Tag Archives: Native American Teachers

Alaskan Pioneer and Chalkboard Champion Orah Dee Clark

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Orah_Dee_Clark[1]Many talented educators were pioneers as well. A fine example of this is educator Orah Dee Clark, a teacher who is best known for being the first superintendent for the first school in Anchorage, Alaska.

Orah was born in 1875 in Firth, Nebraska. She started her teaching career in 1906, when she was hired by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to teach in the Territory of Alaska. She worked in a number of remote outposts, including Kodiak, Anvik, Tanana, and the Aleutian Islands. In 1915, she was named the first superintendent of the first school in Anchorage. After leaving her position in Anchorage, she helped establish schools up and down the railroad belt in towns including Wasilla, Eske, Fairview, and Matanuska. She also taught in Unga, Kennicott, Ouzinkie, Takotna, Kiana, Nushagek, and Moose Pass. This amazing pioneer concluded her fifty-one-year career when she retired in 1944. A champion of Native Alaskan rights, Orah always believed that all children should be integrated into schools that fostered individual growth. Throughout her career, she was a strong advocate for schools where Native Alaskans and white students would attend school together.

Clark Middle School in Anchorage was opened in 1959 and named in her honor. In the early days of the school, Orah visited the campus often. It is said the students enjoyed talking with her between classes and after school.In 1962, Orah was awarded the Scroll of Honor by the Cook Inlet Historical Society. In 1980, the school where she served as the first superintendent, the Pioneer School House, was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 2009, Clark was inducted into the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame. Her personal papers are held in the collection of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and the Anchorage Museum holds a collection of photographs she once owned. Every year, the Anchorage Women’s Club awards a high school scholarship for boys and girls named after Clark.

This remarkable educator passed away in 1965.

Chalkboard Champion and Native Hawaiian Gladys Kamakuokalani Brandt

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gladys_brandt[1]This beautiful lady is teacher Gladys Kamakuokalani Brandt, a Native Hawaiian old enough to have attended the funeral services in 1917 of Queen Liliuokalani, the last reining monarch of Hawaii, and yet young enough to witness the unprovoked attack upon Pearl Harbor in 1941 which precipitated World War II. Gladys began her career as a teacher, working in public schools and eventually becoming an instructor  at the well-known and prestigious Kamehameha Schools, a private institution set up to educate Native Hawaiian students.

As a youngster, Gladys was deeply ashamed of her Hawaiian heritage, so much so that she rubbed her face with lemon juice to lighten her complexion. By the time she became the principal of Kamehameha Schools, however, she fought tirelessly for the inclusion of courses to preserve Native Hawaiian culture, supporting instruction in Hawaiian language, song, and the controversial standing hula dance which had been forbidden by the school’s trustees. The story of her work is an inspirational one.
Equally inspirational is the story of the dedication and sacrifice of Hawaii’s teachers in the days and weeks following the bombing. From serving as ambulance drivers, setting up shelters for survivors, teaching their students how to use gas masks, taking their students into the sugar cane fields to harvest the crops, and re-establishing some semblance of order for their students when school resumed, their deeds are truly remarkable. You can read about Gladys and her fellow Hawaiian teachers in Chalkboard Champions.

Chalkboard Champion Elaine Goodale Eastman: She Was a Sister to the Sioux

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574055-M[1]One of the most fascinating books I have read in recent times was Sister to the Sioux: The Memoirs of Elaine Goodale Eastman (1863-1953). This inspirational teacher was born and raised in New England, but decided to give up all the comforts of home to travel to a South Dakota Indian reservation. She wanted to establish a day school for Sioux Indians because it was her strong belief that it was better to educate Native Americans in their tribal environments rather than follow the alternative practice, which was to take the children out of their homes and send them far away from home and family to Indian boarding schools. Before long, this talented classroom teacher was promoted to the position of Superintendent of Indian Education for the Two Dakotas. While serving in this capacity, Elaine witnessed the Wounded Knee Massacre, and with her fiance, Santee Sioux Indian Dr. Charles “Ohiyesa” Eastman, nursed the Native American survivors back to health. Great story, well worth taking the time to read. You can find this book on amazon.com at the following link:

