schooled through the ninth grade in the woodshed that then served as their schoolhouse,

before Wesley went to Bacone for the tenth grade; Ken's older sister Nora went through the

eighth grade in the Chickahominy Indian school.

These examples underline the importance of personal and tribal histories that have not

yet become well known, but which demonstrate that Walter Plecker's efforts were thwarted

at times by Virginia Indians and Anglos alike despite his pervasive campaign. "It is not true

that Walter Plecker destroyed all records oflndian identity," Kenneth said. "We have Upper

Mattaponi documents: birth certificates, marriage licenses, and pre-WWI and also WWII

draft records listing people as Indian. But not all tribes have these kinds of records, and these

records are not a significant majority of Virginia Indians of that era."

Kenneth noted:

I do believe that many local people who lived close to the Upper Mattaponi

people knew them as Indians. I do know for certain that [Plecker] did attempt

to prevent Upper Mattaponi people from being listed on birth and marriage

records, but he did not completely succeed. Perhaps there were local people

at the [King William County] courthouse who were in our comer. There

could have been a variety of reasons. In 1930, several years after Walter

Plecker started his campaign, my mother and father were married in King

William County as Indians. Not long afterwards, the courthouse clerks

became a little bit wary. My father's sister and the man she was going to

marry went to the courthouse in 1939, and said that they were not leaving

until they were given a marriage license as Indians.

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Such examples of open resistance shifted the policy in King William County, but the

1920s were a very difficult period for Upper Mattaponi people, with some choosing to leave

the state. "Some people went to Pennsylvania to live and work," Ken said. "Eight to ten

families moved into the same community in the 1920s and 1930s. It wasn't just about

education, but about getting decent jobs as much as anything else. This was before and

during the Depression."

As related by several Native BJTI presenters, when it comes to Walter Plecker and

the enactment of laws directed against miscegenation, the Virginia Indians' response has

been a persistent emphasis to this day on their people's right to education. Other Virginia

Indian tribes besides the Upper Mattaponi had families who left or sent their children to

schools in other states. Virginia Indian tribes' strategies in-state included building their own

schools as noted above and collecting funds for teachers' salaries and Indian student

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scholarships. Anthropologist Frank Speck, who began contacting Virginia tribes in 1919 as

part ofhis research, helped surviving tribes to organize and to document their history in 1939

and the early 1940s. 10 Speck, James Coates, and other allies openly contested Plecker's

eradication efforts and the plight of Virginia Indian education. They gained support from the

federal Office oflndian Affairs in sending Indian students to public or church-run high

schools out of state and to the Cherokee Indian School in North Carolina (Rountree, 1990,

pp. 236-23 7). Walter Plecker retired in 194 7. Over time, state agencies as well as the

Virginia General Assembly took steps to reverse some of the effects of the 1924 Racial

Integrity Act, re-defining laws pertaining to Indians and adding educational opportunities for

Indian students. By the 1950s, the two reservation schools merged into one school on the

Mattaponi reservation for Grades 1-8. The consolidated facility was improved using State

funds and donations from the Society of Friends and the Richmond Dietetics Association

(Library ofVirginia, 2010). Beginning in 1953, Indian students ofhigh school age could

complete their coursework in Virginia at Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, Bacone Junior

College in Oklahoma, in Michigan, and at North Carolina's Cherokee Reservation School.

Other pressures for improvement were being applied in 1953 and 1954 by the American

Association for Indian Affairs (AAIA), the American Association of University Women

(AAUP), and the Veterans' Administration (VA). 11 In the 1960s as the African-American

civil rights movement changed the education landscape in Virginia, with public education

10 A detailed account of his efforts to involve federal authorities can be found in Rountree, 1990, Chapter 9. 11 Dr. Davis Y. Paschall was involved in Indian education during the 1950s as Director of Teacher Education and then State Superintendent of Education. His personal papers in the Wolf Law Library at the College of William and Mary include 1954 correspondence from J. L. Blair Buck, Coordinator of Teacher Education to Ms. Ida Hines of the Virginia Veterans Administration discussing why a possible lawsuit by the Association on American Indian Affairs would not be helpful. A copy of a 1952 letter from the Virginia American Association of University Women president concerns her visit to Samaria Indian School, the conditions she found, and the need for a better library there.

provided for Virginia Indians in Grades 1-12 (Library of Virginia, 201 0; Rountree, 1990, p.

242).

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For many Virginia Indians, the Plecker years strengthened their determination to

endure and to maintain their community bonds; yet oral histories and official documents are

vivid, painful reminders of racism and its long-term effects on their peoples. Describing the

enormity of oppression that tribal communities, families, and individuals experienced to

outsiders is difficult. Rhy Curry noted:

I don't think just reading [the Racial Integrity Act of 1924] is enough. [The

teachers] are not going to understand the real ramifications that it had until

they really start knowing the communities. And that's a Catch-22 as well,

because you tell people to go out and get to know these communities, but

you've got communities that are so distrustful of outsiders that they aren't

going to tell these stories to just anyone, like Ms. Jones who comes down

there and wants to learn about them. So that's why I think these Institutes are

so important-because we give [the BJTI participants] those stories. We give

them the knowledge that, just because of the way the cards were dealt, they

might not have been able to get themselves.

In that sense, the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute and its presenters brought a

Native perspective and discourse to program participants. Working within the 7-year cycle

of SOL review and implementation, the BJTI has supported the Standards ofLeaming-based

needs of the education community by instructing teachers in revisions about American and

Virginia Indians, and equally important, in the significance of these corrections. Authentic

representation has been growing through inclusion of Virginia Indian perspectives in

textbooks, lectures, conference panels, and scholarly publications nationwide. Upper

Mattaponi Chief Kenneth Adams (2007), a BJTI presenter, expressed the philosophical and

spiritual convictions underlying this resurgence (p. 5):

Our heritage is due respect as well as any other heritage. Our history needs to

be told as well as any other history. We cannot continue to be the forgotten

people in the history books or on the landmarks across this Commonwealth.

Our Creator placed us here as the gatekeepers of this land and our magnificent

story cannot and will not be buried.

The BJTI: A Virginia Indian-Directed Epistemology

78

BJTI teacher-participants learned about Web sites, lesson plans, and publications that

have been developed with a Native perspective and are now available as classroom resources.

They were introduced to significant revisions in the Virginia Standards of Learning about

American Indian and Virginia Indian history. In the 2007 and 2008 programs, BJTI

coordinator and lead scholar Karenne Wood and associate scholar Rhy Curry used class

discussions, activities, and assigned readings to bridge presentations by other faculty

members; some of these presenters additionally interacted with teacher-participants at

breakfast and lunch, depending on scheduled speaking times. Through these formal and

informal settings, the BJTI presenters oriented listeners to their views of Virginia Indian

history and cultures, and to modern issues such as federal recognition and persistent

stereotypes that modern tribes face.

In 2007 and 2008, the institute curriculum incorporated lectures by Virginia tribal

speakers, chiefs, and academic experts plus readings, instructional materials, discussions, and

field trips. The content for both programs focused on dispelling misconceptions and

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historical errors about Virginia Indians in popular culture and classrooms. In light of the

previous silence and stereotypes in both, this curriculum has introduced important Virginia

Indian perspectives on the past especially through their oral histories and first-hand

experiences and has encouraged discussion of modem issues, such as federal recognition. As

noted earlier, it has brought attention to recent statewide archeological work conducted in

collaboration with tribal representatives, to language reclamation and heritage preservation,

and to the social and emotional impact of the Racial futegrity Act and other manifestations of

racial bias.

BJTI coordinator and lead scholar Karenne Wood explained her views on the

significance of oral history in teaching about the Virginia Indian experience:

I don't know that I can articulate it in words that would be used by someone

in the Department of Education. I think in this case, it was very important to

me to expose teachers to first-hand accounts of how that history had impacted

peoples' lives. Because what I have observed is that I can talk all day long

about theories of history and instruction of history and use academic words

that may or may not impress people. But it's not until we get the public or the

teachers exposed to the actual tribal members and they tell their stories that

the transformative moment occurs.

The "transformative moment" that Karenne described is "where the teachers leave

wanting to be part of the changing ofhow that story is reported and to educate their students

so that these stereotypes are not perpetuated." I suggest that within the context of the

Beyond Jamestown Teachers fustitute, the epistemology that is imbedded in the pedagogical

approach of personal and tribal oral history creates key relationships between those telling

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stories involving historical grief and trauma and those hearing them, whether the listeners are

BJTI program participants or BJTI Native and non-Native presenters as observers. The

cultural and educational aspects of storytelling manifest in Native presenters' perceptions of

transmitting their heritage in this educational setting. Story and oral text function as major

influences on the program and its presenters, and contribute to a potentially transformative

encounter for the BJTI participants.

In their comparison of European-American and Indigenous research methodologies,

Moreton and Walter (2009) posit that Indigenous knowledge systems "remain intact and

continue to develop as living relational schemas" despite the disruption of European

colonization (p. 3). Rhyannon Curry's vision for the BJTI attests to the existence of the

power of descendant memory among Virginia Indian people:

[The institute] was a conduit where [tribal experts] would finally be able to

release all that knowledge, all those experiences, and all of that collective

memory that they've had. And it's something that is amazing about

Indigenous cultures. The collective memory is huge. And it's always there. It's

always been there, passed down for these generations. So the knowledge that

the elders have now is phenomenal.

Rhynoted:

And so I wanted those stories to be told in an audience that would be able to

take those experiences, take those stories, and take those hardships and those

victories and tell another group of people, and especially a younger group of

people about them. Because social justice, whether it's the Virginia Indians or

whether it's another group, is always there. And it's always the next

generation that is going to add to the successes that we've had in making these

changes. So I wanted to it to be this dialogue between cultures.

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Native BJTI presenters' roles in the decolonization of Virginia education are explored

here as evidence of a distinct, evolving Virginia Indian epistemology with three interwoven

themes manifested within the institute. I discuss these as processes of decolonizing (Epstein,

2001; Morgan, 2003; Smith, 2008; Tejeda, 2008), historical trauma and historical

unresolved grief(Duran & Duran, 1995; Brave Heart & DeBruyn, 1998; Whitbeck, Adams,

Hoyt, & Chen, 2004), and sacred memory (Holm, Pearson, & Chavis, 2003).

I explored decolonization earlier in the review of literature as a process or series of

strategies that enable people to critically examine the assumption of European-American

knowledge as absolute and recognize the legitimacy ofNative knowledge systems and

worldviews. Recognition outside Native cultures of the historical and cultural significance of

sacred memory is a significant aspect of the decolonization process. So is the recognition of

historical trauma and historical unresolved grief, two related constructs that connect the

American Indian Holocaust to Jewish Holocaust survivor literature as a theoretical and

applied body of knowledge, with similar patterns of grief for survivors and their children

(Brave Heart & DeBruyn, 1998, p. 65). In both cases, the traumatic effects of genocide are

intergenerational and when not legitimized by society, lead to a sense of disenfranchisement

as well as loss. Brave Heart and DeBruyn suggest that events such as the 1890 Wounded

Knee massacre and boarding school placement of Indian youths, along with other cultural

losses, were not validated by society and Indians were denied the right to grieve. Duran and

Duran (1995) trace the pain felt by many American Indians and their communities directly to

the colonization process.

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Sacred memory is one of four aspects of the Peoplehood Matrix, a descriptive model

of group identity encompassing sacred memory, language, place territory, and ceremonial

circle as interacting factors. Building on Robert K. Thomas's development of the

peoplehood concept (which distinguishes persistent peoples) in the 1980s, Holm, et al.

(2003) further expanded and applied the concept to American Indian studies. As they

explain, "A group's sacred history is told in the vernacular not only to give each member of

the group an understanding of where they come from, but also to impart to them proper

behavior and the ways in which they maintain group cohesion through ritualism and

ceremony" ( p. 13).

In Figure I, I show the three constructs of decolonizing, dealing with historical

trauma and historical unresolved grief, and maintaining sacred memory as elemental

activities ofthe Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute. As the program's presenters operate

within the BJTI framework, they in turn produce important outcomes: the correction of the

historical record, which promotes social justice; the sharing of stories between cultures,

which humanizes and enriches both, and the transmission of stories across generations, thus

preserving and protecting cultural identity and heritage.

When viewed as an interacting set of functions, this model suggests that the Beyond

Jamestown Teachers' Institute reflects and transmits an epistemology created by Virginia

Indians and to which presenters' roles are essential.

The three core BJTI functions, as reflected in the model in Figure 1, are 1) its

educational and decolonizing mission with regard to the teacher-participants, 2) the

maintenance of sacred memory originating in tribal communities, and 3) developing a pro-

active response through Native presenters to the historical trauma and historical unresolved

grief Virginia Indians experienced during the Plecker era.

Figure 1

A Model of the BJTI as Virginia Indian Epistemology

Correction of historical record as

social justice

nalingwith istorical trauma ------~'

Decolonizing

Virginia Indian epistemology operating

within the Beyond Jamestown Teachers'

Institute

Sharing of stories as humanizing process between cultures

Maintaining sacred

memory

Transmission of history

across Native generations

Three auxiliary activities emerge through the interaction of these core functions.

First, there is an inter-cultural sharing of stories and culture between the Native and non-

Native presenters and the predominantly White teacher-participants. Second, there is a

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transmission of history taking place across three generations ofNative presenters recognized

as active agents within the Virginia Indian communities. Third, a public correction of the

historical record generated through the Institute's decolonizing role and the Native

presenters' approach to the memories, using teacher development as an instrument of social

justice. These interrelated aspects of the Virginia Indian epistemology are also inter

dependent. They advance the institutionalization of the Virginia Indian counter-narrative in

modem society, strategically locating it in the classroom to influence future generations.

This model provides the means to begin deconstructing the roles of BJTI presenters,

beginning with the 11 Native study participants and characteristics that emerged from

analyzing their interview responses relative to each other and to the non-Native faculty. I

first discuss group characteristics of education, family background, and tribal affiliation that

the Native presenters related and then consider the four distinct cohorts (three Native, one

non-Native) that emerged from preliminary and axial coding of themes. I primarily focus on

the Native presenters here, and address the non-Native presenters later as a separate cohort

with its own singular and shared characteristics.

Group Characteristics of Presenters

Native presenters view education as having been an historical tool of domination and

source of cultural conflict, yet they place high value on it as a catalyst for social change and

for increased economic opportunities for their people. Each individual has developed into a

Native advocate either as a tribal or an academically trained expert. Of the 11 Native study

participants, four completed high school education, one has a Bachelor's degree, five have

Master's degrees, and one has a Ph.D. degree. Of the four who completed high school, at

least three had college coursework. Five participants with Bachelor's and Master's degrees

have undertaken advanced graduate studies.

85

The frequency with which these presenters referenced cultural identity and heritage

reclamation points to both as foundational values. Without exception, those with

multicultural heritage expressed appreciation for what it gave them. From Deanna

Beacham's French Huguenot ancestors immigrating to Virginia during the colonial era to

John Milner's grandfather who was an Austrian army general who immigrated in 1902, these

European ties were integral to their identities as people ofNative descent. They did not

consider them mutually exclusive. Ashley Atkins explained:

Well, my father is of Italian and German descent. His mother's side is German and

his father's side is Italian, so I know a little bit about that family history, not so much

as my mom's .... My mom, her father is Pamunkey Indian, Native American, and her

mother is Scotch-Irish descent, grew up in North Carolina. My grandfather grew up

on the reservation - so did my mother. She was born and raised there, as well as was

her father [Chief Warren Cooke]. Then she moved off the reservation at the age of 18

and that's when she met my father. And here I am today, born and raised in Virginia.

Chronologically, the Native BJTI presenters connect to important historical periods in

modem history, specifically as witnesses to changing societal attitudes toward the Virginia

Indian community and to American Indians. As described, some in their 50s directly

experienced the fallout of the Racial Integrity Act's effect on Virginia Indians, particularly in

societal attitudes and government restrictions. Some grew up in the post-segregation era and

experienced the freedom of attending public schools unchallenged by law or social stigma.

Yet they inherited the pain of the previous Plecker era through their family and tribal stories,

and in tum committed themselves to preserving their heritage and transmitting it into

mainstream society through academe.

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A middle group grew up in neighboring states (North Carolina and Maryland) and has

developed extensive personal and professional relationships with Virginia tribes in their

governmental and curatorial roles. Deanna Beacham and Gabrielle Tayac collaborate with

Virginia Indians and related constituencies on the state level in Richmond and on the national

level at the National Museum of the American Indian. Two younger presenters represent the

more recent era of Virginia Indian advocacy concerning both federal recognition for six

tribes and educational initiatives such as the previously noted Virginia Standards of Learning

revisions and the establishment of major inter-tribal and cross-cultural initiatives such as the

Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute.

The BJTI Presenters as Cohorts

Based upon their interview responses and insights, the BJTI teachers form four

distinct cohorts. Three cohorts are composed of the Native presenters and one consisted of

the non-Native presenters. Age is considered in all the cohort formations: overall, the cohort

members' ages range from their 20s to early 70s. However, the cohorts are more accurately

defined by era-related experiences of segregation. Several individuals have characteristics

related to another cohort; in those cases, I placed them according to how they primarily

described themselves and their experiences, and take responsibility for each person's

placement. For example, John Milner is part of Cohort One (the Keepers) because of the

teaching and advocacy partnership he shares with his wife Arlene for the Upper Mattaponi

Tribe, and because of his own experiences seeking education.

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Cohort 1 (the Keepers) are in their mid-60s and above. They felt the effects of two

historically and culturally traumatic social shifts, Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924 and

nationwide desegregation in 1968, and it significantly affected their life missions. As leaders

within the state, they have shared their stories within the Virginia Indian community and

increasingly with the public. Cohort Two members (the Bridge Builders) range in age from

mid-30s to early 60s. They are committed stewards of early-to mid-century 201h century

Virginia Indian heritage as well as earlier Native narratives. Through their educational

advocacy and scholarship, they have generated new discourse among the academy, other

social institutions, and other Native communities. The members of Cohort Three (the

Synthesizers), the youngest group, are in their 20s. They are direct recipients of the Keepers'

and Bridge Builders' efforts through the transmission of oral history, scholarship, and

activism. The Synthesizers are developing as mainstream, that is, university-educated Native

scholars and advocates.

Cohort Four (the Bridge Crossers) ranges in age from late 50s to early 70s. This

group is composed of the non-Native scholars who support and collaborate in Virginia Indian

empowerment through education, including the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute.

These cohorts represent a series of related interfaces between the Native past and the general

non-Native public, which, for the BJTI, is directed to its target audience of Virginia

educators and ultimately, their students.

In Chapter 5, I explore the deeper implications of this knowledge sharing. First, I

consider the BJTI Native presenters who are telling their stories (the Keepers) as an initial

analysis. Second, I examine in what ways these interactions are vital not only in pedagogy

and curriculum, but also as the foundation and moral center of the Institute's epistemology. I

88

will show that in an ironic twist of fate, the virulent 201h century forces that targeted Virginia

Indians for eradication and educational disempowerment accomplished the exact opposite: to

bond Virginia Indian communities against oppression, inspiring new generations of

education advocates to bring this shadowed past to light.

Chapter Five

The Keepers: Surviving the Fallout of Racial Integrity Laws

The black and white perspective of Virginia's pre-Civil rights era was not isolated to

the Commonwealth, nor was it the product of one era. Virginia's racial policies and attitudes

in that time resonated with the nationalistic American mood in the early 201h century and with

colonial attitudes worldwide. In 1916, in the view of Malcolm Grant, author of The Passing

of the Great Race, "native American" referred to the genetically superior Anglo-Saxon

citizen and certainly included neither the immigrants overtaking New York or those people

who inhabited this country long before the Europeans arrived (Schrag, 2010, p. 73).

Walter Ashby Plecker's decades-long campaign to eradicate Virginia Indian identity

was in line with Grant's position that the "great race" had to be protected from unwanted and

undesirable intrusion; it moved inexorably from eugenics into the realm of White supremacy.

The destruction of rights, educational opportunity, and documents was so catastrophic that

more than 80 years later, many Virginia Indians still feel the effects of what Plecker wrought

in historical trauma and unresolved grief, and in the educational diaspora it spawned. For six

of Virginia's Indian tribes, Plecker's systematic elimination of original birth, death, and

marriage records with accurate Indian racial identifications has hampered the federal

recognition process, but generated considerable Native and non-Native effort to correct the

historical record. These factors are integral to the core BJTI pedagogical narrative and to the

Keepers' (Cohort One's) importance as representatives of a transformed and transformative

generation.

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The Keepers

Kenneth Adams, Arlene Milner, Powhatan Red Cloud-Owen, and Gerri Reynolds

Wade share key understandings of the Plecker era and its aftermath as Virginia Indians.

They directly experienced segregation in the 1950s and 1960s as students who variously

went to school out of state, attended tribal or reservation schools, or attended Virginia public

schools immediately after desegregation. This group also includes John Milner, whose

background includes Cherokee heritage. John is very active in working together with his

wife Arlene on behalf of the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe. All five represent a historical

link to the past for the Bridge Builders (Cohort 2) and the Synthesizers (Cohort 3), who look

to them for their leadership and their stories as important parts of the Virginia Indian

experience within the context of the Beyond Jamestown phenomenon.

Before proceeding, it is essential to note these individuals all placed themselves

within a traditional continuum of time and community. They did not single themselves out

as unique; instead. They consistently acknowledged the contributions and experiences of

their ancestors, elders, and peers who are not currently BJTI presenters but who also shared

the impact of segregation in Virginia. The Keepers also look to the next generation of

Virginia Indian leaders to further expand health, education, and welfare opportunities, and

support them through current educational advocacy initiatives such as the Virginia Indian

Nations Summit on Higher Education and the Virginia Indian Pre-College Outreach

Initiative. The next sections discuss the Keepers' tribal affiliations, experiences, and

education as related in interview responses, followed by descriptions of their teaching

methodologies and intentions regarding the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute. Some of

the life experiences they shared with teachers in the Institute appear in this chapter.

91

Tribal Affiliations

All five Keepers proudly identify as Virginia Indian tribal members and uphold the

traditional beliefs and values of Virginia Indian cultures. All but one, Gerri Reynolds Wade,

presented in both years of the BJTI. All are active in multi-generational Virginia Indian

heritage events and organizations, are active presenters in other education settings, and are

committed to advocacy for their peoples and to their tribal communities. However, Keepers

are not all the same in some respects. Their education ranges from completing high school to

earning a Master's degree. Not all grew up in Virginia, and as stated, one is not a Virginia

Indian by birth. They have different tribal affiliations and heritage (Upper Mattaponi,

Cherokee, Chickahominy/Mohawk, and Rappahannock/Cherokee). These differences,

however, do not disrupt their group significance; instead, they mirror the diversity of

Virginia Indians.

Kenneth Adams is the current chief of the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe and very

active in the federal recognition movement and related advocacy initiatives. He and Arlene

Milner are related to each other and to former chiefs of their tribe. Arlene and John Milner

together have served as education representatives for the Upper Mattaponi; like Powhatan

Red-Cloud Owen, a current representative of the Chickahominy Tribal Council, they

participate in the Virginia Indian Nations Summit on Higher Education. Gerri Reynolds

Wade also serves as a VINSHE representative for the Rappahannock Indian Tribe.

Childhood Memories and Parental Protection

In their interviews, all five Keepers recalled in depth what it was like to grow up

during Virginia's segregation era, beginning with their childhood memories of parents and

other elders who shielded them as much as possible from the realities of racism. In several

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cases, their families moved or provided for educational opportunities out of state in response

to the oppressive atmosphere in Virginia. One Monacan Indian who left Virginia at 18

reflected, "We had three separate school systems in this county [Amherst], and I didn't even

recognize it. I didn't even recognize it. Because you know ... the elders kind of protected the

younger people coming up" (Cook, 2000, p. 111 ). Even so, the young learned about

prejudice and racial stereotyping as they matured, whether they were in Virginia or not. In

Arlene Milner's case, her parents decided to leave King William County for Philadelphia,

having heard of other Indian people who had done so because of the substantially better

educational choices. Her father got a job at Sears and her mother put the three children in the

public school system.

Arlene believes she did receive a good education there but observed that many Indian

survivors of segregation (and later, early integration in Virginia schools) do not

understand that Indian students in the North faced prejudice. People would come up

to you, and they would make the "war whoop" sound. They would say, "Where's

your pigtails, where's your braids? Things like that. My sister, having the middle

name Pocahontas, really bore the brunt [of] being tormented because she was an

Indian.

In contrast, Arlene recalled her childhood summers in Virginia with her extended

family as "heavenly, an Indian experience." Her grandfather was Jasper Lewis Adams, chief

of the Upper Mattaponi Tribe from 1923 to 1973, and her grandmother was Molly Holmes

Adams. 12 (The current chief, Kenneth Adams, is Arlene's first cousin and another of the

12 Molly Adams was posthumously recognized in 2010 as one of the Library of Virginia's eight Women ofthe Year.

93

Adams's grandchildren.) Arlene emphasized that none of the older relatives were willing to

talk about what happened in their lifetimes:

Children should be seen and not heard. That's how I grew up. But I did overhear a

lot of things that I wasn't supposed to. But [older relatives) never mentioned what

was going on with birth certificates and death certificates in front of the children.

They didn't want them to be hurt by it. I really don't know what it was. It was just

one of those things, you know. Indians have a lot of pride, and their pride was hurt

deeply.

From her aunts and uncles, Arlene learned what it was like to attend a one-room

schoolhouse, and these are stories she has shared with teachers and students. Her Virginia

relatives had to walk to their tribal school in King William County, while the White and

African American students rode on separate buses to segregated public schools:

And the kids who rode the buses would make fun of the kids that didn't ride the

buses, because most of the time, those kids [the Indian students) didn't even have

shoes on their feet. But my Aunt Eunice said, "We would walk with our heads held

high, and we would continue our walk to school."

Chief Jasper Adams and his wife Molly Holmes Adams were instrumental in the

purchase and construction ofthe first Sharon Indian School in 1919. Arlene's grandmother

did the cooking and cleaning at the Upper Mattaponi tribal school and the men of the tribe

raised money to pay a teacher, because their non-reservation school was not funded by the

state. Arlene recalled that the Department of Education would' always step in' to contest the

schoolteacher's credentials or documentation. "So there were always stumbling blocks that

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were put in the path of my grandparents and the elders of the tribe at that time," she noted.

"But they took the stumbling blocks and made them stepping stones, and I'm proud of them."

Gerri Reynolds Wade's Rappahannock family heritage includes her grandfather,

Samuel E. Johnson, who was assistant chief, and her mother, Dorothy Johnson Richardson,

who was treasurer of the tribe for 57 years. Her mother and her grandmother Clara Fortune

Johnson taught at the Macedonia Indian School for the Rappahannock Indians, located in

Alps, Virginia. Her mother graduated from high school, but her father could only complete

seventh grade where he grew up in Essex County (on Virginia's Middle Peninsula). He

owned a lumber mill and acquired four farms during his lifetime with Gerri's mother

working as his accountant. All their children are college graduates, and Gerri commented,

"They did without so that they could see us come into our own, so to speak. And so, I have

this strong admiration and respect for my family because it was, 'You can do it. You are who

you are. Don't let anybody take that from you.'"

Gerri told 2008 BJTI participants about a day when she and her family were hungry

during a car trip and pulled up to a restaurant in West Point, Virginia. It was 1957, and they

were returning from the 300th commemoration of Jamestown's founding and from seeing

Queen Elizabeth II at the festivities:

There were four ofus in the car with Mom and Dad, and Dad said, "We can't go in

there." And we're going, "Why not?" And so he and Mom were talking in the front

seat and Dad said, "It's White only." Mom said, "I don't care, I'm going in there, and

the children are going with me." But he started driving and he said, "No, we're not.

We can't go in there."

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Gerri wondered why they did not go into the restaurant, and the question stayed with

her while she and her siblings attended private schools in Maryland, New York, and Virginia.

When she asked years later about the restaurant incident, her mother said, "They didn't want

Indians or colored people in there." At the time, Gerri still did not understand what was

going on, but she later understood the full extent of racial discrimination and her mother's

protective attitude. Gerri passed through West Point in recent years and was "so delighted"

to see a McDonald's and a parking lot in place of that restaurant. Recalling the reactions of

BJTI participants, Gerri remembered one in particular. "She said, 'Did that really happen?'

She was probably in her 20s or early 30s. She couldn't imagine anything like that."

Powhatan Red Cloud-Owen agreed with Gerri's observation, saying, "It seems like in this

time era that some of the things I talk about, that a lot of them [the teacher-participants] can't

fathom it almost, or believe that these things happened."

The reticence of parents and elders to talk about segregation or its effects may in part

be attributed to protective instincts in an oppressive time. However, the reluctance of many

tribal members to talk outside their community about those years continues to this day.

Ritchie (2003) makes the point that oral researchers often find that survivors do not talk

about their experiences to their children, and that these individuals must move through shock

and denial as successive stages of grief:

People can stay in denial for a very long time. But as they grow older, and as people

who shared the experience die, the survivors will grant interviews as a way of

reconciling a haunting record, and also of ensuring that future generations do not

forget.

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The Keepers share a commitment to relate their experiences and to put them into

perspective for diverse audiences in instructive ways. It should not be assumed that they find

it easy to do so, as I discuss later in this chapter. Significantly, these presenters indicated that

they were mindful of their stories' potential emotional effect on Institute participants. This

awareness did not deter Keepers from communicating what they consider essential truths and

also relates to bridging strategies described in Chapter 6.

Personal Experience and Education

Ken Adams grew up in King William County, Virginia, where both parents were

members of the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe. In describing his Adams genealogy, Ken

began with William Adams, who was born about 1800. Ken estimated that about 90% of the

modern Upper Mattaponi tribal members are descended from William, who purchased a tract

ofland in King William County from the College ofWilliam and Mary in 1822. William

had two brothers named Thomas and Richard. "We were known as the Adams Town Band,

and later we officially became the Upper Mattaponi during the early 1920s." He noted that at

the time, the name change was part of a renewed interest in making the Virginia tribes

stronger, organizational structures, "maybe to fit into the concept" with Virginia state

~ 1 . . 13 government, county governments, as 10rrna orgamzatwns.

Ken's mother and father were both born in King William County, and had ten

children. Born after the end of World War II, Ken was a young boy when his older brother

Wesley left for Muskogee, Oklahoma, to attend high school and complete a two-year degree

at Bacone College. His oldest sister had gone to Bacone in 1949 for one year, and then went

13 As noted in chapter four, anthropologist Frank Speck was instrumental in helping tribes to organize in the early 1920s. However, each tribe had to focus on its own survival after 1923, as social and political pressures mounted in Virginia (Rountree, 1990).

to Michigan to earn her RN degree. Another older brother, Howard, and sister Emily also

went to Michigan to attend school. Ken commented, " ... Considering where we were and

how conditions were, we managed to do pretty well."

In those days, Ken recounted, children of the Upper Mattaponi tribe stayed with

families in Michigan:

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A former pastor of Indian View [Baptist Church] had transferred to Michigan and he

arranged for children of Upper Mattaponi students to live with families in Michigan.

Those were in and around Flint, Michigan and Lapeer, Michigan. There were nine or

ten children that went, some as young as 12 or 13. The tribal member who later

taught in Sharon school was one of those who went.

When Ken went to the Sharon Indian School in the 1950s and 1960s, he learned from

the same reservation teacher that his mother had in the 1920s. He attended that school until

tenth grade, when he left for a year to attend high school in Richmond. The following year

(1965), the King William public schools opened their doors to Indian students and he

graduated from King William High School.

Being on the cusp of Indian and public school education after desegregation, Ken did

not graduate with the credits he needed to attend the Richmond Polytechnic Institute (RPI,

now Virginia Commonwealth University). Despite working fulltime and going to summer

school to earn the needed credits, he realized he did not have the funds to attend RPI and

instead entered the military. There, through evening and weekend classes, he completed his

B.A. in Industrial Technology from Southern Illinois University. In recent years he has taken

courses towards a Master's degree in Public Policy through Troy University.

As they grew to adulthood, each member of this cohort employed strategies that

advanced their education or helped them to achieve professional success. Entering military

service was also the choice of Powhatan Red Cloud-Owen, who was born in upstate New

York to a Mohawk Indian father and Chickahominy Indian mother

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He lived in Long Island until the age of fifteen, and then returned to Virginia, where

he was in the next-to-last graduating class of Samaria Indian High School in Charles City

County. Back in Virginia, Ken said, "I thought it was going to be a breeze, but I was

unprepared for the racial discrimination still going on in this part of the country." He wanted

to further his education, "but when I got out of high school it didn't captivate me and didn't

hold me. So I left and didn't return. So I went in the Army instead."

John Milner entered military service, leaving home at 16 and completing his General

Educational Development tests (GED) in the Air Force. After leaving the military, he met

and married Arlene, who encouraged him to go back to night school. Once he had attained

his high school diploma, John was accepted to a university civil engineering program and

took classes for seven years before his job in the construction industry became too

demanding. 14 "With myself, I gave up a lot to go to school. My children had it a lot easier,

because they both graduated from college."

Transmitting Their Heritage

Diverse paths and accomplishments have brought the Keepers together to join in

common goals of educational advocacy for tribal youth and of teacher development in

Virginia. Both Arlene Milner and Gerri Reynolds Wade (along with Karenne Wood, a

Bridge Builder) contributed to the development of the revised Standards ofLeaming on

14 John asked that that the university not be named.

American Indian and Virginia Indian cultures and histories. All five individuals have

addressed controversial issues such as racism and stereotypes in many venues, from

elementary school classrooms to university lecture halls and Congressional hearings.

Through their testimony on the silenced history of the past, these individuals

challenge the dominant historical narrative regarding actual historical events related to the

Plecker era. Their knowledge and belief systems, together with their willingness to speak

through their experiences, have transformed them as authentic voices for that past.

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Keepers carry and continue to create a sense of cultural identity, pride, and

continuance through story and narrative, and they believe these stories can make a difference.

Their presentations centered on tribally related topics such as federal recognition, embedded

stereotypes and myths, the Virginia SOLs, and most of all their personal experiences as

Indians during the segregation era. All are effective public speakers who told their stories

with acute awareness of their non-Native listeners' knowledge levels. Having spoken to

many non-Indian audiences in the past, they also are empathetic to the effect their narratives

had on the BJTI participants in crossing these cultural boundaries. Their interviews revealed

that they were very aware of their audiences' reactions and had specific goals they hoped to

accomplish in their talks. All crafted their BJTI presentations through these personal stories

and see them as part of the oral tradition of their tribes and the collective history of Virginia

Indian people. None used audio-visual technology when presenting at the Institute, although

one person shared family photographs.

ChiefKenneth Adams of the Upper Mattaponi Tribe spoke in both years on the issues

facing Virginia Indians today from his perspective as a tribal leader, and explained what

prepared him most to be a BJTI presenter: "I've lived the life of a Virginia Indian."

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He continued:

Life experiences prepared me, as much as anything. I grew up in an Indian

community; I attended an Indian school; I attended an Indian church. All through my

childhood, all my friends were Indians. During the summer months, we would all go

to different Indian churches for their homecomings. So that was my life. I lived my

life as an Indian, but I did not really have any solid relationships with people other

than Indians until I was 16, 17, 18 years old. It was all I knew for a long period of

time.

Experience and Transcendence

Members of this cohort relate to the Virginia segregation era emotionally or

psychologically as direct survivors, but are not negative about transcending racial barriers.

Emotionally, they are able to share vivid memories with people outside their own culture and

demonstrate the transformative power of story and narrative as a two-way experience

between the storyteller and listener. Lakoffand Johnson (1980) posit that "what is real for an

individual as a member of a culture is a product both of his social reality and of the way in

which that shapes his experience of the world" (p. 14 7). When two or more cultures come

together, as in the case of the Beyond Jamestown program, the human connection made

through eyewitness accounts of the past creates a bridge between cultures and individuals'

personal worldviews or social realities. As I have discussed, the Keepers cohort bears

testimony to their elders and contemporaries who survived harsh pre-Civil Rights era

treatment as Virginia Indians. They share facts that generally are not known and believe that

in the long-standing absence of textbooks and public discourse on this history, they have a

responsibility to do so.

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Telling the stories of what happened to her parents and grandparents as well as many

more Indian people has been an important part of Arlene and John's teaching mission, for the

Institute and in other settings, as she emphasized:

What we did was to tell the story of how the Virginia Indians had been denied an

education and how our parents had wanted us to get a better education, and moved us

north. And it [the BJTI] was a good experience. We believe it was a first experience

for the teachers. They volunteered to come out because they wanted to learn more

about what it is to be a Virginia Indian.

All of the Keepers demonstrate agency in telling and interpreting their life

experiences as well as the histories of their tribes. As tribal experts and leaders, they chose

their subject matter as speakers and are considered experts on the same level as other

scholars on the faculty. Further, they keep these and previous generations' stories alive

through word of mouth transmission across generations. They themselves experienced

storytelling as an integral legacy of their heritage that for many years resided within the

culture for safekeeping in an oppressive atmosphere. In the Virginia Indians' fight for

federal recognition in the last decade, they publicly have exposed the injustices of Walter

Plecker's campaign against Virginia Indians. Powhatan Red Cloud- Owen described his

purpose in sharing these stories:

I wanted [the BJTI teacher-participants] to take away a story that wasn't told or

written in books that you might read. It was touched on in newspapers and papers

written, but very few books were written, and I guess it was embarrassing to Virginia

that they treated people like this. And I wanted them to take away that sense of

learning firsthand from somebody who experienced something like this. And hope

they got the story right from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

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Kenneth Adams has talked about his own education and the Sharon Indian School so

many times that it is "like talking about how to drive a car to me, any more," yet he

continues to share it as a vital part of the Virginia Indian narrative:

Most teachers didn't or don't realize that in Virginia, there were three separate school

systems. That's a fascinating subject. To imagine that instead of this massive

resistance that went on in the 191h century into the 1950s and 1960s, that the Virginia

School system had against desegregation, that same process was going on against the

Indians. Nobody knows that. There's nothing in the history books about that,

nothing in Virginia history at all that talks about the three separate school systems in

Virginia in some communities. So it's a history that hasn't been written. So I think

it's important for teachers to understand that part of history. And the only way they

can get that history is from the ones who experienced it. I think once this is

incorporated into the history books, they can get that history. But they will never get

the same type of history from a book as they can from listening to someone who

actually lived it.

In sum, because of the Keepers' advocacy and accomplishments, these individuals

represent a greatest generation along with peers who broke through Virginia's strict racial

barriers to greater recognition of their rights to identity and citizenship (although federal

recognition for the six tribes seeking it has not followed yet as of this date). Keepers

continue to advocate through education. They witnessed segregation as young people and

have contested it as adults; they share their experiences despite how it feels to relive them.

Their actions demonstrate historical unresolved grief and sacred memory and have been

significant influences on their teaching methodologies. When it comes to these painful

episodes and conveying them to an audience, particularly one unfamiliar with them, Gerri

Reynolds Wade feels that the telling must come from Native people:

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Nobody but we Indians can explain that. It's very important when that is conveyed

that it is conveyed with all the emotion, with all the feelings, and everything that goes

into it or went into it for us. It's not something to be taken lightly, and so therefore, it

has to be written about in a very sensitive, caring way that's not just words on a page.

Because it's people's lives. If you haven't walked in our moccasins, you can't

understand. Sometimes, they don't come with Dr. Scholl's innersoles. You just have

to put [innersoles] in there.

"I think that is where things need to get managed very carefully," said Gabrielle Tayac in the

Bridge Builder cohort, who is a specialist in Native oral text and storytelling. "Where there's

trauma involved. Because in terms of classic situations, you want to be careful about re

traumatizing people every time they tell it."

She explained with a story about a National Museum of the American Indian session

where one Virginia Indian witness to the Plecker era was requested to speak about those

times. He commented, "I'm getting really sick talking about it. It hurts every time I have to

say this." Gabrielle concluded: "And I think he had just had it. People get maxed out. And

so that's something to be very careful about."

This statement foreshadows my premise regarding Bridge Builders, including

Gabrielle Tayac. Just as the Keepers tell the stories of survivance for their people in modem

times, the Bridge Builders protect and preserve these narratives-and honor these storytellers.

Chapter Six

Bridge Builders and Synthesizers: Sharing Pride, Pain, and Commitment

Chapter 4 outlined the implications of Dr. Walter Ashby Plecker's actions as registrar

of the Department of Vital Statistics and of strategies of resistance utilized by Virginia

Indians to gain education for their children. Some left the state to maintain their cultural

identities in more tolerant environments or to pass as White (Waugaman & Moretti

Langholtz, 2006; Cook, 2000, Rountree, 1990). Plecker barred a generation from state public

education and full citizenship through the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 and an active

campaign of enforcement, intimidation, and methodical alteration of state and county

records.

Until1972, the Bureau ofVital Statistics could legally send a warning with Indian

birth and death certificates that the individual was classified as "Colored" (Egloff &

Woodward, 2006). This was a legacy of the Plecker era aimed at eradicating Indian identity

in Virginia. Likewise, Indians could not legally marry in Virginia after 1924 and be recorded

as Indian, nor could they marry Whites in-state.

Tribal communities and their White allies in state and county government, academe,

and religious denominations opposed Plecker's policies (Rountree, 1990). As opposition

mounted against racial purity in the 1940s, Plecker's influence lessened; he finally admitted

his lack of evidence regarding Virginia Indians (Wood, 2009). His retirement in 1946 and

unexpected death in 194 7 removed the Virginia Indians' most infamous modern adversary

from power, but not from pervasive influence. The State Registrar's actions had irrevocably

changed Natives' lives across the state and denied their identities. Some hospitals and other

public institutions still enforced his racial classification policies into the 1960s (Cook, 2000),

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and the Bureau of Vital Statistics could legally attach the designation of "colored" to Indian

birth and death certificates until 1972 (Egloff & Woodward, 2006). 15 Although Plecker' s

actions did extreme damage to Virginia Indian cultural identity and historical documentation,

he also accomplished something he had never intended: to create unity through adversity

among the tribes and enable Virginia Indians to forge a new identity (Rountree, 1990). In a

2000 newspaper interview, Monacan tribal activist and researcher Diane Shields said, "It's a

horrible thing, what he did to the Indian people. But you know what? It gives me a sense of

belonging- because I'm grouped with my own people. It kind of backfired with Plecker"

(Hardin, 2000).

Inroads in Public Education

By the 1950s, Indian students finally had greater opportunities to complete high

school coursework, as noted previously. The 1950s and 1960s were a dissonant time in

which social pressures for equity were met by deeply embedded resistance to changing the

status quo in Virginia. Yet Indians persevered. BJTI presenter Samuel McGowan's uncle,

Dr. Linwood Custalow, was graduated as the first Virginia Indian physician in 1964, while

other Virginia Indians of his generation were also advancing in higher education.

Meanwhile, Indian students entering Virginia public schools for the first time after

desegregation met with differing degrees of hostility and resistance in school settings.

Reactions by other races ranged from fights and name calling to White parents putting their

children in private schools to avoid integrated schools altogether (Waugaman & Moretti-

Langholtz, 2006; Tayac, Shupman & Simermeyer, 2006; Rountree, 1990).

15 After 1967's Loving v. Loving decision, Indians could obtain corrected copies of birth certificates filed before 1960, but had to pay for them until Virginia General Assembly legislation was passed in 1997 making such changes free of charge (Waugaman & Moretti-Langholtz, 2006).

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In Amherst County, racial tensions were so extreme that bus drivers could refuse to

pick up Monacan students; some dropped out of school as a result, but others became the

first Monacan Indian graduates in the 1970s (Cook, 2000). Cook posited in his 2000 study

that race relations between Whites and Monacan Indians began to improve over the next two

decades because children of both races grew up going to school together. This hard-won

change underscores the vital nature of face-to-face contact in intercultural learning and

understanding, making the BJTI and other Virginia Indian initiatives in teacher education a

critical factor in their education advocacy.

Cohort Two

"When you tell a story, it happens over and over again."

-- Gabrielle Tayac

Karenne Wood, Deanna Beacham, Gabrielle Tayac, and Samuel McGowan did not

live through Virginia segregation in the Plecker era. Like others in their age group, these

individuals understand through elders' stories, but they, their families, and communities have

endured prejudice in their own lifetimes. Segregation shaped their elders and is part of the

historical narrative for Cohort Two members. Their era was marked by civil rights and

Indian activism, but they were privy to the stories from their elders' earlier resistance on

behalf of equal opportunity and Indian identity under the law. Public schools were not

opened to Virginia Indian students until1963. Civil rights for Virginia's Native peoples

were advanced by the US Supreme court decision in Loving v. Virginia (1967) and the

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Virginia General Assembly's 1975 repeal of all state segregation and racial definition laws

(Rountree, 1990). 16

In addition to their support for Native peoples overall, Bridge Builders advocate for

two special constituencies: those who experienced oppression, whether in Virginia or

elsewhere in the generations before them, and the rising generation of future Indian leaders

and tribal members now in public schools and universities. Like the Keepers, these BJTI

presenters also accept the obligation to teach the public about their people, their heritage, and

the realities of the past. Like the Keepers, they also network effectively within the Virginia

Indian communities and with allied organizations and individuals. Unlike Keepers, however,

they started from a stronger position. Their agency originates in the previous generation's

resistance to colonialism and their own increased educational and professional assimilation

into mainstream culture as distinctly Native people.