Sister to the Sioux: The Memoirs of Elaine Goodale Eastman

If you prefer, you could read a chapter about her in my book, Chalkboard Champions. See the following link to amazon.com:

Chalkboard Champions

 

Author Ann Clark: The Chalkboard Champion of Native American Students

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$RM7YVD4Many distinguished educators have dedicated their professional lives to working with underprivileged student populations. One such teacher was Ann Nolan Clark.

Ann Clark was born on December 5, 1896, in Las Vegas, New Mexico. When Ann was 21, she graduated from New Mexico Normal School, now known as New Mexico Highlands University, in Las Vegas, New Mexico.

Ann inaugurated her teaching career as a professor of English at Highlands University, but in 1923, she accepted a position teaching reading to Native American children in a one-room schoolhouse at the Black Rock School in Zuni, and then at Tesuque. Little did she know that this position would last twenty-five years. While teaching in the Indian schools, Ann observed that the Native American children learned more easily when their primers were geared towards their life experiences. She began writing primers with characters and situations that honored the the Pueblo way of life. Many of these primers were then published by mainstream publishing companies. She eventually broadened her scope and wrote children’s books with Navajo, Sioux, Finnish, and Hispanic characters. She also published a number of professional articles under the pseudonym Marie Dunne.

Between 1940 and 1951, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs published fifteen of Ann’s books. Her book In My Mother’s House, illustrated by Pueblo artist Velino Herrera, earned a Caldecott Honor Book Award in 1942. During the 1940s, Ann also wrote multi-cultural books for the Haskell Foundation and the Haskell Indian Nations University at Lawrence, Kansas. One of them was The Slim Butte Raccoon, illustrated by Andrew Standing Soldier.

In 1945, the Institute for Inter-American Affairs funded an educational trip for Ann to travel to Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil. Her experiences on this trip led her to write such books as Magic Money, Looking-for-Something, and Secret of the Andes, which garnered her the 1953 Newberry Medal. Ann was also given the Distinguished Service Award by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1962 and the Regina Medial by the Catholic Library Association in 1963.

This remarkable educator passed away on December 13, 1995. During her lifetime, she published over forty books, thirty-one of them about Native American culture.

Native American Loren Brommelyn: The Chalkboard Champion Who is the Tradition Bearer of His Tribe

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7046458[1][1]Many teachers dedicate themselves to preserving the rich traditions of their culture group. One such educator is Loren Me’lash-ne Brommelyn, a “tradition bearer” for the Tolowa tribe. Loren, who is of Tolowa, Karuk, and Wintu descent, has dedicated him life to preserving the traditional songs, ceremonial dances, language, and basketry of his Native American culture.Loren was born in 1956 in the small fishing village of Nelechundun on the Smith River. His tribe, the Tolowa, numbered approximately 2,400 prior to European contact, but dwindled to only 121 people in the Smith River and Crescent Bay region by 1910. As a speaker and teacher of the Tolowa language, he considered the single most knowledgeable individual on the subject. He is also recognized as the largest single maker and contributor of men’s and women’s dance regalia in the Tolowa community, and he has a reputation throughout the northwestern part of the state as an expert basketmaker.
Loren earned his master’s degree in linguistices from the University of Oregon. He currently teaches at Tah-Ah-Dun Indian Magnet Charter School in Crescent City in northern California, and formerly taught for many years at Del Norte High School in the same town. He’s also a published author, producing educational material about the Tolowa language, and he played an important role in persuading the University of California system to recognize Native American language as part of the entrance requirements for world language. In 2002, Loren was named a National Heritage Fellow by the National Education Association.