Tribal Affiliations

Karenne Wood and Samuel McGowan are members of the Monacan Indian Nation

and Mattaponi Indian Tribe, respectively. Samuel's grandfather was Mattaponi Chief

Webster Custalow and his mother Shirley Custalow McGowan is a well-known Native

educator. Deanna Beacham is a member of the Weapomeoc Indian Tribe ofNorth Carolina,

and Gabrielle Tayac is a member of the Piscataway Indian Tribe of Maryland, for which her

uncle is the current chief. All four individuals connect to Virginia Indian history and to their

own cultural identities as educators through work in related fields such as museum education,

16 The US Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) made separate public schools for White and African American students unconstitutional. School desegregation was questioned as beneficial by some Virginia and North Carolina tribal communities with Indian schools on the basis that Indian schools helped them to maintain their cultures (Currie, 2005; Rountree, 1990). In Loving v. Loving (388 U.S. 1, 1967), the US Supreme Court overturned the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, specifically ending all legal bans on racial intermarriage in the nation .

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archeology, and tribal education, and participation in Virginia Indian-related organizations.

Both Karenne and Deanna have worked in statewide tribal affairs through the Virginia

Council on Indians (VCI), which was established primarily to advise the Governor and

General Assembly on Indian affairs in the state. Deanna is the VCI Program Specialist, and

Karenne is the former chair of the VCI and the current director of the Virginia Indian

Heritage Program for the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.

All the Bridge Builders have achieved significant educational empowerment and

more Native agency in European-American academic settings than the generations before

them. They interact with K-12 schools, universities, government, and museums as educators,

consultants, and public speakers. Karenne and Gabrielle have both authored or edited books

that present Indigenous viewpoints and curated major exhibits on Native history and cultures.

In all capacities, Bridge Builders aim to preserve the Keepers' oral histories and traditions of

the past for Native communities (together with other tribal members' eyewitness stories) and

to institutionalize this heritage within the dominant culture through their scholarship and

teaching, and through building collaborative networks with organizations and individuals in

the dominant society. This statement is not meant to suggest that these individuals escaped

the effects of colonialism; rather, their own experiences and education in Virginia, Maryland,

and North Carolina prepared them to appreciate the eyewitness experiences of the previous

generation and to bring attention to them.

Gabrielle Tayac is now a curator at the National Museum of the American Indian and

spoke in the 2007 BJTI program about Native history in the Chesapeake. Her father, a

member of Maryland's Piscataway tribe, took his family to Greenwich Village, New York as

a rejection of the harsh, racially related treatment he received from teachers growing up.

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Stewards of Heritage and Identity

Preserving Native perspective and knowledge is important to this group. Karenne, a

first-generation college graduate, earned a Master's degree in Creative Writing and a

Bachelor's degree in English before starting her current doctoral studies in anthropology. As

coordinator and lead scholar for the BJTI, she saw its creation as filling several critical needs:

I would say that having been involved all this time in education and tribal history, it's

very obvious that people in Virginia don't know what they need to know about

Virginia tribes. It's something that has been on the minds of tribal leaders for decades.

And as a more educated person of tribal affiliation, I felt that it was my job, along

with other people of similar experience, to work with teachers to change what they

were teaching in public schools about Virginia Indians.

Karenne said that her extended family consists of 1,700 Monacan Indian Nation tribal

members: "I know that group intimately because I have been working with the tribe for 15

years." She also has been involved with tribes throughout Virginia and the nation through

her former position as chair of the Virginia Council on Indians and as current director of the

Virginia Indian Heritage Program.

Deanna Beacham works in the Virginia Council on Indians in the Governor's Office

as program specialist and as a consultant to archaeology-based organizations and major

institutions. She grew up in North Carolina with Weapomeaoc heritage; her family dynamic

resembled those of Virginia-born BJTI presenters in the storytelling sense, but mostly

centered on genealogy:

On [my] Indian side, it was a common topic of conversation in sitting around the fire

in the evening. I'm romanticizing here, actually it was sitting around my great-

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grandmother's wood stove in her living room kind of thing, and relatives, great-aunts

especially, were really important in this.

Deanna recalls that most of the time, female relatives led the discussions of history

and genealogy with her as an avid listener. "Just taking it all in. I wasn't bored by it. Ever.

Even though I heard the same stories over and over again. And sometimes they were

censored because of the little ears in the comer."

Deanna described herself as largely self-taught on Virginia Indian and American

Indian history, immersing herself in the history of the Virginia and Carolina Indians. She

applies her knowledge of archeology and anthropology to analyzing primary source

documents and to combating associated stereotypes and historical fallacies. Her goal is to

examine these sources and re-interpret them from a Native perspective "that hopefully is not

so colored by the Eurocentric constructs" that she, Karenne, and other Native people grew up

with. "Because that's the way the academic background is, you don't have a Native academic

background, you just have an academic background and it's all Eurocentric. So you have to

fight that, and find ways to go around it. ... "

Connecting family narratives and tribal traditions, Samuel McGowan has taught

nationwide about Powhatan Indian history and heritage with his mother, Shirley "Little

Dove" Custalow McGowan, for most of his life. She attended the Mattaponi Indian School

on the Mattaponi Reservation, and shared memories of an Anglo teacher, Dr. Daniel Slabey.

He appreciated Native cultures, and encouraged students to perpetuate traditions such as

drumming and pottery making. Shirley told her son how it felt as an adult to be forced to

leave the state to marry, because Whites and Indians could not wed legally in Virginia. In

the mid-60s, Samuel's eldest brother attended a Christian school in Richmond where their

aunt and uncle lived, because it was during the transition period between the Mattaponi

reservation school closing and Virginia public schools admitting Indians.

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In his own work, Samuel has utilized both traditional Native and European-American

methodologies in public school classrooms across Virginia as an Education Outreach

educator for the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation and participated as a tribal historian and

expert in the 2008 Institute. During his interview, Samuel emphasized the importance of

teaching "through Native eyes, through Native mouths" rather than from a European

American Eurocentric perspective, to enable his listeners to better understand the resiliency

and richness of Virginia Indian cultures:

For a long time, we've taught things in the Western way, but the neat thing is, you

know, we always hear about how much Native peoples have lost. That's all you hear.

"Natives have lost out. I feel so bad, I feel so sorry, they've lost everything." ... I tell

people that my father is Scotch-Irish, his people have been here for a long time in

Gloucester, Mathews, King and Queen County. But do you know, I know far more

about my mother's people than I do my father's people. I know more of the

ancestors' names and surnames and everything, even though I am half Scotch-Irish

and half Mattaponi .... Being brought up on the reservation, I was brought up mainly

Native.

Bridge Builders carry their Native worldviews into their mainstream professional

activities as cultural representatives and as facilitators for cross-cultural interactions in the

academy, government, and other social institutions. While Keepers developed strategies to

gain education and empowerment despite racial barriers on behalf of the Virginia Indian

people. Bridge Builders have carried that empowerment forward in the development of a

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distinct Virginia Indian epistemology. They teach, publish, and present within academe yet

work with tribal communities in distinctly traditional ways. Bridge Builders members use

their familiarity with dominant majority educational systems to articulate aspects of this

epistemology through websites, museum exhibits, higher education settings (classrooms and

distance learning) and global discourse with other Indigenous communities.

Gabrielle Tayac offered this suggestion, with that in mind:

I think some of the histories in the surrounding states, especially the Southeast,

would be very beneficial and maybe that would be a different institute, not Virginia

Indian, but the history of the Southeast. And it would help teachers in all of these

different states, because like I said, a lot of the laws that were passed, a lot of the

experiences were similar because they were all feeding off of each other. The states

were passing laws that were the same, which a lot of times resulted in similar

experiences and at times were dramatically different.

As one of the Native scholars and curators in the National Museum of the American

Indian, Gabrielle Tayac sees the BJTI and its significance within a larger framework of

national and international Native knowledge systems. Like the other Bridge Builders and

Indigenous experts worldwide, she also presents a compelling argument for the vitality of

oral tradition. Combined, these cohorts speak to oral tradition's strengths in helping people

to visualize and to relate to each other and to parts of Native culture that are distinctive, such

as storytelling: "The power of the word is very firm in oral sensibility. People often will

have an economy of speech because everything that's said really, really matters." Gabrielle

noted that Native people "have been part and parcel of all the mainstream things since 1607.

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It's not saying that there's a pocket of Indians dealing with this Native tradition" but that

there have also been "pieces of culture that move along that are distinctive." She continued:

Everybody's been going along with every change, but there have been pieces of

culture that move along that are distinctive. So I think that with the storytelling, it

doesn't always transmit every detail of fact or figure, but it transmits value. It

transmits what is the most important thing."

Cohort Three: The Synthesizers

"We're still in the early stages."

-- Ashley Atkins

Within this study, the Keepers have been defined in part by the Racial Integrity Act of

1924 and the Bridge Builders by the advent of laws acknowledging their civil rights and

cultural identity under the law. I define the Synthesizers and their peers in this early stage as

witnesses to a collectively pro-active tribal and inter-cultural period marked by building

momentum for federal recognition. In 1983 the Virginia Council on Indian Affairs was

established and six Virginia Indian tribes gained state recognition through the Virginia

General Assembly, followed by similar recognition for the Nansemond Tribe in 1985 and the

Monacan Indian Nation in 1989 (Egloff & Woodward, 2006).

In 1999, the drive for federal recognition led to the establishment of the Virginia

Tribal Alliance for Life (VITAL) as an advocacy group that supports the introduction of

Congressional bills for recognition instead of the former path through the Bureau of Indian

Affairs. 17 Important Virginia Indian-related initiatives for education include the United

17 The US House of Representatives passed H. R. 1385, the Thomasina E. Jordan Tribal Recognition Act in June 4, 2009 extending federal recognition to six tribes, but to date, the US Senate has not voted upon this bill.

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Indians of Virginia (1988), the Virginia Indian Nations Summit on Higher Education (2000),

the Virginia Indian Heritage Program of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (2005),

and the Virginia Indian Pre-College Outreach Initiative (2009). 18

Synthesizers represent the smallest sub-group of BJTI presenters, but are

disproportionally significant as recipients of the previous generations' actions and

achievements, and as the forerunners ofNative identity in the new millennium. Despite their

position as the youngest presenters, one, Rhyannon Curry, a Muskogee Creek Indian, was the

associate BJTI scholar and helped to envision the program with lead scholar Karenne Wood.

As a graduate student at the University of Virginia, Rhy was instrumental in developing

Virginia Indian-based content for public projects such as the international 2007 Jamestown

commemoration and the Virtual Jamestown Archives website at the University of Virginia's

Virginia Center for Digital Learning. Ashley Atkins worked extensively on the

Werowocomico archeological project in Gloucester, Virginia as a site-based educator and

currently is conducting archeological research on the Pamunkey Indian Reservation for her

dissertation at The College of William and Mary.

Rhy and Ashley, like other Native people of traditional college and graduate school

age, look to older tribal members as role models and carry their stories and traditions

forward. These rising professionals are gaining more educational empowerment through

European-American academic credentialing and opportunities made possible by those who

have paved the way. The students of this generation exemplify the further fulfillment of

18 VIP-COI is a joint collaboration between Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (which received a three-year grant to develop this outreach to Native students in middle school and high school), the University ofVirginia, and The College of William and Mary. Native students at all three schools staff booths at Virginia Indian powwows and help at tribal summer camps, providing easily accessible information on college admissions, scholarships, and other questions Native students and parents may have.

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educational aspirations that Keepers fought for and Bridge Builders have advanced and

begun to institutionalize in the mainstream culture. They started challenging societal

conventions about Indians early in their lives and continue to do so by integrating Native

worldviews into academic and public discourse. Today, Ashley Atkins said, she is "really

focusing on the political implications of how we intyrpret and represent the past." "For

example, in my experience growing up, there was no representation, so how does that teach

people about Native people? There are none, because you're not learning about them.

They're not in your consciousness."

The Synthesizers' family backgrounds, coupled with growing up in a more global

society, have enabled them to synthesize multiple discourses and cultural viewpoints as

Native people. Rhy commented on the benefits of her "extremely mixed heritage," which

includes her father, who is Muskogee Creek and Romanian Jewish, a grandmother from

Texas, and a grandfather from Virginia whose ancestors immigrated there 400 years ago:

So we've been in this country for a long, long time. I grew up well aware of where

my family came from and the struggles on all sides ... .I think for me, I was in just a

really special place, because I have such a diverse background. I was blessed as a

child, because I was given amazing educational opportunities and yet I was always

reminded of who I was, where I came from, and who my people were, no matter

which people those were. So I was able to really kind of go in and out through

different cultures and understand different learning styles. For lack of a better

descriptor, it was kind of a bilingual or bicultural education and so I knew how my

family wasn't educated. I knew how they learned, and yet going through education

myself, I knew how people taught.

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Connections between the Keepers, the Bridge Builders, and the Synthesizers

The centrality of family, tribe, and nation to identity for the Native BJTI presenters is

one aspect of the systemic beliefs and values that emerged during their interviews. The non

Native Bridge Crossers, while not affiliated by birth and cultural identity, work closely with

the other cohorts and provide another perspective. In tum, the audience of teacher

participants translates their new understanding of a Virginia Indian counter-narrative to

students in their classrooms. Chronologically, the Keepers are closest to the traditions and

heritage of previous generations and past historical events and transmit the essence of

Virginia Indian cultural identity as public figures. Next, the Bridge Builders have created an

academic platform within social institutions for the Virginia Indian narrative, particularly the

20th century, through the Keepers' eyewitness accounts as oral history. In tum, the

Synthesizers are merging the contributions of the previous two Native groups and preparing

to carry it forward as scholars and professionals within their own communities, academe, and

other social institutions.

These presenters accepted the challenge of contesting the historical narrative by

providing an effective counter-narrative using oral history, documentation, and archeological

evidence. In a deeper sense, these strategies derive from collective beliefs and values

described in Chapter 7.

Chapter Seven

Characteristics ofBJTI Native Curriculum and Pedagogy

I have drawn from related literature and fieldwork to construct my analysis of how

the BJTI presenters form distinct and complementary cohorts. This analysis is based in part

on varying degrees of their personal experience with 201h century resistance to Virginia

Indian identity, education, and citizenship, specifically the Racial Integrity Act of 1924.

European-American and Indigenous teaching methodologies guided my exploration of how

this study's participants view their roles in the 2007-2008 Beyond Jamestown Teachers'

Institutes.

In this chapter, I compare the three Native cohorts named in this process (the

Keepers, Bridge Builders, and Synthesizers), examining their paradigms, curricula, and

pedagogies in comparison to European-American and Indigenous models outlined in Chapter

3. The fourth BJTI cohort, the Bridge Crossers, is described separately in Chapter 8.

Table 4 summarizes my understanding of Native BJTI cohorts' paradigms related to

teaching within the program, based upon their responses to interview questions. Individuals'

phenomenological experiences differ within each group; their insights added substantially to

my understanding of each cohort's contribution to this teaching process and how each

complements the others. Their comments and reflections revealed significant characteristics

for each cohort.

I initially organized my data through collective themes revealed in the coding

process, using curriculum and pedagogy as primary units of analysis. Tables 5 and 6

deconstruct the Native presenters' teaching methodologies respectively as curriculum and

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pedagogies and demonstrate the possibility of specific beliefs and intentions within each

cohort's instructional role.

The Native Cohorts' Paradigms

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I have posited that as witnesses to the effects of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, the

Keepers cohort symbolizes the persistence of collective tribal memories and the resilience of

Virginia Indian cultural identity despite governmental and educational restraints. I argued

that the Bridge Builders followed in the post-segregation era, creating an academic platform

for the Virginia Indian narrative, particularly situated within the 201h century, and

institutionalizing the Keepers' eyewitness accounts as oral history. I identified the

Synthesizers as the inheritors of increased educational opportunities in part made possible by

efforts of the previous two Native groups. They in tum are preparing themselves to carry the

Virginia Indian historical narrative forward as 21st century Native scholars and professionals.

Central to the Keepers' identity as a cohort is their characteristic emphasis on both

personal and tribal struggles for education. This view resonates with the Virginia Indians'

community-based focus and their deep commitment to contesting Virginia's dominant

majority narrative with oral histories, oral text, and written state and local records. Beyond

educating teachers, this cohort signifies the increased agency of Virginia Indians regarding

their history and the rejection of past silences imposed by governmental and societal

restrictions. Further, they are the living proof of Virginia Indian cultural resilience as

survivors of historical trauma and educational diaspora. The table reflects accelerating stages

of Native agency in Virginia education that the Keepers helped to set in motion for the

Bridge Builder and Synthesizer cohorts, each of which has assumed its own role in teaching

about Virginia Indian history and cultures.

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Table 4

Paradigms of Native Presenters

Paradigm Kee2ers Bridge Builders Synthesizers Ontology Whites controlled; Native knowledge is Native participation and

Indians were key in correcting understanding of Native marginalized; education current history and history is vital to opens doors; current gaining agency; decolonizing society; history is inaccurate educational assimilation continue cultures and and incomplete; Indians and collaboration continue traditions can and will correct the empowers Indians parts that involve them

Epistemology Family and personal Allied Tribal experts, Native participation and experiences vis-a-vis Native and non-Native understanding advances societal and legal scholars collaborate history and cultural controls are essential to through respect; they identity within tribes, maintain tribal history contest and correct educational arena and and to modify current history and are society dominant mainstream equally valued history

Methodology Keepers preserve Bridge Builders present Synthesizers are history through tribal Native knowledge preparing to help more members' stories of the within European- Native people to teach past and develop American education about Native history; collective histories; framework to extend its they want to use they tell stories across reach; they focus on technology to expand generations and Native perspectives and BJTI knowledge to cultures to correct perpetuate Native other states and the historical narrative history university level

Axiology Keepers cherish Bridge Builders esteem Synthesizers revere Indigenous knowledge; Indigenous knowledge Indigenous knowledge, their stories preserve and research; they articulating work of and communicate create Native agency other Native cohorts feelings of endurance and empowerment in and expanding it in 21st-and identity education by linking century society

cultures

The stories told by the Native presenters in this cohort are born of a larger group

history, in this case the Commonwealth of Virginia's mistreatment ofVirginia Indians during

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the enforcement of the 1924 Racial Integrity Act and the exclusion of their people from the

mainstream historical narrative. Their experiences and descendant memories are the BJTI's

curricular cornerstone for the modem era. The alternatively harrowing and uplifting stories

they tell as survivors challenge a general lack of knowledge about the race-based

mistreatment ofVirginia Indians in the 201h century. Through their stories, the Keepers

reveal an alternate historical account with the capacity to change classroom instruction and

popular assumptions. Their teaching methodology, as described in the Keeper paradigm, is a

manifestation of Virginia Indians' growing agency in claiming Native space in mainstream

culture. It is a continuing and unfolding process through which heritage and identity are

inserted and then perpetuated through education within the Virginia Indian community and

validated externally in academe and other social institutions.

Inherent in this process and in the stories that the Keepers tell is an implied sense of

agency, empowerment, and access denied and achieved within their lifetimes. They shared

those stories in the BJTI, a space of Native-created intellectual sovereignty and a forum for

critiquing the dominant narrative and revealing the widespread oppression that Indians

experienced during the segregation era. Remenyi (2004) contends that story and narrative

deconstruct complexity; in this case, Virginia Indians' oral history and their perspectives on

the past previously were omitted in the mainstream narrative of oppressive treatment endured

by Virginia Indians, with resulting silences in that narrative.

By sharing their experiences and those of their parents, the Keepers in essence are

reliving the painful pasts that forged them as education advocates and leaders, validating the

Virginia Indian historical perspective through eyewitness history. "You know, being in the

presence of these stories and of these people should be a humbling experience," Rhyannon

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said, stressing that that is true whether she and fellow Bridge Builder Karenne were hearing

these stories for the first or the hundredth time. "People lived this life. And they have

survived it by the grace of God, and are now able to tell their stories and perhaps have to tell

their stories."

"I believe my philosophy goes, I can't tell you about where I'm going, unless I tell

you where I've been, and it's a history in itself," said Keeper Powhatan Red-Cloud Owen.

He believes that people today find some things he talks about, like civil rights activism or the

Vietnam era, difficult to comprehend or even accept:

And when I speak to teachers, when I speak to students on a college level or

whatever, I tell them experiences that happened in my life and they look at me like,

"wow, did that really happen to you"? I would be so mad if someone did something

like that to me." And yeah, that happened, and I'm telling you this not because I'm

angry. I want to teach you and let you know we can make the world better."

Arlene Milner, another Keeper, reflected, "My husband and I when we speak, the last

thing we always say is- and we want everybody to take this away with them- is we're not

bitter, we're better. And we are better."

In comparison, the Bridge Builders' paradigm builds vertically upon the life

experiences and tribal knowledge of their colleagues, the Keepers. Through their own

academic connections, the Bridge Builders build the new narrative horizontally between

mainstream societal institutions, such as those in government and education, in making this

knowledge accessible to broader academic audiences. By adding their own research to the

expanding Virginia Indian knowledge base, this cohort demonstrates the advantage gained by

its members' experience in academe, which enables them to articulate key similarities and

differences between the BJTI experience in comparison to European-American and

Indigenous traditions.

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The Bridge Builders' background in academe give rise to a different role and

dynamic for them, one in which they preserve knowledge by extending it to the social

institutions most responsible for controlling knowledge: educational institutions (including

museums as well as K-12 and higher education settings), mass media, and government.

Their goal is to educate and empower through the recognition of Indigenous knowledge,

using their academic credentials and professional affiliations to create a new non-Native

awareness of its significance to education and society. Karenne Wood noted:

What I've observed is that I can talk all day long about theories or history and

instruction of history and use academic words that may or may not impress people.

But it is not until we get the public or the teachers exposed to the actual tribal

members and they tell their stories that the transformative moment occurs, where the

teachers leave wanting to be a part of changing how that story is reported, and to

educate their students so that these stereotypes are not perpetuated.

Synthesizers share the commitment to expanding Native space in society through

decolonization and heritage preservation, and are prepared to advance Native presence in

other societal institutions as they develop their own identities as scholars. Although they

comprise the smallest cohort in my study, the members' views parallel closely in their strong

convictions about extending the teaching and training experience within Native communities

and expanding the work of the Native Keeper and Bridge Builder cohorts through

technology. In essence, they have synthesized the experiences of older generations through

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the two Native cohorts with their own experiences as young 21 81 century scholars and tribal

members.

Ashley Atkins said, "It's unfortunate what I had to go through as a kid, but I

really believe that things have changed." She is synthesizing her professional and

academic expertise with the goal of greater Native involvement and collaboration in

archeology, as she described in her BJTI presentation about that topic and her own

research at the time (2008) on Pamunkey Indian pottery production:

Again, it's back to this issue ofNative people not being able to be included in the

representation of their own pasts. So that's why I'm coming from that perspective of

Native people being involved in archeology, able to really call the shots on how this

material that we're finding in the ground can be interpreted and how it can be

understood from a Native perspective: that my ancestors used this and how did they

use it, not just from an archeological-scientific perspective but a Native one as well.

The next sections on curricula and pedagogy delve deeper into the Native presenters'

responses.

Native Cohorts' Curricula

The BJTI curriculum for 2007 and 2008 offered an alternate Native perspective to the

historical narrative transmitted in popular culture and education. McKernan's 2008

definition of curriculum as comprised of knowledge intentionally valued, planned, and

offered as training or education is helpful in deconstructing the overall curriculum designed

by Karenne Wood and Rhyannon Curry as co-coordinators. Rhyannon said:

[The Institute] was an idea that was really spawned from everything that was going

on in the beginning of the decade, getting ready up to 2007, which was the 4001h

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anniversary of the founding of Jamestown by the English. And so she and I worked

together to come up with the whole week, what was going to happen, who was going

to present, and what the presentations were going to be about.

"It seemed like there were certain holes in the curriculum that needed to be filled and

these were the topic areas," Karenne explained. "There were certain people whose expertise

matched up very nicely. For example, we would not not have done a segment on Virginia

history in the 201h century, because it was so critical." According to Rhyannon, "the

personal dialogue is so much more important than checking things off a list. So if the

teachers felt that they were really interested in Subject A, then we might spend more time on

that."

The knowledge presented about Virginia Indian peoples encompasses over 18,000

years from pre-history to today, and introduced the program participants to a series of

contested subjects such as the marginalization of Indigenous peoples, the validity of

collective memory, and stereotypical perceptions of American Indians. Karenne particularly

focused on types of knowledge unknown to the general public and not included in K-12

textbooks, and on resources helpful to teachers in the classroom. Karenne recalled:

We had been told before we began the Teachers' Institutes that resources were a

serious problem. Teachers couldn't get their hands on accurate information, and

when they did, they had to pay for it themselves. So we were trying to give them a

lot of free stuff that was good that they could take away.

The curricular planning was informed by feedback that came from tribal members

like Arlene and Jack Milner who frequently speak in schools. These speakers reported that

teachers were paying out of pocket for educational materials about Virginia Indians, a

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situation confirmed to Karenne by teachers themselves. When Karenne was chair of the

Virginia Council on Indians (2003-2007), the Virginia Department of Education developed a

web site in partnership with the Prince William Network about Virginia's Indigenous

peoples. 19 Betsy S. Barton, elementary history and social science specialist for the Virginia

Department of Education, came to a VCI meeting in January 2005 to present the project. "So

that was the beginning of our relationship, which has become really helpful collaboratively."

Karenne said, "[Betsy] is the one through whom we have access to the Virginia Social

Studies Conference. "20 At this time, the Standards of Learning social studies revisions now

being implemented about Virginia Indians and American Indians were only a hope. "We

knew the SOL revision was scheduled but we had no idea how much impact we might be

able to have on the ultimate outcome," Karenne noted. However, the type of information the

BJTI curriculum provided foreshadowed recommended changes to those guidelines. "In

essence, [teachers] got that information much earlier than they would have otherwise."

As lead scholar for the program, Karenne said she felt that specific books, web sites,

and other resources were important for the teachers attending, such as Egloff and

Woodward's (2006) First People: The Early Indians of Virginia, an archeological overview

of Native cultures in Virginia that became the basis for the Virginia's First Peoples: Past and

Present web site. In the classroom, Karenne also utilized resources developed by the

Virginia Foundation for the Humanities including radio spots that highlight tribal leaders'

concerns. "I think we also used the In Our Own Words video in the Teachers' Institute

because it shows the then-current chiefs speaking on issues that were important to them,"

19 "Virginia's First Peoples: Past and Present" (http://virginiaindians.pwnet.org/) was copyrighted in 2005 as a joint effort between these two agencies. 2° Chronological information provided by Deanna Beacham, Program Specialist for the Virginia Council on Indians, January 13, 2011.

http://virginiaindians.pwnet.orp/'

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Karenne said. 21 She said that she and Rhyannon] pulled lesson plans from numerous sources

and then she reviewed them prior to the program. Rhyannon commented:

They're all teachers, so we wanted lesson plans that had been vetted by Virginia

Indians and the tribal communities that we knew were good, that would really help

teachers from [Grades] K through 12 teach, and that they could adapt to their own

classrooms.

For the BJTI presenters, Karenne chose presenters based on her knowledge of"their

ability to articulate the various concepts involved in their topic areas." She added:

So they were in my opinion the best people to talk about that area, whether they were

Native or non-Native. And we wanted a mixture of Native experts and academic

experts to show that both kinds of knowledge were equally valuable and weighted

equally in terms of our idea of that importance - the community-based knowledge

being equivalent to an academic degree, if you will.

Participants received thirty-two hours of curriculum development credit toward

Virginia re-licensure for attending the four-day program, which consisted of speakers,

discussions, readings, and media presentations in 2007 and an added reservation field trip in

2008. Karenne noted, "There was a more or less chronological sequence, because that's

what I understood the teachers to be familiar with."

Presenters said in their interviews that lead scholar Karenne Wood gave them a

general idea of what to cover in their talks, but left it open for them to decide the specific

content. Karenne explained:

21 "In Their Own Words: Voices of Virginia Indians" is a 2002 multi-media presentation on CD-ROM produced and copyrighted by the American Indian Resource Center at The College of William and Mary.

It was pretty much up to the individual presenter to decide whether to use

PowerPoint or talk about their lives. And in the cases of the Native experts, I

did say, "Please talk about your life or your community's experiences," so

they came into it knowing that's what we wanted them to do.

Therefore, curricular coherency is linked to the overall choice of subjects and of

presenters, and to each presenter's personal schema. "I think we knew who did what, who

was an expert in what, as we tried to, as much as possible, to marry the two," Rhyannon

Curry recalled. She and Karenne envisioned having academics "come in, talk about what

they do, and then have that supplemented by these living experiences. And they are not

necessarily mutually exclusive," Rhyannon noted:

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Some of the people who came in both were academics and also had that life

experience. It was just perfect when we could get that. But it was also so much fun

to see how people think differently. All of these initiatives we've done, we bring in

Native and non-Native experts, and they are all experts in their own right. They

always learn from each other.

As a group, the Keepers tended to make deliberate choices in their decision to share

tribal and personal experiences. Within the framework of the BJTI, the Keepers primarily

taught using their own life experiences and those handed down to them from their elders.

John Milner, a Keeper, commented, "In our past, we knew how our ancestors lived, and we

wanted the truth spoken about us instead of getting it from just the White man's side of it. It

was time that we told our own story in our own words." Those stories differed according to

the curriculum of individual presenters and their life experiences.

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Gerri Reynolds Wade said that Karenne told her about the makeup of the group and

that she could present what she wanted to:

So I chose to look at the SOLs [the recent Virginia Standards of Learning revisions]

because they are near and dear to my heart, having worked on that committee. And

then I decided to speak from the heart. I looked at a number of things, like what do

you want them to know when they leave there? How do you say that to them?

Gerri said that she decided to speak from the heart:

It was mainly, "These are the things that I experienced, and these are the things that

children need to know about Virginia Indians. And the old textbooks are inaccurate,

and I need for you to hear who I am from this perspective."

Powhatan Red Cloud-Owen's presentations in 2007 and 2008 also were deeply

personal to him:

Here I am with a high school education, but I believe my experience goes beyond

that. Some of this you won't read in text books. Just preparing myself in a way just

to let people know firsthand what I went through, what my siblings went through,

what my mom and dad went through, my aunts, and uncles, and such as that. People

I've learned from listening to them and their life experiences, because our lives as

Native peoples, it wasn't written a lot. Because no one cared about it a whole lot, say,

back in the day. So it was orally passed down. I was told by my mother what

tensions she had to go through.

Members of the Bridge Builders and Synthesizer cohorts addressed topics related to

their own areas of expertise. Deanna Beacham, for example, often speaks on archeology and

presented in 2007 with Jeff Hantman; he provided primarily academic content and she

contributed the Indigenous perspective on archeology. Samuel McGowan gave a brief

history of the Mattaponi Reservation during the teachers' 2008 fieldtrip in the session he

presented there, "talking about the importance of the water and land to my people."

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Ashley Atkins, in the Synthesizer cohort, concentrated on the significance ofNative

participation and on the importance ofNative people as well as teachers and students

understanding Virginia Indian history from a different perspective. She used the example of

the Werowocomico archeological project in Gloucester County, Virginia "so people could

see how Native participation could be included productively and in a positive, successful

way":

So that's what I really wanted to foreground. That's how I prepared it. Me thinking

about me as an archeologist. For non-Natives and non-archeologists, thinking about

what's most important, and what do I want to get across?

Table 5 summarizes my analysis of how the three Native cohorts expressed their

views about their curricula according to core beliefs, knowledge sources, format, content, and

intended outcomes. I drew from my conceptual framework, from related literature, and

participants' descriptions of their teaching methodologies to identify essential components of

their curriculum development.

The core belief system construct identifies BJTI presenters' foundational beliefs as

expressed in their interviews. Knowledge integration defines the process through which they

utilize personal and tribal histories, primary sources, and related scholarship (both their own

and others). Format and content refer to their methods of transmission of specific knowledge

and resources within individual presentations.

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Table 5

BJTI Native Presenters' Traditions: Curriculum

Keepers Bridge Builders Synthesizers Core Belief Place Native meanings Relate Native meanings Relate Native meanings System in Native context (I) to European-American to European-American

context (I) context (I)

Knowledge Primarily use oral Use oral history, primary Use oral history, Integration history (personal and sources, and related primary sources, and

tribal), and cite other scholarship (IlEA) related scholarship sources (I-IlEA) (IlEA)

Format Use stories as Restructure beliefs and Restructure beliefs and curriculum to make knowledge through knowledge through experiences, feelings, Native-led instruction Native-led instruction attitudes real and and class discussion and class discussion dramatic (I) (IlEA) (IlEA)

Content Use eyewitness Use text, objects, and Use text, objects, and accounts and tribal photographs to augment photographs to augment histories; may use text oral histories and support oral histories and and photographs as research (IC-EA) support research (IlEA) evidence (I)

Stress community- Set community-based Set community-based based knowledge and knowledge in European- knowledge in related research (I- American framework European-American IlEA) with research (IlEA) framework with

research (IlEA) Intended Transmit Native oral Institutionalize Native Advance Native Outcomes history (I) perspective (I) perspective (I)

Decolonize history; Decolonize history; Decolonize history; create shared meanings create shared meanings create shared meanings and conceptual change and conceptual change and conceptual change (IlEA) (IlEA) (IlEA)

Uphold Native Promote Native Advance Native identities, rights and identities, rights and cultures, rights and self-self-determination (I) self-determination (I) determination (I)

Note: I= Indigenous; EA =European-American; I/EA =Interface of Indigenous and European-American traditions.

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Finally, the intended outcomes construct summarizes presenters' main goals in

teaching BJTI participants about their areas of expertise. Depending on the curricular

element, I assigned these cohorts to Indigenous or European-American curricular traditions

as identified in my conceptual framework, or to operating at an intersection of both

traditions. In some cases, elements were synonymous in tradition across all three cohorts,

suggesting that the BJTI synthesizes some characteristics from each cultural tradition.

Core Beliefs

Within the BJTI, each cohort's core beliefs and experiences contribute to the creation

of shared meanings between them and the teacher-participants who potentially have the

power to effect such change. The Keepers place their meanings squarely within a Virginia

Indian context in delivering their stories to the predominantly non-Native teaching audience,

by concentrating on stories of significance within their tribal communities and Virginia

Indian history overall. 22 Each person, like Powhatan Red-Cloud Owen, told family stories

that conveyed important cultural meanings.

Powhatan's mother left Virginia because of the Racial Integrity Act's restrictions.

Attending night school in New York, she was a married woman well in her twenties when

she completed her high school education, Powhatan's mother never returned to Virginia to

live; however, Powhatan did. He talked with the teachers about how it felt to encounter bias:

first, when he returned to the Commonwealth as a Native student and later, when he faced

additional bias as a Vietnam War veteran. Powhatan was wounded while in Vietnam, and

said, "I was proud and glad that I served with honor, and lucky to be alive, lucky to be back

here." He touched on what it felt like coming home. "I had a lot of strikes against me. First,

22 The 2007 and 2008 BJTI teacher-participant groups included a Native American educator and two African American educators.

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I was Native and coming back into a community that really didn't favor Native people.

[And] being looked on as a warm-monger or baby killer. People used to call us those names."

Powhatan recalled, "I had just returned from a war-tom war zone area. I didn't want to put on

my Indian coat, so to speak. I just wanted to be mainstream and just get a job. I thought

that's what people did when they returned."

Other members of the Keepers cohort shared stories of their peoples' ordeals during

the enforcement of the Racial Integrity Act, their survival mechanisms, and their regard for

education. Arlene Milner emphasized that "It was very difficult, the prejudice that was

displayed to the people, and that's why the Virginia Indians kept to themselves. Their social

life was mainly with other Indians." Arlene also commented that "Teachers today don't

know that the education we received was substandard."

For Ken Adams, it was important to share with the BJTI audiences what it was like to

be denied education, not only for him but for his parents' generation. Ken said his father,

who grew up in King William County as one of 12 children, valued education highly. "He

could barely read and write. And it was very difficult for him to sign his name, because he

never went through enough education to do it in a natural way."

As a member of the Bridge Builder cohort, Samuel McGowan wanted to give his

presentation on-site at the Mattaponi reservation to give teachers a different experiential

perspective:

Most teachers look at past tense because of the SOL. They have to incorporate

Natives [culture and history] into their studies. I like to incorporate today that there's

still the same understanding of respecting the land, the earth, the surroundings, and

how those things that were important to use 400 years ago are important to us today.

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Making those connections in academe has been the hallmark of the Bridge Builders,

who are primarily working from within European-American educational frameworks to

establish them. Despite the traumas of the past, they are assembling holistic modes of

teaching and learning that invite non-Natives to "think about Native peoples and their stories

being intertwined," according to Gabrielle Tayac, who curated the NMAI's exhibit on

Indians of the Chesapeake Bay region. "Even if you are a very recent immigrant to the

United States or this particular region, you step on the ground and you are part of it."

She envisioned addressing more key issues in future institutes, beginning with the complex

historical relationships between tribes beyond the Powhatan paramount chiefdom in the

colonial era:

I would want to start to deepen the complexity, saying, it's not just the Powhatan

tribes. To build on understanding the political relationships and the cultural meanings,

to go more in depth on the cultural traditions and understandings that people have,

and also to deepen the complexity of what was going on in England.

She also feels it is important to study race relations between Native Americans,

African Americans, and Europeans as colonial encounters, asking, "What was the landscape

ofNative relations and Native understandings of who is dealing with whom?" Gabrielle also

recommends adding important Native figures in history in the next stage, saying, "Let's start

to look at biographies rather than groups of people with a couple of key names."

Gabrielle believes this knowledge is essential to greater awareness. "Once [the BJTI

participants] get a sense of who's there and there's an understanding of who is in Virginia,

you can start to pad in a surround," Gabrielle emphasizes. "[They can] start to understand:

What are different languages we're dealing with? Who are these different people who are

interconnecting?"

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In their core beliefs, Synthesizers mirror the norms and values of the other Native

cohorts. As rising scholars working within European-American academic systems, they not

only approach their research and teaching activities as Native people, but are intent on

bringing more Native voices into the discourse through diversity. As members of this cohort,

Ashley and Rhyannon also acknowledged the limitations of teachers' existing knowledge as

a critical factor in developing shared meanings. Rhyannon said:

It's not the teachers' fault that they don't know this stuff. It's a system that has been

set in place over 400 years that is specifically designed not to have this story told.

And so we talk about how it's not being taught, but intrinsically, they don't know

what they don't know, and you can't blame them.

Ashley also commented:

Our education system is embedded in our society, and the society tends to turn

a blind eye to Native America. So really, just opening their minds up and not

just about Virginia. There's a slew of issues in Indian country, I would say, in

Native America, and unless you're in tune with that, you're not going to know

about them.

Knowledge Integration

The Keepers cohort collectively shared stories of their own and their tribes'

persistence in combatting the racism Virginia Indians faced before and during desegregation

in the 201h century. Their knowledge base includes oral history, news clippings, and actual

letters in tribal archives, such as signed letters from Dr. Walter Plecker. "We have actual

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handwritten letters, or that he had typed and signed, threatening our midwives that delivered

children that if they put Indian on birth certificates that they could be fined a thousand dollars

and put in prison for a year," Powhatan Red Cloud-Owen explained. Published scholarship

by Native but also non-Native authors was another important source. "We use the

information that Karenne Wood has put together, and the information [from] Helen Rountree

[and] Camilla Thompson," Arlene Thompson said. "We love their books, because it's as if

they are speaking to you. You know that these people have really done their homework."23

The Bridge Builder cohort members fuse tribal and family histories with their own

understanding of European-American educational methods and perceptions. Within this

cohort of four individuals, their backgrounds in anthropology, psychology, sociology,

museum education, and Native history help to frame the beliefs through which they transmit

and translate their own and other Native histories and cultures. In essence, they are

institutionalizing Indigenous knowledge on behalf of the tribal communities they represent

individually and collectively, with the assistance of those tribes and the Native and non-

Native organizations with which they interact.

As stated earlier, Gabrielle Tayac is a Maryland Piscataway scholar whose work for

the National Museum of the American Indian encompasses Indigenous peoples globally.

Karenne Wood served as the BJTI's coordinator and lead scholar and is director ofthe

Virginia Indian Heritage Program, while Deanna Beacham is the program specialist for the

Virginia Council on Indians and as a consultant in archeology and history. Samuel

23 Anthropologist Dr. Camilla Townsend authored Pocahontas and the Powhatan dilemma (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004); many of anthropologist Dr. Helen Rountree's works on the Powhatan Indians are cited as sources for this study.

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McGowan's viewpoint as a tribal expert and museum educator enabled him to move between

cultures using both European-American and Indigenous perspectives.

Bridge Builders create and facilitate Native spaces in academe that honor tribal

experts as experts, empowering the Keeper generation to tell stories that contest and also

critique the dominant majority narrative. Bridge Builders have implanted Indigenous

knowledge in academe as Native scholars. They have challenged history as a colonialist

project by adding their own research to oral history and text, but retaining a European

American framework of inquiry.

As a member of the Synthesizer cohort, Ashley Atkins described another dimension

in the inclusion of Native voices that resonates with the perceived value of collective

memory and oral history. Ashley is a degreed Virginia Indian anthropologist collaborating

with tribal communities through the Werowocomico archeological project; her dissertation

research on Pamunkey pottery. She is a representative of Virginia Indian agency within her

discipline, which she feels has historically distanced and objectified Native objects, Native

peoples, and their past. In comparison to that systematic scientific method, she believes in a

deeper connection with- each object her ancestors made:

So I think with the Native way oflooking at it, it [an object] is a story. I feel like a

Native person doesn't look at it as objectively, they [sic] look at it through emotion

and there's nothing wrong with that. You know, there are different ways of knowing

the past and understanding the past, and that's one way to do that.

Format and Content

Karenne Wood and Rhyannon Curry developed the BJTI program's overall four-day

curriculum mainly from Native initiatives and resources in the United States and Canada, but

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focused on Native life experiences. Besides identifying Native and non-Native presenters to

cover subject areas, planning the format meant following the type of curriculum with which

most non-Natives- specifically teachers- identify in classroom settings at two major

universities.

The chronological nature of the curriculum, the use of traditional European-American

"stand and deliver" lecture formats, and the use of assignments and readings were familiar

classroom components. However, the BJTI added Indigenous elements that ultimately

created a dynamic tension in teaching and learning. One of these was the content provided in

the Keepers' life experiences. Another, which I will address under classroom dynamics, was

the influence of the Institute's physical space.

The core belief system for all three Native cohorts corresponds to an Indigenous

curriculum (I), in that these presenters operate within a predominantly Native domain that

uses certain elements of European-American teaching tradition to bridge cultural differences.

With regard to the knowledge sources used by these cohorts, they form part of the interface

that defines the BJTI education dynamic. All the cohorts are conversant with Native and

non-Native scholarship outside of the narratives the Keepers present. However, because the

Keepers' role centers on oral history and collective memory, their curricular format differs

significantly, as does their content. Arlene, Jack, and Powhatan typically show or reference

documents, tribally-generated publications, and newspaper clippings when speaking to

classes to enhance students' awareness of racial inequities that Virginia Indians have faced.

Gerri Reynolds Wade also mentioned taking ceremonial regalia and photographs with her.

Although the Milners take period pottery and other objects when they visit schools, Arlene

knew that teacher-participants would be exposed to this auxiliary information during the

BJTI program so did not bring anything with her. For the 2008 panel, Powhatan showed

black-and-white family photographs from the segregation era, as he had during a previous

presentation.

Powhatan explained:

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We say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and we showed expressions of

children that didn't have expressions. They were straight-faced and were puzzled that

someone would be taking their pictures. In the present day, some of my

grandchildren are full of laughter and life and all this happiness now. Because they

didn't go through what my parents went through or what my ancestors before them

had to go through.

In their discussion of Indigenous research methodologies, Moreton and Walter (2009)

posit that Indigenous knowledge systems "remain intact and continue to develop as living

relational schemas" despite the disruption of European colonization (p. 3). The Bridge

Builder and Synthesizer cohorts incorporate oral and tribal history as the keystones of their

curricula, connecting it to their own and others' research. For example, Bridge Builder

Gabrielle Tayac gave a detailed talk on the Piscataway Indians of Maryland, and referenced a

NMAI exhibition she curated (Return to a Native Place: Algonquian People of the

Chesapeake), thus provided another Native perspective on the past. She balances different

kinds of sources including documentary evidence and oral narratives, which she confirms

through her work with Native communities where they originate. For her BJTI presentation,

Gabrielle explained. She basically drew from her research and materials and thought about

how to translate it for teachers:

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I figured that this was a pretty enthusiastic, open group who really wanted to be there

and really wanted to know. And also thinking about what kinds of long term impact

they would have because with teachers, it's not just for their own edification. It's

also because you're really thinking about this in terms of societal change. Long, long

term.

Intended Outcomes

Both the BJTI presenters and planners shared the goal of introducing teachers to an

inclusive Virginia Indian history and to how Indian peoples' lives have been affected by

institutionalized racism and stereotypes. Members of the Keepers cohort felt it was

important for teachers to hear stories that had not been written down in books, although they

may have read some newspaper articles and academic papers. Hearing about the Racial

Integrity Laws and Walter Plecker's legacy often affects listeners, as Arlene and John Milner

have observed. Arlene said:

It is with absolute disbelief that people come up to us and say, 'I didn't know that

happened. I didn't know that was going on.' There was no reason for them to know.

It didn't happen to them, it didn't happen to their families.

The Keepers cohort members are, in some cases, sharing stories that have not ever been

conveyed outside their Native communities, and sharing them with a constituency that is

unfamiliar with how segregation impacted Virginia's Indian peoples. Rhyannon Curry

commented:

We [she and Karenne] knew it would be hard for some people to think outside that

box, but I think we had to do it with enough of the traditional learning styles that

people would be only slightly uncomfortable. That's what we wanted. We wanted

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enough "uncomfortable-ness" to be thrown in there to help people, really, to force

them to come to terms with what had happened in the history, but also their position

now as teachers. And force them to kind of make a decision about what they were

going to do with this new-found knowledge that they had.

Interview responses show that the intended outcomes across the three Native cohorts were

progressive. The Bridge Builders stand on the shoulders of the Keepers, in a sense, in

internalizing their history and treating it as a sacred trust. The Synthesizers in tum

demonstrate the potential to mainstream Native agency and knowledge even further into

societal institutions. The Native presenters in this study shared the goals of decolonizing

history as well as creating understanding and change through the BJTI program, as Powhatan

Red-Cloud Owen expressed it:

Our people have come a long way, and we still have a long ways to go, because we're

teaching people about racism and things. And another subject I touch upon when I

talk with people is the stereotyping of our people. I tell people, 'We don't want to be

your cars, we don't want to be your mascots, we don't want to be whatever you want

to label us, because we are human beings. We just want to be out there. I'm not

better than anyone else, but I'm just as good as anyone else.

Each cohort also had characteristic motivations and intentions within the BJTI

program. The Keepers want to transmit oral history. Through their academic and

professional affiliations and activities, Bridge Builders wanted to institutionalize the Native

perspective, while the Synthesizers, through their expanded educational opportunities, sought

to advance it. Similarly, the Keepers have consistently upheld Virginia Indian identities,

rights, and self-determination throughout their lifetimes, a mission furthered by the Bridge

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Builders, and accepted by the Synthesizers as their own, in the collective belief that each

generation builds on the achievements of its predecessors. This sense of community, of a

holistic vision that embraces the past, present, and future, passes from each generation to the

next. Education is its conduit, manifested in the Beyond Jamestown Institute and in the

Native presenters' desire to preserve and transmit their heritage without a Eurocentric or

colonialist filter. In describing the BJTI planners' and presenters' roles, Rhyannon noted:

Nobody took ownership over anything and we weren't there to. That's traditional

learning. I'm not doing this for myself. I'm doing this for my ancestors because they

never were able to do this, and I'm doing this for the elders living today, because they

weren't able to. I'm doing it for the children and for my grandchildren so that that

knowledge is there."

Native Cohorts' Pedagogies

Just as oral history is essential to the BJTI curriculum, the presenters' ability to bridge

cultural differences is essential to the efficacy of BJTI pedagogy. The acknowledgement of

Virginia Indian acculturation over time reflects the history of Virginia's Indigenous peoples,

who first experienced English colonialism more than four centuries ago. Prepared to adapt

and change in order to survive culturally, many Virginia Indians avoided enforced

assimilation over time, refusing to relinquish their memories, their traditions, and in many

cases, the ties to their ancestral homelands. However, modem educational assimilation, in

the form of the high school and college educations once denied in Virginia, has been a

pathway for Virginia Indians to both educational advocacy and agency in today's society.

Karenne Wood noted the significance of assimilation in European-American

education as a key factor not only as an influence on presenters, but also on the BJTI as an

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evolving cross-cultural interface. "Our instructors have been educated primarily Anglo,

whether they are Indian experts or not. They have not been, in some cases, immersed in that

Indigenous knowledge system. So even though they have cultural knowledge to pass on, they

struggle with the same kinds of concepts and compartmentalization that I'm talking about."

Bridge Builder Deanna Beacham recognizes the Eurocentric constructs inherent in

the European-American academic system in which she grew up. "So you have to fight that,

and find ways to go around it," she said, in learning more, in examining the original primary

sources from a Native point of view, and in presenting a different perspective. According to

Rhyannon Curry, organic learning is an alternative to European-American learning's use of

lectures with testing and assignments to demonstrate knowledge retention. "You hear people

talk to you, but it's a dialogue. And not necessarily in a Socratic method. It's learning from

each other and experiencing life together." She added that talking and listening to people,

particularly when heart-wrenching stories are involved, is a way of experiencing this mode of

learning.

So when you cry with people, when you laugh with people, that's what organic

learning is. You really understand what life was like, and it's sort of an empathetic

and sympathetic experience that is supplemented by what we as Westerners want to

have. We want to see what the proof is, but also supplement it with this idea of these

expenences.

According to Rhyannon, this construct is not necessary exclusive to Native cultures,

but may apply more to non-White than White communities. She explained:

... I think for so long, non-White populations were excluded from Western teaching.

And so they learned their own way of teaching it. And for Natives, that's how

teaching was. So yes, it is definitely in the tradition ofNative teaching, because it

happened after Americanization. You become an oral or aural culture because you

have to or because that's how things were always done and you were never taught

otherwise.

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Deconstructing the fundamental components of the BJTI Native presenters'

pedagogies, I have categorized their methods as their objectives, techniques, technologies,

classroom dynamics, and goals (see Table 6). The combination of expertise, familiarity with

European-American teaching, public speaking experience, and respect for Native cultures

enables all four cohorts to work effectively in this teacher development program, despite

differences in their cultural backgrounds, educations, and experiences within tribal

communities.

As with Table 5, Table 6 represents a synthesis of constructs from my conceptual

framework, my review of related Native and non-Native literature, and insights from this

study's participants. I found that the cohorts had definite pedagogical objectives for their

teaching that were characteristic of each cohort's relationship to the others. Their techniques

variously incorporated Indigenous and European-American methods depending on the

paradigm of each cohort, as did the types of technologies employed by presenters. The

classroom dynamic construct described how presenters viewed the teacher-student

relationship from their perspective. Lastly, goals for audiences signifies the overall themes

presenters in each cohort used in expressing their pedagogical intentions.

Table 6

BJTI Native Presenters' Teaching Traditions: Pedagogy

Objectives

Techniques

Technology

Classroom Dynamic

Goals for Audiences

Keepers Present Native eyewitnesses as tribal experts in history and cultures (I)

Use stories to engage listeners; do not employ handouts or group work; encourage inquiry (I)

May use documentary evidence to support oral presentation

Monitor listeners' reactions to presentations but do not change approach; encourage discourse and conceptual change (I)

Increase participants' respect for Virginia Indian cultures and history (I)

Bridge Builders Establish tribal experts, Native scholars, and allied non-Native scholars as equal collaborators (IlEA)

Use presentations followed by discussion to place curricular content in Native context (IIE-A) May present orally or with electronic media to focus teaching points

Are aware of reactions; anticipate some cognitive dissonance and may mediate it; stimulate discourse (IlEA)

Empower participants with awareness and knowledge to inform their own teaching (IlEA)

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Synthesizers Continue work of Bridge Builders and Keepers; work to advance multiple Native perspectives (IlEA)

Use presentations followed by discussion to place curricular content in Native context (IlE-A)

May present orally or with electronic media to focus teaching points

Are aware of reactions; anticipate some cognitive dissonance and may mediate it; stimulate discourse (IlEA)

Empower participants with awareness and knowledge; create new understandings (IlEA)

Note: I = Indigenous; EA = European-American; IlEA = Interface of Indigenous and European-American traditions. Participants may use alternative teaching methodologies in different settings, but they primarily referenced those cited here for their BJTI teaching

Objectives

Within the last decade, as Virginia's indigenous peoples have demonstrated the intent

to take control of their history and present it themselves, BJTI presenters have been among

the most visible Native spokespeople at media events, academic conferences, and

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Congressional committee meetings during the ongoing effort to gain sovereignty for six of

the Commonwealth's state-recognized tribes. Education and learning have been major goals

in deconstructing the hegemony of the past; but more than that, as Arlene Milner said, "There

is this love ofleaming among all of us."

I identified the Keepers' BJTI objectives and collective pedagogy as Indigenous,

because they are initiating a conceptual shift in perceptions about Virginia Indians through

oral histories and teach using experience-based content rather than written sources. Their

colleagues in the other Native cohorts clearly acknowledge the authenticity of the Keepers'

knowledge and reference collective memory as a major knowledge base.

Although they did not directly address their objectives for negotiating stages of

student development, all three cohorts mentioned their awareness of audience reactions as a

factor in their presentations. With the Keepers, their narratives included episodes of racial

prejudice and even violence that they, their families, and communities endured - information

that few if any teachers had encountered previously. Their colleagues in the Bridge Builder

and Synthesizer cohorts also face the possibility of initiating cognitive dissonance in the

classroom in discussing prejudice, stereotypes, and examples of marginalization enforced by

society and education in particular. "You don't want people to be defensive, so it's really

about creating a dialogue, and I think that's what I tried to set up," Gabrielle recalled. "I do

talk a lot, so I did give a lot of information. But I was able to at least invite a sense of

approachability into the session." Ashley Atkins acknowledged that presenting the

"implications of how we interpret and record the past" can be a challenge:

Some people are going to understand what you are saying and go with it, and some

people are going to question it, which is fine. But I guess the best way I know to

breech that issue is, try to bring it down to nuts and bolts. Native people are here.

They have been here.

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There is also another element, which is in Bridge Builder Samuel McGowan's

opinion, explains the needs to stick to basics. As he has found, in teaching this subject,

"People come in and instead of teaching the facts so that everyone understands, they lecture.

You can't lecture and you can't go over people's heads." What happens then, he says, is:

[People] are going to sit there and nod their heads and go "Yes, yes, yes" like they

understand. But, when they go away from there, you just spoke for an hour for no

reason, because some of them didn't get it all the way. They didn't understand, and they

didn't want to feel stupid by asking, "What does that word mean?'' or "Why is that?" So

I like to keep things pretty basic so that everyone can understand.

In the Keepers cohort group, John Milner questioned: "What's the sense of starting

anywhere else except in the beginning?"

Creating new awareness may involve all BJTI presenters sharing what prejudice and

bias mean to them on a personal level. This process of sharing experiences on a personal

level can be a cultural issue, in that according to several of the Native BJTI presenters, tribal

experts may not take a teaching role outside their communities for three major reasons. First,

age appears to be a factor. Second, some tribal members are reluctant to talk with strangers,

especially in academic settings. Also, inexperience in public speaking came up several times

in interviews as a significant factor.

As Karenne Wood explained:

There are people who are elderly and can't get around; there are people who aren't

comfortable, especially going into a university setting and talking with people they

feel are better educated than they are. That would affect their self-esteem.

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In particular, Karenne said she was thinking of a Monacan tribal member close to 90

years old, a "wonderful person who has experienced some real hardships": "She's a tough

lady, and her story is incredibly interesting. But to get her to Virginia Tech or William and

Mary, that's not going to happen."

Rhyannon also commented that there are many other people who have stories to tell.

"And I don't think that they- and especially the elders- are going to feel comfortable

coming into a place like this and talking. And they are not going to be necessarily

comfortable talking to someone they don't know.

Ken Adams says that although the situation is not anyone's fault, "a lot is being left

out of the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institutes, and a lot of it is because these people who

went through these experiences are not what you would think of as good presenters"

They're left out of the picture. But those experiences are just as important as the ones

I've experienced, my personal experiences. But you have to look for those people

who've experienced those, and right now, there's nobody who's doing that.

Deanna Beacham said that over the last ten years, she has watched some Indigenous people

evolve "from being terrified of public speaking to not having a problem with it. And they've

embraced different aspects of their lived to give them the strength to do this." She explained:

I don't ever remember having to conquer a fear of public speaking. But I have

learned from a colleague who would recognize herself if I said this, that she was very

much afraid of public speaking .... I asked her, "How do you get passed that?" and

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she said, "I would call on the ancestors, because I feel like I am speaking for them."

Then when she got started, she was fine.

Deanna continued:

It occurred to me that I should always be checking in with the ancestors before I made

any kind of public comments, even these, because what I say carries the weight of

generations that were not allowed to speak. And I took that on advisement, even

though it wasn't advice, and I have done that ever since.

Gerri Reynolds Wade described how she spent time observing the teacher

participants prior to her own talk, jotting down a couple of notes and referring to a rubric she

developed after coursework in Gifted and Talented Education at the University of Virginia.

Gerri expressed specific goals for the teachers, which were for them to recognize and respect

Virginia Indians, to take away "at least one new thing about Virginia Indians", and to be

comfortable enough to ask her questions. One of her other goals was to steer clear of

offensive questions or comments, which she said can happen with people who do not mean to

be disrespectful, but are.

Time and again, presenters stressed that more speakers should add their stories to the

Native narrative in the BJTI program and in other venues. The Synthesizer cohort in

particular discussed bringing more Native voices into the public and academic discourse, and

it was also a concern to members of the Keepers and Bridge Builder cohorts. Ashley

emphasized:

We're still in the early stages. It's important to get multiple Native perspectives. Just

talking to one person is not going to give you the Native perspective. We're not a

conglomerate and we all don't have the same mind. Obviously, we all have different

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experiences, we all have different backgrounds, we all have different opinions on

issues such as the educational system, on the history of our people, on archeology, or

whatever. So really having inclusion of multiple Native voices, I think, is really

important.

Members of all three Native cohorts shared the goal ofbringing more tribal members'

stories to light as major resources in education both for Native and non-Native students. As

mentioned previously, Ken Adams cited his older brother Wesley's ninth-grade schooling in

a woodshed outside the Sharon Indian School along with four or five classmates. "Today,

[Wesley] tells the story that Mr. Fox wasn't worth a hoot as a teacher, and he talks about how

disgusted he was about having to attend the ninth grade in a woodshed," Ken noted. Another

little-known part ofthis era is that a number of Upper Mattaponi and other tribes' students,

including one of Ken's sisters, attended Oak Hill Academy in Southwest Virginia in the

1950s, according to him:

Oak Hill Academy is one of the top prep schools in the United States. And yet, we

have students who went to Oak Hill Academy from these little small rural Indian schools,

and they succeeded in a highly competitive environment. To Ken, these and other stories are

part of the "real nitty gritty" that in many cases is still being left out of the BJTI curriculum.

In Chapter 9, I address this as part of the BJTI presenters' envisionings and recommendations

for the future of the Institute. Stories have been, and will continue to be, the heart of the

program.

Techniques and Technology

The Keepers' stories and direct approach are their primary teaching tools, with

objects, documents, and photographs sometimes used as supporting evidence for their

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statements. Ken Adams emphasized that "Life experiences prepared me, as much as

anything" to address the teachers about issues affecting Virginia Indians, particularly

education and advocacy, from his perspective as a tribal leader. Arlene and Jack Milner

spoke, John said, "from our hearts and our own life experiences" so that the BJTI teacher

participants better understood Virginia Indian history: "It's not what we think to be the truth;

it's what we know to be the truth." For educator Gerri Wade, "First of all, [my presentation]

was based on experiences over time and knowledge over time, and working with teachers

over a number of years. And I don't need a book or something in front of me to tell you my

story and experiences."

In comparison, Bridge Builders and Synthesizers often choose to incorporate various

other media such as PowerPoints, video, and audio recordings to place the information they

are transmitting in a familiar European-American context. Gabrielle's slides ranged from

showing archeological or ethnographic objects to current photos, in order to transmit an

Indigenous perspective and a connection between past and present. "Not to imply people

today are living in a frozen time machine from 400 years ago," she said, "But to convey that

sense of continuity."

These two cohorts also move between the Indigenous and European-American modes

of presentation depending on the audience. Although these Native presenters used

PowerPoint presentations in the BJTI, the same individual will speak extemporaneously in

tribal meetings where the atmosphere is informal and the listeners' knowledge base on

Virginia Indian history more extensive. "I would say I don't need [PowerPoint], because I'm

more in my element, because half the people I'm talking to are my family members," said

Ashley. "So it has to do with context and it has to do with environment."

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The Keepers indicated in their interviews a pattern of Indigenous pedagogy; some

intersection across both Indigenous and European-American pedagogies were reported by the

other two Native cohorts (see table 6). This distinction derives from the singular role of the

Keepers as voices for their generation and its resistance to oppression. This role emerged as

a factor in interviewees' responses related to their BJTI teaching intentions and self

reflections. In their conceptions of pedagogical techniques, technology use, classroom

management, and goals, the Keepers are much closer to traditional Indigenous teaching than

they are to European-American methodologies with their storytelling. According to Ken

Adams, audience reactions, while valid, are not cause for editing his presentation but even

more reason to relay it without modification:

... Sometimes it's obvious that someone is upset. Sometimes it's obvious that

someone may not be in agreement with some of the things I've said. Sometimes it's

obvious that I've angered someone by some of the things I've said. But with that in

mind, looking at those reactions, I'm not going to change my presentation. I will still

provide what I think, what I believe to be what these teachers need to know to

understand what has happened. They'll never be able to fully understand, but at least

be able to have a grasp of something that has happened which until this point, they

probably haven't had any interest in or even thought about.

This sense of responsibility toward both Virginia Indian history and their listeners' access to

it pervaded all the interviews with members of the Keepers cohort. Some, like Arlene Milner

judged whether they were effective by audience responses. "The people would come up to

us afterwards and thank us for telling our stories, and I would think, 'We must have done

something right. We must have touched a nerve."'

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Powhatan also watched for audience reactions, but for a different reason. "I like to

see the expression on their faces; I like to see them be attentive. I hope I never put anyone to

sleep. And I don't think I ever have, because they want to take this knowledge or this story

that I give them."

Another element for the Keepers is their ability to vary their presentations based on

audience requirements. They rarely speak from prepared notes. In the case of Ken Adams,

he tends to draw on what is happening at the time: "[So] where we are today and what's

happening politically and emotionally, that has to drive the elements of the conversation."

From his former work as an aircraft maintenance instructor, Ken is familiar with technical

training accomplished in a series of detailed steps. He viewed his BJTI presentations as more

general discussions focused on 201h century events affecting education in Virginia, as told

through his life experiences and those of other Virginia Indians. As Ken summarized it:

The only way I can do that is through my experiences. I try to get them [BJTI

participants] to understand what happened specifically to Indian students in the

classroom in Virginia and some of the life experiences of those students.

As the recipients of educational advancements pioneered by their elders, the

Synthesizers advocate even more Native agency in the classroom and in society. Both the

Bridge Builders and Synthesizer cohorts consistently adapt European-American

methodologies and technologies according to their audiences and intentions, which represent

additional examples of an Indigenous-European-American interface within the BJTI program

and their own instructional skill sets. All members of the three Native cohorts have

experience speaking in academic settings; within the Bridge Builders and Synthesizer groups,

some invited presenters from both incorporated Power Point presentation technology, such as

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Bridge Builder Gabrielle Tayac and Synthesizer Ashley Atkins. In comparing pedagogies,

Karenne sees the power in different methods such as PowerPoints and telling stories. "The

PowerPoint does give you a trajectory as you talk, and I like it for that reason, because I do a

lot of presentations and I don't want to go off wandering into the ether when I talk."

However, she says, "When you're talking from your heart about something that has

happened in your life, you can't use PowerPoint. It's just totally ineffective." One exception

she makes is for photographs, which she acknowledges as useful in presenting a pictorial life

history. "But when you're dealing with an emotional rendering of experience, the only way

to do that is face-to-face in a story, I think." Therefore, she deems both to be valuable under

different circumstances. Bridge Builder Samuel McGowan, a tribal expert with extensive

classroom teaching experience, chose in his fieldtrip presentation to use storytelling, the

physical landscape around him, and museum exhibits to convey information to participants.

In the future, with BJTI-trained teachers' greater understanding of Virginia Indian

cultures and history, Rhyannon Curry, as a Synthesizer, foresees the possibility of utilizing

technology as a classroom resource about Virginia Indian people. She explains:

I think maybe not necessarily in the Institute but outside of it and sustainable and a

continuation is to have weekly or monthly Webcasts with the chiefs. That way,

nobody has to leave anywhere, but you're in school, you can talk with them, and say,

'Hey, what's going on with this?' and not just the chiefs but the other elders. Get

everybody in a room and continue these conversations over the miles. We've got

technology, and I don't think we've realized how good it's going to be for us as

Natives, how we can really use this to get these ideas and these stories and these

connections and these dialogues started and continued.

As Karenne Wood and Rhyannon Curry indicated in previous statements and below, they

considered multiple methods of student participation in developing the overall BJTI

curriculum.

Classroom Dynamic

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As the BJTI's lead and associate scholars, Karenne and Rhyannon were constantly

present in the classroom, overseeing and facilitating the program, and leading discussions

based on readings and audio-visual resources. For that reason, their descriptions of the

Institute include the handouts, group activities, and general discussions that were not part of

the invited presenters' functions, although those presenters frequently participated longer

than scheduled as listeners and discussants.

Karenne recalled:

We [she and Rhyannon] also tried to do things like break it up and have the teachers

in small groups at certain points, so it wasn't a uni-dimensional, "sit-and-absorb" like

a sponge at a desk. Even so, I felt like we left them sitting more than they were used

to, so that was a challenge for them. But we were trying to get conversations going at

lunch and dinner, and I think we were successful with that. The teachers continued to

talk about what they had learned into the night, in some cases.

Both Karenne and Rhyannon noted significant differences between the 2007 and

2008 BJTI programs in terms of teacher response. "The first year was an absolute

transformation in almost every teacher," Karenne said. The teachers' evaluations were "off

the charts, wonderful. She continued, "They all talked about how this had transformed their

lives, not just their teaching but their understanding - that they wished this was available to

every teacher for years and years to come." In comparison, Karenne observed, "The second

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group of teachers seemed more practically oriented, and although many of them also

indicated transformation happened to them personally as well as professionally, there wasn't

the same degree of emotion in the evaluations."

Although Karenne is not sure what factors were involved in that difference, one

element may be the program's physical space and how that space is used. In 2007 at the

University of Virginia, the program took place in a typical academic classroom with

windows, blackboards, and tile floors. On the first day, the student desks were rearranged

from rows into a large circle that included the program coordinators at the front of the room.

The open circle arrangement was constant throughout the week except for one activity when

teacher-participants moved into small groups. Presenters either stood or sometimes sat as

they presented or answered questions; at lunchtime and breaks, the participants often went

outside to sit and talk on the steps.

In 2008 at The College of William and Mary, the program was held in the Board of

Visitors board room rather than in a classroom, due to its availability during a busy week of

conferences. Participants sat in padded chairs on the outside of tables joined into a large U

shape. Presenters sometimes stood in the open area at the front of the room, sat where they

could be seen at the front, or stood behind a lectern. Lunch was served in the private dining

area adjoining the board room. Unlike the previous classroom location at the University of

Virginia, the board room was not designed for flexibility. "It was a formal space, and in

some ways, an intimidating space," Karenne said. It may not have been comfortable for

tribal speakers as well as participants. "Sometimes, in providing the ultimate level of

comfort, we take away the casual nature of the interaction. And I think in the first instance [at

the University of Virginia], it was absolutely right to have people in chairs in a circle."

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Karenne continued:

In the second instance [at William and Mary], we were trying to force a circle out of a

rectangle that was too big, so you almost couldn't hear the people across the room.

And those tables made you feel like you were at a board meeting [rather] than in a

classroom ... It was something that we absolutely would not have foreseen. We said,

"Oh, this is great, let's use the big comfy room."

Rhyannon also saw a contrast in the location, although it was a university setting both

times. "I felt that the first year when the presenters came in was much more of a dialogue

setting and the second year was much more of a teaching-lecturing setting. We didn't mean

it that way, but it was just the way the room was set up." Because the sessions were

conducted in a circle at UV A and speakers often sat with the participants, Rhyannon said,

"The only thing that separated us was air." She also had observations about both years,

saying that although the second year is closer and she should remember it more, she

remembers the 2007 program and participants more. Rhyannon said:

That first year, I think that definitely in the last few days, it was "Okay, I think I've

got it, I think I'm starting to get it, and I think I kind of know what I've got to do, and

how I can do it with this stuff in the classroom. It may have happened the second year

and I just don't really remember it.

Rhyannon thought that another factor might be involved in the change between the

2007 and 2008 classroom dynamics, in that the first year was a totally residential program

and the second year, one in which half the class - those within commuting range- left at the

end of each class day. Because the first group of teachers stayed together, it created

additional opportunities outside the classroom. "We'd go out for dinners together. We'd see

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each other at breakfast, do different things during the day to create those bonds, and continue

those discussions outside the classroom," Rhyannon remembered. "I don't feel that

happened the second year at all. And again, I don't know whether that's setting or

personalities, or if that's just the way the cookie crumbled the second year."

Because she connects through experience to both educational and Native

perspectives, Gerri Reynolds Wade's recollections of her BJTI experience provided

additional pedagogical insights into how the BJTI operated as a cultural and educational

interface in 2008. Gerri noticed a difference between the younger teachers, who were

"incredibly focused" and more seasoned teachers who often had a different historical

perspective. With some of the older teachers, Gerri said, "Sometimes I didn't feel like they

were with me, but I felt that they heard me." She continued, "Basically what I was feeling is

that they grew up in the same era I did, when we didn't exist. So I let that go and saw the

other part, all the others, the faces and the questions."

Outcomes for Audiences

I have proposed that all BJTI Native cohorts describe their curriculum and pedagogy

in ways that can be compared to Indigenous and European-American teaching traditions, but

can differ depending upon the cohort and the specific function in question. Despite

education's historic role in promoting subaltemity in their own and Native peoples' lives, the

BJTI presenters choose to collaborate with European-American education and effect change,

rather than demonize it as a societal tool that enforced colonialist attitudes in the

Commonwealth. They are modem survivors and descendants confronting stereotypical

portrayals of Virginia Indians and American Indians in the classroom, and seeking to open a

new critical discourse between teachers and students on the master historical narrative of

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Virginia. Karenne Wood expressed the hope that participants take away a sense of "personal

connection" to Virginia Indian history, along with greater confidence and awareness of this

history's importance- "So they don't just gloss over it and move on to the next unit," as she

says.

Native people in Virginia, especially, have a sense of how much has been taken from

them. And when someone comes, they say, "what are you going to take, and what are we

going to get out of it?" Or a less selfish way to think about it is, "How is our community

going to benefit from your work?" And if they're able to make that relationship work, they

become our friends, not someone who's "studying" us. That's a huge difference, and I think

that's something we wanted the teachers to go away with absolutely, was the notion that

American Indians are not "the Other"- you know, the guinea pig that you study like some

species.

"I really believe that teaching has to inspire people to make the right choices," said

Gabrielle Tayac. She added:

I'm not saying that there is only one way to think that, but I think that in the sense of

creating openness and an intensity for wanting to know the truth. So I think a lot of it

has to so with truth seeking, and fearless truth seeking. Because it doesn't feel so

good to find out the things you find out, and sometimes it doesn't feel so good when

you question a status quo.

In transcending painful aspects of their history and the tradition narrative offered by

teachers, the media, and popular culture, all the Native presenters in the study demonstrated

three important goals: For the Keepers, to empower Native tribal experts; for the Bridge

Builders, to empower Anglo teachers to respect and tell those stories as part of a balanced

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historical narrative, and for the Synthesizers, to expand this interface even more through the

inclusion of more Native experts' voices from within the tribal communities.

In Chapter 8, I describe the non-Native Bridge Crossers' comparative roles in

curriculum and pedagogy. Some contemporary K-12 and museum educators also belong in

this category of friends, as do some well-remembered educators of the past. Ken Adams and

Samuel McGowan specifically named two teachers in the segregation era: Mrs. R. C. Hill

and Dr. Daniel Slabey. Mrs. Hill taught many family members from the Upper Mattaponi,

Mattaponi, and Pamunkey tribes in her work with the Upper Mattaponi Indian school. Ken

Adams commented on the teaching abilities of Mrs. Hill, who taught his mother in the 1920s

and taught students ofhis generation in the 1950s and 1960s. "She was a good teacher. As I

went to other schools later on, I didn't have a problem completing my education because of

Mrs. Hill. I owe that to her." Dr. Slabey, a retired teacher, instructed Mattaponi and

Pamunkey students in the Mattaponi Indian reservation school, including Samuel's mother

Shirley. Samuel described Dr. Slabey as "wonderful" in that he was "understanding and

appreciative of Native cultures versus those previously who did not want you to talk about

your traditional culture." He recalled:

[Dr. Slabey] was excited about everything. And they used to have school groups here

in the local counties come down to the reservation. And the children on the

reservation, they would get their regalia and drum and dance for the local school

groups. They'd be making baskets and pottery and everything.

These proponents have become part of the oral history of Virginia's Native peoples,

remembered across several generations of tribal members.

Chapter Eight

Characteristics ofBJTI Non-Native Curriculum and Pedagogy

I have proposed thus far that four distinct cohorts operate within the overall group of

BJTI presenters, forming a cohesive whole. In chapters 6 and 7, I described the 2007 and

2008 Institutes' Native presenters and their teaching methodologies within the paradigms of

the Keepers, Bridge Builders, and Synthesizers cohorts. In this chapter, I discuss the three

non-Native academicians in the fourth cohort, the Bridge Crossers, who were invited to bring

their specific areas of expertise to the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute. I compare

their concepts of curricula and pedagogy to those of their Native BJTI colleagues from

Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina.

Drs. Jeffrey Hantman and Helen Rountree of Virginia and Dr. Kent Mountford of

Maryland comprise this cohort. Helen holds the rank of professor emerita of anthropology at

Old Dominion University and Jeffrey is a professor of anthropology at the University of

Virginia. Kent is an environmental historian and estuarine ecologist in Maryland who

frequently lectures in higher education and public settings. The trio has taught, published,

and conducted in-depth research in their disciplines. Helen and Kent gave a planned joint

lecture in both years of the Institute. Jeffrey presented on archeology in 2007, with a Native

perspective provided by Deanna Beacham; his 2008lecture was followed by Ashley Atkins's

presentation on Pamunkey pottery.

Why were these particular scholars chosen for the BJTI? Unlike education

environments where Eurocentric or European-American constructs dominate the curriculum,

the overall BJTI curricular framework was developed by Native scholars Karenne Wood and

Rhyannon Curry. In discussing the characteristics she felt all the non-Native lecturers

possessed, Karenne said:

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The one thing I believe they all share is a respect for Native experience and culture, a

desire to know more. No one came into it with the notion that their knowledge was

superior to anyone else's, and they were all eager to learn from one another. So that

was really the basis. That was another part of selecting the presenters that I didn't

mention. They inherently are people who are friends of the Indian community. We

wouldn't have picked them otherwise.

Rhyannon described the high regard in which these presenters are held and their

relationship to the BJTI program, saying, "Some of the non-Natives you work with, that

Karenne and I know, are among the most humble people who realize that they know a lot,

but they don't know everything." She added, "And they always learn. And this is an institute

in which we have taught not only the teachers, but ourselves. And that's how everything

should be."

The Bridge Crossers' Paradigm

The Bridge Crossers' personal histories suggest ways in which they developed

research interests, cultural sensitivity, and advocacy in relation to Virginia Indian

communities and the BJTI. Helen and Jeff's paths parallel through anthropology and

previous fieldwork with tribes in the Southwestern United States, while Kent's association

derived from his joint research interests with Helen.

The Bridge Crossers' Backgrounds

Jeffrey Hantman was raised in the New York City region as the grandson of

immigrants fleeing religious persecution. "My grandparents and 11 great-aunts and great

uncles left Russia for NYC in the late 1890s and early 1900s, escaping Tsarist anti

Semitism," Jeffrey said, adding that he was very close to his extended family, who kept alive

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the "old country's" language and traditions, "Not that hard to do in New York City, of

course."

Until his undergraduate college years, Jeffrey was unaware of the Indian cultures

surrounding him in New York State. "This was despite growing up in a landscape with

names like Manhattan, Hauppage, Massepequa, Ronkonkoma, and Shinnecock," Jeffrey said,

"And despite being urged by a wonderful teacher in high school to think about why Walt

Whitman, a New Yorker, called that part of New York "Paumonauk" to honor the Algonquin

history and presence." He added:

I am reasonably certain I did not think often, if ever, about the local Native

Americans in New York while growing up, a subject which now fascinates me. My

teacher's suggestion sank in a few years later, and a visit to the Hopi Pueblos in the

1970s got me out of a parochial New Yorker's view to which I hope I haven't

returned. Though New York is still home to me, I do see it differently now.

Following his graduation with a BA in anthropology from Binghamton University in

New York, Jeffrey earned an MA and PhD in anthropology from Arizona State University.

His focus on late prehistoric and early historic era events and interactions of Southwestern

Indians expanded when he joined the anthropology department faculty at the University of

Virginia, which is near the traditional homeland of the Monacan Indians in Amherst County.

Jeffrey's interests also broadened to the 19th century and beyond to the battle for cultural

identity that Monacans were forced to wage in the Racial Integrity Laws period, and to the

long term impact of colonialism.

Helen Rountree grew up in tidewater Virginia. She considered herself a "honkie", in

her words, until learning that her predominantly English heritage also includes African, Irish,

German, and Dutch roots. After completing an undergraduate degree in anthropology at The

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College of William and Mary, Helen spent two years at the University of Utah, doing

linguistics work with the Shoshone Indians and earning her MAin anthropology. After

leaving Utah, she taught at Old Dominion University (ODU) and visited the Virginia Indian

reservations for the first time. "I listened to the people talk, especially Mattaponi, and they

sounded very similar to the people I worked with in Nevada, who were only two generations

away from aboriginal tribes, unlike the Mattaponi," Helen said. Her initial discoveries in

archives and interviews encouraged Helen to complete a doctorate in anthropology before

returning to ODU to teach and continue her Virginia Indian-related research.

Kent Mountford grew up in New Jersey. An avid sailor, he planned to study civil

engineering at Rutgers University in order to become a naval architect, but finished with a

degree in business and economics. Although he did not have a background in science, his

interest in studying plankton ecology in drew him into graduate coursework and research in

marine ecology, and he holds Master's and PhD degrees from Rutgers University. He

worked as a graduate teaching assistant and became Research Assistant Curator at the

National Academy of Sciences after completing his doctorate. Eventually, he became the

Senior Scientist for the Environmental Protection Agency Chesapeake Bay Program. He left

the EPA in 2000 and now writes, lectures, and works for Cove Corporation in Calvert

County, Maryland, where he continues his study of the Chesapeake Bay not far from where

Captain John Smith sailed four centuries ago.

"My family, like Helen's, is Anglo. My paternal grandparents came from England as

immigrants on a sailing vessel in the 1870s," Kent said. His great-grandparents homesteaded

in Canada at Brandy Lake, where his three-year-old grandfather slipped off a rock. " ... [He]

was saved by a Native American from the local tribe. Something also happened to one of his

sisters, and they named her Weinona, which is not an uncommon name, but it had

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significance in their language," Kent said. His connection to the Institute enabled Kent to

develop new relationships. "I feel I've made friends in the Native American community as a

result of having those experiences."

I previously proposed that the Native cohorts' BJTI curriculum displayed elements of

Indigenous and European-American curricular traditions and in some cases operated at an

intersection of both traditions, depending upon the cohort. With the non-Native cohort, I

found that there is a similar intersection based on the inclusion of Indigenous content within

a European-American pedagogical framework. Table 7 shows how the non-Native BJTI

presenters form a distinct cohort on the basis of their personal schema and experiences.

Table 7

BJTI Non-Native Presenters' Paradigm

Paradigm

Ontology

Epistemology

Methodology

Axiology

Bridge Crossers

Native peoples and perspectives are a valued source of knowledge; colonialist knowledge appropriation and domination comprise half the story

Education is a joint and mutual venture; White knowledge workers contribute as allies respecting Native cultures and norms; both cultures benefit from collaboration

Use European-American accepted authority to empower Virginia Indian narrative; use European-American methods of research and presentation in collaboration with Native communities

Respect Native knowledge; incorporate oral history and Native perspective into scholarship to validate the perspective

The Keepers represent the greatest degree of Indigenous alignment in their

curriculum and pedagogy, whereas the Bridge Crossers are closest to the European-American

tradition. However, the Bridge Crossers directly support aspects of Indigenous knowledge

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and Native perspectives individually as scholars, and in collective ways as a cohort. Whereas

insights on racial oppression and bias consistently were volunteered by the Keepers, Bridge

Builders, and Synthesizers as an essential, deeply felt part of their core beliefs, intentions and

goals as presenters, Bridge Crossers tended to focus on teaching methodologies and student

comprehension in their interviews; however, the ways in which they described their

presentations offered insights into what Helen, Jeffrey, and Kent believe is most important to

convey to teachers in their pedagogies and curriculum.

The Bridge Crossers' Curricula

In Chapter 7, Karenne Wood explained that she felt it was vital to include both

academic and tribal experts in the BJTI curriculum to acknowledge that both were equally

valued, and also to obtain the most knowledgeable and articulate presenters in each subject

area. The Bridge Crossers synthesize the Indigenous and European-American teaching

traditions through their academic support for Native perspectives on the past and present. I

found that while the three Native cohorts demonstrated that the experience of being Indian

was central to what they taught in the Institute, the Bridge Crossers valued Native history and

Native perspectives and incorporated both into their presentations.

Core Beliefs

The core belief system construct identifies BJTI presenters' foundational beliefs as

expressed in their interviews, with the Native BJTI presenters accentuating aspects of the

Virginia Indian experience that they, their elders, and communities have felt were most

important to convey to teachers. In comparison, the non-Native presenters developed their

presentations based on academic research and data that substantiates the Virginia Indian

narrative and enhances it. Their main teaching points signal specific core beliefs. They

correct the traditional master narrative of Virginia by rejecting a longstanding dependency on

colonial English historical. Instead, they promote emerging archeological data, scientific

evidence, and historical documentation that validate alternative Native perspectives on the

past.

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Jeffrey pointed out that most Virginia histories have ignored Indian cultures in favor

of the need to place the Powhatan Indians in "a larger temporal and geographic framework"

with the interior cultures living in Virginia in 1607, a significant teaching point that has been

overlooked in the majority of Virginia textbooks and classrooms. He explained to the

teachers about the Jamestown effect:

In Quebec, in Santa Fe, Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous scholars are always

creating regional pictures - Taos ties to the Plains, the Quebec area to Algonquins

and Iroquois and others. The Chesapeake is really odd in the way we keep our focus

traditionally on the local theater of interaction between Powhatan and the English.

This is true historically as well. While the numbers have changed over the years it is

still usually a new insight for the teachers to think about Spanish presence in

Chesapeake in 161h century and the failure, not disappearance, of the Roanoke

Colony.

Contesting prevailing assumptions and knowledge gaps was also important to Helen

and Kent. Because of his background is in the physical sciences rather than the social

sciences, Kent's presentations with Helen both years presented an interdisciplinary view of

the Chesapeake Bay to their audiences. "I brought to that not only this ecological history

background, but also my background as a sailor," Kent said.

Kent's subject was the Chesapeake Bay as it was in the early colonial era when

Captain John Smith explored it. The foundations of his talk came from a conversation 25

years before, when some DC wastewater treatment plant facilitators spoke with Kent. "They

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told me that the river was perfectly healthy, the Potomac River was perfectly fine," he

recalled. "It was, indeed, extremely polluted. And they said, 'We'll never know how it was

in John Smith's time."'

That prompted Kent to read Smith's writings for the first time, to begin in-depth

research, and to tie the Bay's history to the condition of the Bay and its surrounding regions

today, "in the hope that they will provide some kind of lesson or object lesson for instructing

modem Chesapeake Bay residents." Through his presentation he showed that because of the

impact of colonization and English resource use, it became very difficult for the Native

peoples to maintain their own cultures.

"Kent was much more specialized than I," Helen said. "His topic was actually

narrower, because I could have taken off in 18 different directions." Therefore, Helen

directed her commentary to the ecological history that Kent was addressing, focusing her

remarks on how Indians fit into ecology. As the author, co-author, or editor of a significant

body of work on the Powhatan Indians and their descendants, Helen Rountree's research has

supported Virginia Indian initiatives for federal recognition, particularly in the absence of

records altered in the Plecker era that would document tribal continuity in the last century.

She has testified on these tribes' behalfbefore the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.24

Knowledge Sources and Knowledge Integration

Where did the Bridge Crossers gain the knowledge they shared with the BJTI teacher

participants, and how did they integrate that knowledge into their presentations? These non-

Native presenters are content specialists recognized in academe through their published

scholarship and professional activities. Their areas of knowledge inform and support the

Virginia Indian historical narrative by using primary sources, fieldwork, and scientific

24 Testimony before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition ActS. 480, June 21, 2006, http://www.indian.senate.gov/public/ _files/Rountree062106.pdf

http://www.indian.senate.gov/public/_files/Rountree062106.pdf

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analysis to contest Eurocentric assumptions within the European-American teaching tradition

or lecture format. Jeffrey Hantman noted that he has researched and written about Monacan

Indian archeology since about 1990, adding, "I have worked collaboratively with the

Monacan Museum and individuals - Karenne Wood, Diane Shields, and Phyllis Hicks - on

research, publishing, and public presenting."

In her 2007 and 2008 presentations, Helen relied on an extensive database she has

developed on Virginia Indian historical and cultural studies, a database that supports what is

in the traditional Indian culture with "what was actually out there in the records." Her first

BJTI invitation was to participate in the 2007 Institute at the University of Virginia and the

request, she said: "was fairly specific. I was supposed to do Indian ecology, and how they

lived close to the land. Until I had done about 35 years of intensive study, I couldn't have

done that subject because I had to reconstruct Powhatan ethnobotany. So I was there because

of my scattergun approach. And it was even clearer in 2008 when essentially Karenne said,

"I've got the following speakers, can you fill in?" And I said, "Sure, whatever the gap is, I

may be able to fill it, and ifl can't, I'll shut up."

Helen began her research related to Virginia Indians in 1969, and said that through

using what she calls a "scattergun approach," she then found herself covering "a tremendous

amount" of information both historically and culturally. She organized the materials and

prepared a Power Point for her presentations both years but was prepared to add more

information from her database as additional relevant comments. Helen commented, "I'm

continually working over my database and continually adding to it, so I'm staying current in

an awful lot of stuff."

All three experts have collaborated through scholarship as well as the Institute with

each other as well as Virginia Indian tribes, museums, and organizations. Jeffrey contributed

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a chapter to Powhatan Foreign Relations 1500-1722, which Helen edited (Rountree, 1993).

Kent co-authored John Smith's Chesapeake Voyages 1607-1609 (Rountree, Clark, and

Mountford, 2007).

Table 8 summarizes my analysis of the three non-Native presenters' views of their

curricula according to core beliefs, knowledge sources, format, content, and intended

outcomes, as based on their interview responses and compared to those of the Native cohorts.

Table 8

BJTI Non-Native Presenters' Teaching Traditions: Curriculum

Bridge Crossers

Core Belief System Integrate Native history and European-American academic approach (IlEA)

Knowledge Integration Use primary sources, oral history, and related scholarship (IlEA)

Format Restructure beliefs and knowledge through collaborative research-based instruction (IlEA)

Content Use text, objects, and photographs plus oral histories to support research (IlEA)

Intended Outcome

Set collaborative research in European-American framework (IlE-A) Transmit collaborative history (IlEA)

Decolonize history; create shared meanings and conceptual change (IlEA)

Corroborate Native cultures, rights, and self-determination (IlEA)

Note: I= Indigenous; EA =European-American; I/EA =Interface of Indigenous and European-American traditions.

I found that just as the oral history dimension and traditional ways of knowing are a

common denominator between the three Native cohorts, traditional European-American ways

of teaching and learning are the common thread between the non-Native Bridge Crossers

Rather than using these methods to marginalize Native knowledge, this cohort employed

them as a form of empowerment for that knowledge.

Format and Content

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The Bridge Crossers' BJTI presentation content was based upon their expertise and

research in subject areas contributing to teachers' understanding of Virginia Indian history

and culture. In addition to covering subject matter not addressed in detail by other speakers,

their subject areas covered three state regions important to the Virginia Indian narrative: 1)

the Piedmont and European-American Virginia, 2) the coastal plan, and 3), the Chesapeake

Bay. They shared an emphasis on factual knowledge derived from their research, and either

expanded or contested the traditional historical narrative.

In outlining his 2008 presentation, Jeffrey Hantman noted that he "lectured on the

contributions of archeology to learning about and documenting who the Monacans were in

history and are today," adding that there was "some emphasis on teachers' appreciating

cultural difference across Virginia, and some emphasis on Monacan history in the colonial

era." He contended there was bias in colonial records, whether intentional or not, stemming

from missing Indigenous perspectives, unexplored territories, and second- or third-hand

information in that era. For example, he stressed to the BJTI participants that archeological

data has refuted Captain John Smith's limited descriptions of the Monacan Indians.

Jeffrey also explained how both the written record and archeological data confirm

that the Monacans had not disappeared by the late 1 ih century, but instead chose not to trade

with the English. He gave the BJTI participants a deeper understanding of how archeology

functions in present day Monacan Indian politics and culture, specifically the repatriation of

artifacts to the Monacan museum in Amherst County, and the need to assist with such efforts

to return artifacts and rebury Native human remains. He concluded, as he said, by making

"the case for why we must look Beyond Jamestown to truly understand the past and the

present for Native people."

Intended Outcomes

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The BJTI presenters and planners actively sought to expose their audience of

educators to a Native perspective on Virginia Indian history as part of their intended

outcomes in teaching about their areas of expertise within the program. There is a difference,

however, in how the Native cohorts and non-Native cohort viewed that responsibility in

terms of outcomes. The Keepers shared stories of major import regarding their own and

others' stories of endurance and survival, particularly in achieving education. The Bridge

Builders tried to institutionalize that oral history within society and especially within

education. The younger Synthesizers sought ways to essentially globalize that history.

Although the Bridge Crossers cohort adopted the primary BJTI goal of decolonizing

the mainstream historical narrative, their methods and intentions for creating change and

understanding centered on the cognitive rather than the affective domain. Their overall

responses did not address emotional reactions by the teachers; rather, they concentrated on

listeners' degrees of attention and comprehension regarding their subject areas.

Helen Rountree did not adjust her presentation style or content in advance for the

BJTI participants, working from an outline but spontaneously adding to it:

I taught freshmen for decades, usually at eight o'clock in the morning, so I know

what it takes to keep people interested even if they don't initially have an

interest. ... And the same kind of ad-libbing, throwing in wiseacre comments to keep

people awake, all that sort of thing, that's worked with so many different age groups,

I figured it could work with teachers as well. And that if they wanted the nitty-gritty,

they could ask me. But keep it general, and let them come up with more specific

questions later. That was the only strategy I really had.

Bridge Crossers' Pedagogy

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Substantive interaction and shared knowledge based on research and collaboration

with tribal communities were foundational to Helen and Jeffrey's curricula, but their

instructional techniques and those of Kent Mountford were those they would use in university

settings. Their goals for their audiences typically centered on traditional European-American

goals of sharing factual knowledge and of ensuring the comprehension of that information.

Helen Rountree described how she adjusts to different levels of comprehension and interest.

I'm inclined to start off general for everybody. And then if I find out that they

actually know more or want to know more- and it would have to be the majority of

people in the room that did -okay, then I'll ratchet it up. I'll start talking a bit about

what evidence I have for what I'm saying.

At that level, Helen said, she would explain the difference between primary and

secondary sources and why primary sources are eyewitness accounts. "And then I'll say,

'Here's what the primary sources say."'

Table 9 summarizes how these non-Native components compare to those of the

Native cohorts. In sum, I found that the identifiable pedagogical objectives for their teaching

were based on years of teaching in the classroom, as were the ways they described their

techniques, use of electronic technology, and observations on classroom dynamics. Helen

also points out that the myths associated with history are usually entirely different: "I'll get

technical to that extent." At the next higher level, Helen said, "I'll start arguing about

different primary sources, which are more reliable, and which John Smith is more reliable

because of the year in which it was written. I ratchet things up." In the case of ecology, she

will go further into how scholars know how ecology works because of hard science, or

providing a more advanced look at how Native peoples in Virginia used resources. She

begins by telling students, "I'm dealing with people who were very busy, had limited time,

and would pick out certain plants because their edible parts were easily processed to make

food for the kids. And then I'll start going more specifically into plant species."

Table 9

BJTI Non-Native Presenters' Teaching Traditions: Pedagogy

Objectives

Techniques

Technology

Classroom Dynamic

Bridge Crossers

Reinforce Native perspectives by imparting academic knowledge and theories (VEA)

Use lectures followed by discussion to augment oral histories, text, and other resources (EA)

Use electronic media in BJTI to focus presentation

Do not deliver emotionally-charged content but may adjust for listeners' awareness and attention; stimulate discourse (EA)

Outcomes for Audiences Empower participants with awareness and knowledge; dispel stereotypes and validate collaboration(VEA)

Note: C = Curriculum; P = Pedagogy; I = Indigenous; EA =European-American; VEA = Interface of Indigenous and European-American traditions.

Objectives

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In Chapter 7, I identified the Keeper's BJTI objectives and pedagogy as Indigenous in

their teaching through oral history, with the Bridge Builders and Synthesizers demonstrating

Indigenous characteristics in their own use of story and their commitment to it as a major

knowledge base. For all Native cohorts, audience reaction was described with an awareness

of the guilt, shock, or disbelief that listeners might feel learning about the racial prejudice

and violence directed at Virginia Indians in the 20th century, or being confronted by the

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realities of racial stereotyping. Rather than basing their objectives on a purely Native

perspective, these three academics sought to demonstrate to the teachers certain fallacies or

shortcomings implicit in the accepted narrative. Each seemed to have an objective for

intellectual growth based on the discipline represented.

For Jeffrey Hantman, it was important to stimulate new awareness in the teachers of

connections between Native history and European-American thinking. He wanted to convey

the advocacy role of archeology in dispelling outdated theories and concepts, and in forging

mutual understanding. Jeffrey commented:

I think I try to convey that what they think of as archeology - finding things - is a

part but a small part of the contributions archeology can make to writing social

histories. And, that we need to listen to Native voices, Indigenous perspectives, in

our interpretation of the past. Material culture - artifacts - don't speak for

themselves and I hope to convey how European-American scientific thinking affects

most textbook archeology. We need to do something different here with the lead of

the VCI [Virginia Council on Indians], the tribes, and tribal leaders, and I hope to

convey that to the teachers.

That cross-cultural theme was applied by the Bridge Crossers in varied ways

individual to their disciplines. As a scientist, Kent Mountford said,

... When other cultures come in and march over the existing culture, regardless of

which culture it is- if it's our culture and the Zodiacans come in their rocket ships,

these interlopers are usually taking out a resource that they will use differently than

the Indigenous people. For example, the English came along and they said, "Wow,

walnut, let's cut the trees down for the lumber and make furniture." And that took

away from the natives the potential for having the nuts, the potential for making a

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popular beverage that they concocted from that resource, and the potential for making

dyes that they needed, maybe for basket fibers or whatever.... So it became very

difficult for [the Natives] to survive using their traditionallifeways.

Helping the teachers to move beyond accepted Eurocentric assumptions about

indigenous cultures was another key point. "I taught [the BJTI participants] that American

Indians were not only human beings, they were human beings with ingenuity," Helen

emphasized. "So they had to know their world and they used it very, very cleverly." Helen

added that human ingenuity is worldwide: "You just don't find people smart enough to

domesticate animals and plants in one or two parts of the world. It wasn'tjust the Fertile

Crescent, and it certainly wasn't Europe."

Techniques and Technology

In their interviews, the Bridge Crossers were much more specific about their content

and their presentation methods than any specific pedagogical technique or philosophy. They

did not voice any concerns about how listeners received the information they presented on a

moral or developmental level, but did watch for audience attention and interaction rather than

cognitive dissonance. Helen said that she has a general philosophy of teaching:

I'm not sure how to articulate it. Actually, keep 'em awake is a great deal of it. I'm

sorry, but it's so easy for people to be distracted nowadays and their attention is

getting ever shorter. It was already bad in the Sixties when I started out. Keep their

attention, and then you can pound things in. But you've got to keep their attention

short of getting up and dancing on the table.

Jeffrey Hantman's response to the same question about his teaching philosophy was,

"Not that I can articulate. I love teaching." Kent Mountford said, "I'm not a teacher, and I

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don't think that way." However, he went on to say, "I'm not a trained teacher; I think I'm a

teacher in the wider sense, I teach a lot, all the time."

Helen was not sure how to describe how she decided on her teaching methods, and

said, "I'm not sure not sure I know how to answer that one. I'm doing something; I just

haven't verbalized that particular thing. That's why I'm not into pedagogy, see. I do it, I

don't think about it."

In describing his methods, Jeffrey Hantman said,

I think that with teachers, I try to engage them in my own research path - the first

questions I asked, why I asked them, and how I went about trying to answer them.

The results seem to mean more and the teachers learn a specific but generalizable

lesson on how to approach colonial history (documents) and archeology both with

caution.

The specialized content that each of the Bridge Crossers brought to the overall program

content was delivered through the medium of Power Point presentations, and visuals were

important resources. Jeffrey Hantman explained: "I make an outline of the key points and do

my best to prepare a PowerPoint slide show- good graphics are hard to find for the Virginia

interior, and I talk about what that is, and how it affects teaching this material. He singled out

the 1612 map attributed to John Smith as reflective of his teaching practices in the Institute:

With that, I can say very positively what we learn, and I can show as well what is

missing on that map and how it can't be put in textbooks without comments. The

Monacans are mentioned, but they were always beyond were the English dared to go.

Thus, much of what we have been traditionally taught as fact from the written

observations of Smith is second and third hand information.

To Kent Mountford, his presentation was "about as much technical information as

you can throw at a relatively lay audience." He does not work from outlines, using the

PowerPoint format instead as an organizing strategy:

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I think the bringing together of the images, the verbal - I originally used to script all

of my presentations so even the pauses and the sort of side comments were pre

planned in a written text. I got beyond that with the convenience of Power Point. I

think the presentations are less eloquent as a result of that. They flowed better when I

actually had preconceived the story, the jokes, the bullet points and such. But it's

become too time-consuming to do it. Lecturing's not really what I'm about. So they

get what comes out. I just do it the way it feels.

Helen also observed that PowerPoint lends itself to a linear style. "With Anglos, but

also with people who have to deal with Anglos, it gets you through the subject in an

organized way, without too many digressions that actually obscure the point that you're

trying to make at any given time."

What all three presenters agreed on was the importance of visuals to their narratives.

For Helen Rountree, the more striking the image, the better. "I want them to be pretty,

because people won't pay attention to them ifthey're ugly or badly focused or if they're not

centered," she emphasized. Further, she wants several shots of any point she makes:

I never wanted anything up longer than 20 seconds when I was teaching in the

classroom. And even that proved to be too long toward the end of my teaching

career, because people are used to changing images, and MTV has made it infinitely

worse. So multiple images, preferably of the same thing from different angles.

In her lectures, Helen used verbal imagery, drew on the blackboard and copied her

outline there before the advent of slide projectors. "People see better than they listen. So yes,

visuals are necessary," Helen said. "If you can keep them interested with the visuals, they

will also take in the things they are hearing."

Classroom Dynamics

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Each non-Native presenter acknowledged variables that concern many educators in

21st century classrooms, including their listeners' attention spans, comprehension levels, and

degree of engagement with what they were presenting. Each worked from factual content as

their starting points and structured it within a guided presentation that was visually rather

than orally oriented.

This approach is not very different from those Native presenters who used

PowerPoints to convey information. Karenne Wood and Rhyannon Curry have developed

and used digital media methods with students in teaching college coursework and for

Karenne, other professional development seminars for teachers. Also, Gerri Reynolds

Wade's professional education experience allowed her to move between European-American

and Native teaching styles. She continually assessed her listeners' receptivity and

engagement, but employed an oral rather than visual presentation style in keeping with her

content. I found that in a similar way, the non-Native presenters structured their curriculum

and pedagogy as they would in higher education settings; they tended to assess listeners'

responses to their content and presentation styles and then adjust appropriately.

In speaking of her presentation style, Helen Rountree explained, "I always watch

faces. I don't watch any one individual and I only glance at people, because if you focus on

one person, then you start directing everything toward the one person." She continued:

So I glance, and I'm careful to look at both sides of the audience, and that sort of

thing. I try to make visual contact at least in one part of the lecture with everybody in

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the room. And I know that it works because people come up to me afterwards, and

from what they say or ask, I know that they feel I've been talking to them personally.

However, she is not looking for any particular type of response with her strategy, "just

looking to see what they're doing." Both Helen and Kent spent time with the teachers

informally during meals, as did other presenters when their schedules permitted. Those

exchanges, like the question and answer sessions after each lecture, were important

components to Kent and an opportunity to gain knowledge himself:

I always try to keep the talk short enough that I can get responses from the audience,

and that will often teach me more than I think I taught them in the lecture, whether

it's true or not. Sometimes, people come up with anecdotes, historical insights,

experiences they've had, people they know- I'll end up writing down names and

email addresses, or the persons themselves may be a resource. And that's very

instructive, particularly with adult audiences.

Outcomes for Audiences

Previously in this chapter, the non-Native presenters' descriptions of their

backgrounds, experiences, and intentions as BJTI instructors helped to illustrate their how

their disciplines connect with Virginia Indian history and also with aspects of advocacy. For

Kent Mountford, expanding teachers' knowledge on ecological history was clearly important

to him in developing their appreciation for the Chesapeake Bay and eco-system, and to

knowledge of the basic components of that system: "Like the relationships of forest soils to

the moisture balance and streams, and things like that," he said, adding that such knowledge

could be added to over time to the curriculum. "There is a list of 20 objectives or bullet

points that you could eventually put on there."

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In sharing his hopes for what teachers took away from his BJTI presentations, Jeffrey

Hantman said:

... I hope that teachers take away a history of the Monacan people, an understanding

of their continuing presence in the state, a critical look at how biased, intentionally or

not, colonial documents can be, how pernicious they have been to the Monacan

people from John Smith's misconceptions [onward], and how archeology can play

some role in helping to balance the written record.

Along with Jeffrey Hantman, Helen Rountree stressed the continuity oflndian tribes

in Virginia, commenting:

If I am doing a historical presentation, I've got one overall aim, and I learned it from

my teacher, Nancy Lurie, on the doctoral level. She worked with the Winnebago

Indians since the year I was born, which is now 65 years ago. She said, "Always get

across to your audience that the Indians are still here, even if it is a plug at the end.

Always get it across to people that Indians are still here, that it's a continuous

existence.

Jeffrey and Helen's goals suggest why they have successfully bridged cultures as

European-American-based academics, in that they have taken on advocacy roles through

their personal beliefs and disciplines. They are, in a sense, accepted based on years of

collaboration with tribal communities. During this study, the Institute's Native presenters

consistently referred to important relationships within families, within tribes and nations, and

between individuals. Such trust relationships have sustained their communities and their

cultural identities through extremely difficult times.

During the era in which the Racial Integrity Laws were in effect, some non-Native

advocates working in the spheres of education, religion, and government contested the

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treatment Virginia Indians received. Anthropologist Frank Speck, for example, publicly

challenged Walter Plecker and his contention that Indians did not exist in Virginia. Speck

documented tribal continuity through his fieldwork within tribal communities, much as Helen

Rountree and Jeffrey Hantman have done in recent times. And Helen and Jeffrey are not the

only modem anthropologists to advocate for Virginia's Indigenous peoples' heritage

preservation; within this study though, they represent an academic community of

anthropologist-educators whose teaching, publications, and collaborative projects have

benefited the tribal communities in recognized ways.

Although he has not worked extensively with the Virginia Indians or other Native

peoples, Kent Mountford's expertise as an environmental historian is valued for several

reasons. He conveyed scientific concepts in non-technical language during his presentation,

which in part emphasized the Chesapeake Bay that John Smith, other English colonists, and

the Indigenous peoples lived with and utilized four centuries ago. His ecological concerns

about the effects of exploitation and overcrowding in the Chesapeake Bay basin resonate

with the sense of land stewardship that the BJTI tribal experts such as Samuel McGowan and

Ken Adams expressed in their interviews. In this sense, Virginia's land and waters are a

connecting link for Kent and other higher education faculty in related disciplines who work

with tribes in state.25

Another critical factor is the absence of education and citizenship rights Virginia

Indians before the 1960s made terminal teaching degrees in higher education extremely

unlikely given the lack of funding and accessibility. Therefore, non-Native scholars such as

Helen Rountree, Jeffrey Hantman, and Kent Mountford support the Plecker era generation in

25 For example, in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Dr. Jeffrey Kirwan currently works with tribal communities on an Indigenous ecology initiative.

terms of academic credentialing and filling in the research gaps that their Virginia Indian

peers might otherwise have filled.

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By achieving higher levels of education particularly at the doctoral level, the Cohort

Two members (Bridge Builders) are acculturating and working in larger numbers within in

the European-American academic system as Native scholars. Cohort One (the Keepers)

model the persistence of their generation. Cohort Four members (the Bridge Crossers) show

us what might have been, had Virginia Indians not been barred by law from public schools

for decades and effectively for centuries by societal norms. They show us the promise of the

future, as Native educators increasingly take on these roles in the Commonwealth's

universities and K -12 classrooms. They also show us the possibilities of interdisciplinary

and cross-cultural collaboration.

In part due to Virginia Indians' pre-desegregation education hurdles, the Bridge

Crossers currently expand the professional ranks that Virginia Indian academics will fill as

more gain terminal degrees, teach, and in tum mentor junior Native scholars. I contend that

the acceptance of these non-Native experts as filling a critical need in the development and

transmission of a Virginia Indian epistemology occurs because of their beliefs and values are

compatible with those of their Native colleagues. In Chapter 9, I discuss the broader

implications ofthis academic interface in the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute.

Chapter Nine Conclusions

This research study began as an exploration of pedagogy and curricula developed by

a specific community of invited scholars and tribal experts for the Beyond Jamestown:

Virginia Indians Past and Present Teachers' Institute in 2007 and 2008. These tribal and

academic experts, both Native and non-Native, collectively presented a Virginia Indian-

centered counter-narrative that was revisionist in its approach to educational assumptions and

to biases originating in Virginia's colonial history.

I have suggested that this counter-narrative is a unique phenomenon in Virginia by

virtue of the critical roles played by program coordinators and presenters as four distinct

groups: 1) the Keepers, whose stories of tribal survival during the Racial Integrity Act era

(1924-1967) are at the heart of the BJTI curriculum; 2) the Bridge Builders, who through

their greater post-segregation access to education and terminal degrees advance the

recognition of Virginia Indian perspectives in European-American academic settings; 3) the

Synthesizers, who as rising scholars and professionals will carry these stories further into the

21st century, and 4) the non-Native Bridge Crossers, whose bonds of trust and friendship in

the Virginia Indian communities have gained acceptance for their scholarship within the

BJTI, allowing them to contribute new interpretations of the Virginia Indian narrative within

that curriculum.

The relationships among these individuals, their characteristics, and their experiences

inform my analysis of their teaching methodologies as European-American, Indigenous, or

an interface of both paradigms. Contextually, the literature and historical background

described in this study suggest that lack of agency silenced Virginia Indian voices for

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generations, hindering education for and about their peoples. This silence was enforced

through societal sanctions and power alliances within the dominant majority society that

denied full citizenship to Virginia's Native peoples, including the right to education and

cultural identity. Indian identity disappeared from birth and death certificates and marriage

licenses at the behest of Dr. Walter Ashby Plecker, director of the Bureau ofVital Statistics

from 1912 to 1946.

Within living memory, many Virginia Indians were impelled to leave the

Commonwealth in order for their children to gain a high school education, or forced to enroll

them in-state in private schools that welcomed Indian students. Some tribal communities

supported their own elementary-level schools and teachers in response, with the State

Department of Education providing elementary grade-level schools and teachers on the

Mattaponi and Pamunkey Indian reservations.

These ethnic-based sanctions within Virginia society produced historical unresolved

grief and trauma that have been expressed only recently outside tribal communities or

publicly acknowledged as an injustice. At the same time, Virginia Indians have continually

encountered popular misconceptions, stereotypes, and historical inaccuracies about their

cultures and history while Native viewpoints were ignored. By bringing Native and non

Native experts with recognized knowledge and presentation skills during the Institute's

formative years, the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute signaled change in three vital

areas: collaboration, transformation, and education.

Collaboration

The BJTI demonstrated effective collaboration among educators who are influenced

by two different teaching paradigms, Indigenous and European-American. These Indigenous

and European-American paradigms produce distinct elements of pedagogy and curriculum

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that in this study's analysis helped to identify characteristics of each of the BJTI presenters'

cohorts.

Based on the BJTI coordinators' and presenters' comments, the elements of both

paradigms were valued in the program's overall curriculum, and that these elements exist in

individuals' individual teaching methodologies to some degree based on membership in one

of the cohorts and its' characteristics. The tribal experts and academic experts contributed

important elements to the BJTI in each year. The tribal experts shared eyewitness stories that

simultaneously critiqued and expanded the master narrative. In each year's program, the

Native academic experts presented a Native perspective on the past and present,

incorporating European-American elements. The non-Native academic experts presented

supporting evidence for Native history and perspectives working within a European

American framework, but did so as collaborators familiar with Virginia Indian history,

cultures, and communities from their research and interactions with Native communities.

In the case of the current non-Native academicians who were Institute presenters,

Karenne used a very visual metaphor, saying, "These are people who have been invited

across the bridge because they came to the tribal communities with the right kind of respect."

Her comment indicates a crucial element: how Native peoples view non-Natives' academic

study and teaching. This perspective is a complex and sensitive issue. In many cases,

Virginia Indians and American Indians have been excluded from academic discourse except

in the third person, or misrepresented from their perspective. The scars created by

segregation and by centuries of colonialism have not disappeared. Thus, tribal communities

have often chosen not to collaborate with European-American researchers; yet, they have

collaborated with scholars who received legitimate entry into their communities through the

building of trust relationships of the kind Karenne described.

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The absence of citizenship rights and the limited access to segregated education

foisted on Virginia Indians before the 1960s made the acquisition of terminal academic

degrees in higher education extremely unlikely. By achieving higher levels of education

particularly at the doctoral level, the Bridge Builders (Cohort Two) represent the first

collective Virginia Indian generation to acculturate and work in the European-American

academic system as Native scholars. Cohort One (the Keepers) model the persistence of

their generation. Cohort Three (the Synthesizers) and Four (the Bridge Crossers) confirm the

promise ofthe future as Native educators increasingly join the ranks of scholars in the

Commonwealth's universities and K-12 classrooms. They also reveal the potential of cross

cultural collaboration.

Additionally, the BJTI's development offered Native and non-Native educators a new

medium for discourse in an increasingly global society and parallels scholarship honoring

Native worldviews elsewhere. For the Native BJTI cohorts, particularly the Bridge Builders

and Synthesizers, global connections to Indigenous initiatives and scholarship link their

communities to a larger dialogue.

When cultural mediators work jointly as they did in the Beyond Jamestown program,

it moves Virginia Indians and all Native peoples from the "Other" or marginalized position in

society to an equal place in the classroom. In New Zealand, British rule and Indigenous

sovereignty were historically in conflict as in Virginia, an earlier English colonial project.

Yet there is a modem parallel between Maori scholar Mason Durie's vision of a mutually

respectful interface between Maori and Pakeha (non-Maori) knowledge workers in scientific

research, and the dynamic in operation between the BJTI's tribal historians, Native scholars,

and non-Native scholars. To apply this collaborative construct to education is a logical

progression. It has the capacity to engage Virginia teachers and students as agents of change

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who move beyond understanding social reality to critically questioning its past and present

legitimacy.

Transformation

Within the BJTI program, Virginia Indians are transforming a painful past into a

healing history by telling stories of the Plecker era's impact, engaging teachers as potential

change agents to inform new generations of students. The BJTI presenters exposed the

programs' teacher audience to a little-known period in Virginia history-the era of Racial

Integrity Laws in effect between 1924 and 1967-and some experiences of Virginia Indians

who lived through it. Karenne Wood sees the telling of these life stories as restoring Indian

voices to the narrative:

Yes, that is the transformative moment, and that's something that you can't capture in

the textbook. You can show pictures of community life, you can show the grandma

sitting there showing the child how to make a basket or whatever. But until you

encounter that person's experience, and especially the ways in which they may have

suffered because of their identity- that's what people relate to. And it's kind oflike

when I was studying psychology in school. I would skip past the theoretical material

and go to the case study, because that's what's interesting. You want to hear about

the person, and what happened to the person, not the contextual stuff, [not] the big

words that interpret that experience.

By sharing this history, the BJTI's presenters demonstrated the continuity of Virginia

Indian heritage and memory within tribal communities. They overcame some of the silences

of the past, revealing the existence of aspects of modem Indian history that have been

overlooked-or ignored-in Virginia classroom instruction and in textbooks. In doing so, they

shed light on stereotypes and social injustice, foster a new awareness among their listeners

that then may be communicated in classrooms, and in tum encourage a new awareness in

their students that history is an amalgam of multiple voices and viewpoints.

Education

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The tribal experts identified in the Keepers cohort are skilled presenters familiar with

European-American education from their own backgrounds and advocacy activities, but who

used an Indigenous story-telling style for their presentations. Native academic experts in the

Bridge Builders and Synthesizers cohorts typically incorporated planned curricula, lecture

formats with audio-visual resources that are part of their own European-American-based

education. All three Native cohorts were aware of audience reaction to their presentations,

but adjusted in some cases and not in others for shock, disbelief, or similar responses from

teacher-participants. The Bridge Crossers incorporated European-American elements into

their presentations as non-Native scholars, but focused on evidential rather than experience

based knowledge. Both are foundational systems with the potential to decolonize history and

to privilege Native ways of knowing. Both were of value to the BJTI's central goal, which

was to introduce educators to a Virginia Indian perspective on history.

A distinct Virginia Indian epistemology emerged within the BJTI in its first two years

as a teacher development program; the epistemology surfaced, particularly in the curricula

and pedagogies of its Native presenters. The core of the program focused on the Keepers'

stories as modem oral history, presented in tandem with related teaching points on Native

issues today, cultural stereotypes, academic research, and the updated information teachers

received on related discoveries in ecological-history, ethno-history, and archeology from

Native and non-Native presenters.

As a case study, the BJTI demonstrated that through the institution of education,

Virginia Indians are reclaiming the place of their heritage and identity in Virginia's master

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historical narrative. Vine DeLoria Jr. (2009) noted that cross-cultural exchanges, particularly

in the United States, are not balanced dialogues; rather, the larger culture controls the

exchange. He cautioned that:

Cross-cultural work, if it is to prove useful and ethical, should also subject the

ideas of the larger culture to critique by those of the smaller in such a manner

as to help create a new intellectual framework that partially transcends each

culture. (p. 2)

Through the pedagogies and curricula its presenters have offered, the Beyond

Jamestown Teachers' Institute was, in fact such a transcendent concept in action. It was a

deliberate reclamation of heritage and identity from the majority culture. It demonstrated

teaching effectively at a cultural interface between two cultures that historically were not

equals. This program, in its first two formative years, also demonstrated Virginia Indians'

agency in inviting non-Native presenters and the BJTI teacher-participants "across the

bridge."

In part due to Virginia Indians' pre-desegregation education hurdles, the non-Native

scholars currently expand the professional ranks that Native academics will fill as more gain

terminal degrees, teach, and in tum mentor junior Native scholars. These non-Native experts

answer a critical need in the development and transmission of a Virginia Indian

epistemology; within the BJTI, their research and knowledge areas, along with those of the

tribal experts, completed the curriculum. Their acceptance by various tribal communities has

occurred because their beliefs and values are compatible with those of their Native

colleagues.

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Recommendations

The Beyond James town Teachers' Institute illustrated the power of shared

experiences and relationships to become a decolonizing force in education. Throughout my

interviews with the BJTI coordinators and presenters, I found that this potential existed in the

strength of their commitments and in the knowledge they brought to their roles. I do not

presume to share their informed insights in envisioning what the BJTI may become;

however, I would like to suggest two potential lines of research. Each by rights should be

conducted in collaboration with Virginia Indians and allied organizations.

1. Further study of the BJTI as a learning community. The BJTI is poised to

continue to be a significant and evolving resource in teacher development. After a one-year

hiatus due to economic conditions, the BJTI resumed in Summer 2010 in a new higher

education venue, the School of Continuing Studies (SCS) at the University of Richmond,

where 15 local teachers participated in a different format. Karenne Wood explained that in

comparison to the funded 2007 and 2008 programs, the 2010 program participants paid a

reduced SCS fee to take the course and earn graduate credit. Karenne noted that she and

Wayne Adkins, assistant chief of the Chickahominy Indian Tribe were the 2010 presenters:

"Wayne spoke about [the] 20th-century Indian experience. This summer, it will probably be

me and Powhatan [Red Cloud-Owen]. Pow has been to speak at my UVa class and will

probably do that again this semester."

It is highly possible that such modifications will occur as the BJTI responds to

educational needs and economic conditions in the state, and its own funding capabilities.

Currently, Virginia Indian resources vetted by Native educators are available through the

State Department of Education and the Virginia Indian Heritage Program web sites, and

support the major Standards of Learning revisions implemented in 2010. As Freire (1994)

envisioned it, education is potentially emancipatory in theory and application.

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It would be worthwhile to study the participants' views in relation to Freire's

construct, in addition to those of those program's presenters, to determine if the Beyond

Jamestown Teachers' Institute program and presenters indeed brought participants to that

stage of inquiry. Such a transformative learning environment has the potential to lessen the

impact of cognitive dissonances that both the Native presenters and the non-Native BJTI

students may experience from stories of past oppression or frank discussions of the impact of

stereotypes. It may also bring people together in advocacy; Rhyannon Curry saw indications

of this happening in the first year of the Institute:

I think [the teachers] realized what an awesome position, and what a position of

responsibility, that they were in. And that was part of our goal, to get this feeling

across that here's this history that is so messed up, so full of oppression and

exclusion. Where do we all-not just you as teachers, but we as co-coordinators, as a

non-Native organization, as a Native organization-where, as a community and as a

group of humans, do we go from here? And I remember leaving that week with a lot

of hope.

Karenne Wood also noted that in the post-program evaluations for both 2007 and

2008, many participants indicated that transformation happened to them personally as well as

professionally, especially in the first year: "[The teachers] felt there was a passion that they

captured and took with them. And in that way, they were hugging and almost crying when

they left."

More may be learned about the institute from research focusing on the educators

participating in future programs, given the coordinators' observations of both years and data

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available through program evaluations. Such research may take the form of pre- and post

institute surveys on a year-to-year basis, with follow-up questionnaires to learn how past

participants implement what they learned in their own classrooms, to what extent their BJTI

participation affected their knowledge of Virginia Indians, and whether the program

enhances their pedagogy and curricula at different grade levels. However, I believe that there

is added value in conducting qualitative research that explores these issues with in-depth,

open-ended questions. I often found during my interviews for this study that my initial

questions led to new questions and significant new insights that I did not foresee, and this

may well be an outcome of similar research with the BJTI participants. Such research

combined with evaluation and survey data would offer a deeper look into the dynamics of the

institute from the learners' perspectives.

2. Support for further study of Virginia Indian education agency during the

Racial Integrity Act period in collaboration with Virginia Indian tribes and related

organizations. One of the most inspiring aspects of conducting this research was talking

with those who have felt the effects of racism yet have transcended it to teach with tolerance

and dedication. Like many teachers attending the BJTI programs, I previously was unaware

of the extreme severity of the laws affecting Virginia Indians, the sacrifices that families and

tribal communities made in providing educational opportunities for their youth, and their

extraordinary resilience in the face of oppression.

I contend that it is vital to support the collecting of personal histories from tribal

members and other witnesses to the segregation era. These histories document the

determination ofNative people in Virginia to secure education despite legal, social and

economic hurdles, and should be recognized as part of the Commonwealth's state history.

For example, the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe is actively compiling such materials in

193

connection to the Sharon Indian School located in King William County. The school was

built in 1952 on the foundation ofthe 1919 one-frame schoolhouse originally constructed by

members of the Upper Mattaponi tribe. Tribal members have restored the brick building and

their preservation efforts have resulted in the school building being officially recognized as a

state and national historic landmark, with a highway marker also marking its history. The

school is now the focus of an extensive oral history project as collaboration between the

Upper Mattaponi tribe, Virginia Commonwealth University, and the Virginia Foundation for

the Humanities. There are other schools' histories that could be documented, educational

advocacy efforts by organizations and individuals during segregation that should be

recognized, and official records to study in connection with the Virginia Department of

Education and county governments-both of which interacted with Indian schools during the

era when the Racial Integrity Laws were in effect.

The Beyond Jamestown program and its presenters signify an important shift toward

giving voice to the silences of the Virginia Indian past and in encouraging a cross-cultural

interface through education. Although Virginia Indians historically have been marginalized

by education, the institute was an important step in transformation to empowerment and

enlightenment.

The BJTI Native presenters continually demonstrated an acceptance of current

realities in K-16 education; but as was the case during in the 201h century, they feel education

is a keystone to maintaining and advancing Virginia Indian cultural identity and rights in the

larger society. Karenne Wood said:

Over time, I would love for the whole institute to become unnecessary, because there

will be so many people who are aware of the Virginia tribes that they wouldn't need

194

this information. And I could imagine that in my wildest dreams, I guess. I think it's

going to be more than ten years coming, unfortunately.

When asked how long it would take for Virginia Indian history to become

institutionalized in school curricula, Karenne responded:

I think it will be more than a generation, because we're presenting the new

information year by year, but the children's parents have that old mindset. And the

children themselves come equipped with their stereotypes. They've already seen

Disney's Pocahontas by the time they get to kindergarten. They've already had the

comments of their parents and friends, and they come with this mindset of what is a

real Indian surprisingly young.

Despite their collective opinion that such deeply embedded beliefs within education

and society cannot be overcome soon, Native presenters are prepared to persist. "The

teachers have a great interest in what we have to say, the things we bring to them, and they're

the ones who will have the one-to-one contact with the children," Arlene Milner noted. "And

I guess we're just going to have to wait and let time tell the story."

From her vantage point, Rhyannon Curry made this statement about what lies ahead

for Virginia Indians and education initiatives like the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute.

Her statement epitomizes the tenacity of the BJTI Native presenters' commitment to their

people's making history in addition to teaching it:

We're starting to come into a time of empowerment. And it's not total empowerment

yet, but we're starting to get there. And maybe we'll eventually get there.

Everything's cool and groovy. It won't be in my lifetime, but it's something to work

towards. And every little step helps.

195

In his 1956 book Segregation: The Inner Conflict in the South, Robert Penn Warren

wrote, "We are the prisoners ofhistory. Or are we?" Through this study, I have come to

believe that the Virginia Indian people's answer to that question is, and will always be, "No!"

The pain of the past is countered by the pride of the modem Indian peoples in Virginia, and

by the joint commitment that tribal experts, Native academics, and Anglo academics have to

teaching- at the interface of cultures.

Appendices

196

Dear [Title] [Last Name]:

Appendix A Participant Invitation Letter

I am conducting a study involving faculty members of the 2007 and 2008 Beyond Jamestown: Virginia Indians Past and Present Teachers' Institute summer seminars. This study is part of the requirement for completion of a Doctor of Education degree in the Educational Policy, Planning, and Leadership Program at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. The purpose of the study is to document curriculum and pedagogical practices of the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute's Native and non-Native faculty members, in order to explore differences and similarities in how they teach. The term "faculty" defines individuals who are recognized within and without the Virginia Indian communities as experts in related fields and as such were invited to teach in one or both of the Beyond Jamestown program's first two years (2007 and 2008).

I believe that in its development and first two years of operation, the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute presented significant innovations in cross-cultural education that deserve study and documentation. Its faculty members represent a crucial link to understanding the program's effectiveness. This study follows a 2008 quantitative study of measureable gains by Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute teacher-participants. I presented those findings from that study at the 2009 Virginia Indian Nations Summit on Higher Education (VINSHE), and results of the 2010 study are available for distribution to all interested stakeholders.

If you consent to take part in this study, I will ask you questions about your teaching methodology, life history and cultural background. This will enable me to gain insights into the worldviews and experiences that you and other Beyond Jamestown faculty members hold. I will schedule an initial interview of approximately one to one-and-a-halfhours for each participant at a convenient time and a follow up interview as needed.

At the beginning of the interview, I will review the study's purpose, also reviewing its confidentiality and consent perimeters. You may select a pseudonym if you wish, and may elect not to answer particular interview questions. If you request that certain information remain confidential and not used in the study, I will abide by your request. I will safely secure all transcripts and related materials in a locked file box during the study.

If you have electronic or written documents related to the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute that you feel reflect your teaching methodologies, I will ask you to share them with me. However, this act is voluntary. I will ask you to review interview transcriptions to check and correct any factual errors, and to clarify any misunderstandings. There are no foreseeable risks associated with participation in this study. You may discontinue participation in this study may withdraw at any time during interviews or by notifying me by email or telephone.

197

198

The anticipated benefits of this study will be to expand the knowledge base regarding faculty pedagogy and curricula in the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute that may transfer to other cross-cultural education settings and to document the Beyond Jamestown program's value as a significant example of Virginia Indian educational innovation that has implications in other cross-cultural settings. In addition, you may gain insights into your own perceptions and experiences.

Thank you very much for considering this request. If you are willing to participate, please contact me at 757-810-2525 or [email protected]. You also may contact Dr. Dorothy Finnegan, chair of my dissertation committee, at [email protected] with any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Lisa Heuvel Ed.D. Candidate, School ofEducation The College of William and Mary



Appendix B

Participant Informed Consent Form

I, , agree to participate in a phenomenological study involving faculty members of the 2007 and 2008 Beyond Jamestown: Virginia Indians Past and Present Teachers' Institute summer seminars. This study is part of the requirement for completion of a Doctor of Education degree in the Educational Policy, Planning, and Leadership Program at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. The purpose of this study is to document the curriculum and pedagogical practices of the Native and non-Native faculty members who taught in the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute in order to explore differences and similarities in the content and techniques of these teachers. The term "faculty" defines individuals who are recognized within and without the Virginia Indian communities as experts in related fields and as such were invited to teach in one or both of the Beyond Jamestown program's first two years (2007 and 2008).

As a participant, I understand that I will be asked questions related to my life history and cultural background, my views and experiences concerning how I integrate curriculum and pedagogy into my teaching and my perceptions of the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute from my perspective as a faculty member. I also understand that honesty and accuracy in my responses is critical to this study.

The estimated time commitment expected of me is approximately one to one-and-ahalf hours for the initial interview in which I agree to participate, and approximately one hour if a follow up interview is needed for clarification or expanded topics. In the interest of confidentiality, I understand that I may select a pseudonym. The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, the Virginia Indian Heritage Program, and the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute will be identified by name in the study with permission from these organizations.

I understand that I do not have to answer all the questions asked of me during either interview. I understand that ifl have electronic or written documents that I feel reflect my teaching methodologies, I will be asked to share one or more that are specific to the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute, and that this is voluntary. At the conclusion of the study, any artifacts will be returned to me if I request them or will be destroyed. I agree to read and review the transcriptions generated during each of my interviews to check and correct any factual errors and to elaborate on any misunderstandings.

There are no foreseeable risks associated with participation in this study. If for any reason I wish to discontinue my participation in this study, I understand that I may withdraw my consent at any time during the interviews or by notifying Lisa Heuvel by email or telephone. Anticipated benefits of this study are to expand the knowledge base regarding faculty pedagogy and curricula in the Beyond Jamestown: Virginia Indians Past and Present Teachers' Institute and for participants to gain insights into their own and others' perceptions and experiences in this area. The completed study will be available to all participants.

199

200

I have been informed that any information obtained in this study will be recorded with a pseudonym of my choosing, so that only the primary researcher is aware of my identity. At the study's conclusion, the key linking me with the pseudonym will be destroyed. I acknowledge that individual discussions will be audio taped to ensure the accuracy of the data analyzed, and that the tapes will be safely secured for the duration of the study. At its conclusion, the tapes will be erased and will no longer be available for use. All efforts will be made to conceal my identity in the final report if requested and to keep my personal information confidential.

If I have any questions related to my participation in this study, I may contact Dr. Dorothy Finnegan, chair of the researcher's dissertation committee, at [email protected]. I understand that I may report any problems or dissatisfaction to Dr. Thomas Ward, chair of the School of Education's Internal Review Committee at (757) 221-2358 or [email protected], or Dr. Michael Dechenes, chair ofthe Protection of Human Subjects Committee at the College of William and Mary at (757) 221-2778 or [email protected].

My signature below signifies that I am at least 18 years of age, that I have received a copy of this consent form, and that I consent to the conditions outlined above.

Date Participant

Date Investigator

THIS PROJECT WAS FOUND TO COMPLY WITH APPROPRIATE ETHICAL STANDARDS AND WAS EXEMPTED FROM THE NEED FOR FORMAL REVIEW BY THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY PROTECTION OF HUMAN SUBJECTS COMMITTEE (Phone 757-221-3966) ON March 25,2010 AND EXPIRES ON March 25, 2011.




Appendix C

Presenter Interview Protocol

I. Introduction A. What is your educational background? B. What is your family background? C. What has been your role in the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute? D. In what years have you been involved with the institute? E. What in your background prepared you to take on this role? F. Please describe your BJTI presentation as much as possible.

II. Curriculum

A. How did you go about planning your presentation content for these teachers? B. Why did you choose your topics over other topics? C. What resources are important to you, and why? D. What were your goals for developing your curriculum or presentation content? E. What kinds of things do you hope teachers take away from your presentation?

III. Pedagogy

A. Did you have a general philosophy of teaching? B. How did you decide on the pedagogy or teaching methods to use in your

presentation? C. How did you choose these methods over other strategies? D. In what ways do you feel that these teaching methods were effective in achieving

your student learning goals?

IV. Artifact

A. Is there a document or other artifact you wish to share that relates to your teaching methodology? Please describe it in your words.

B. How does this artifact reflect your teaching practices in the Institute?

V. Conclusion

A. If it was ten years from now and the Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute had continued, the Virginia Standards of Learning were revised again, and textbooks also had additional updated content on Virginia Indian history and cultures, howor would you-change the way you presented in the Institute? Why or why not?

B. Is there anything else that you consider important or would like to add?

201

Appendix D

Interview Codes and Descriptions

Advocacy/Empowerment: Forms of decolonizing and desensitizing as well as promoting Native Identity

Ancestors:

Beliefs:

Bias:

BJTI:

BJTI Gaps:

BJTI Participants:

BJTI Presenters:

Bridging:

Change:

Collective Memory:

Colonialism:

Community:

Decolonizing:

Education/Teachers:

Environment:

References to generations past in Native participants' families and tribes

Relates to attitudes and belief systems

Examples of prejudice

Relates to BJTI program in general

Omissions in program noted by participants

Educators participating in BJTI program

Presenters' educations, family backgrounds, and multicultural connections

Everything related to bridging cultures through BJTI and other channels

Descriptions of change and empowerment

Preserved past experience of Native American tribes and nations

Related to attitudes, actions, and policies stemming from governmental control of Indigenous peoples

Reference to group with regional, social, and cultural connections; in this case, American

Any action that resists or disempowers imperialist behaviors, policies, and actions

Perceptions of education and teachers

Climate or setting

202

European-American:

Experience/Stories:

Fear:

Formal Education:

Future:

Refers to European, also Western points of view and knowledge

Narratives, oral history, and text; perceptions of storytelling

Apprehension of possible outcomes or changes

Presenters' formal schooling backgrounds

203

Participants' thoughts and opinions about BJTI and education in years ahead

Hopes: Wish or expectation of certain outcomes

Indigenous: Native points of view and knowledge

Knowledge Preservation: Sustaining traditional beliefs and information

Multicultural Background: Participants' descriptions of diversity within their families

Native Presenters:

Non-Native Presenters:

Pedagogy:

Perspective:

PresentationNisual

Presentation/Oral

Pride:

Processes:

Racism:

Segregation:

Self-Reflection:

BJTI participants with American Indian and Virginia Indian heritage

BJTI presenters with heritage other than American Indian

BJTI pedagogy and other teaching described by participants, including intent and goals

Point of view

Presenters' descriptions of presentations, primarily visual, with PowerPoint or other images

Presenters' descriptions of their teaching styles as primarily oral, not visual

Feelings of self-respect, or esteem for something or someone else

BJTI-related sequence of actions

Examples of prejudice

Virginia policies concerning Virginia Indians following enactment of Racial Integrity Act of 1924

Presenters' views of their teaching, attitudes, and beliefs related to interview process

SOLs:

Spirituality:

Teaching Skills:

Teaching Background:

Pertaining to Virginia Standards of Learning

Beliefs of a spiritual nature

Presenters' descriptions of their skill sets

BJTI participants' and coordinators' backgrounds in formal teaching in the classroom

204

Teaching Goals: Presenters' expressed learning goals for BJTI participants, their own teaching goals

Teaching Philosophy: Participants' stated concept of their teaching missions

VA Segregation/Family: Related to family experiences of segregation in Virginia

VA Segregation/Personal: Related to individuals' experiences of Virginia segregation

Values: Worthwhile principles

Appendix E

Researcher as Instrument Statement

I first became aware of Virginia Indian history and cultures as a museum educator in 1998. Although I had written about colonial Virginia, I was more attuned to English history. In the course of my museum education work and Master's studies over seven years, I gained an elemental knowledge, enough to sense disconnects in how Virginia Indians, historians, educators, students, and the general public perceived the colonization of Virginia and its subsequent development. During my doctoral studies, I progressed to a much deeper appreciation of the complexities of this contested historical narrative, especially Virginia Indians' cultural survival through specific strategies such as education. I also began to teach teachers about the history of colonial Virginia. My intention is to explore the teaching of the presenters of the BJTI, and on a deeper level, to explore the program's worth and meaning in 21 81-century Virginia. I want to understand my biases as they affect the development of my dissertation. I have had to learn to confront my own emotions about past and current injustices to American Indians in Virginia, particularly as I acquired a deeper knowledge of Virginia history, and so have a deep interest in the dynamics involved in the Beyond Jamestown: Virginia Indians Past and Present Teachers' Institute.

As a museum educator, I began with minimal knowledge of the history and the cultures of Virginia Indians, past and present. I accepted Eurocentrically-based historical interpretation and then began to question it in my readings and studies. I realized that interpretation is prone to both deliberate and unintentional bias; as I met Virginia Indian people, I realized that there an alternative narrative existed and began to quest for new sources. This led to active collaboration with members of the Virginia Indian community and non-Native scholars working with them, and to an active phase of study and community service in higher education for teacher development and Native college student recruitment. During this time, I attended the first Beyond Jamestown Teachers' Institute as a participant and returned the following year to coordinate the 2008 Institute at The College of William and Mary while conducting a quantitative study measuring participants' gains. I have since continued to work in higher education initiatives and teacher development related to the Virginia Indian people. I am still pondering the threads of research and responsibility inherent in my research. However, I know that I wish to open a window into the compelling and complex epistemology of the educators both Native and non-Native that I interview, and to show the education landscape from their perspective.

205

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Vita

Lisa L. Heuvel

Birthdate: January 30, 1952

Birthplace: Charleston, West Virginia

Education: 2006-2011

2002-2005

The College of William and Mary Williamsburg, Virginia Doctor of Education

The College of William and Mary Williamsburg, Virginia Master of Arts

1970-1974 The College ofWilliam and Mary Williamsburg, Virginia Bachelor of Arts

225

Documents

Teaching at the interface: Curriculum and pedagogy in a teachers' institute on Virginia Indian history and cultures