Tag Archives: Native American Teachers

Former teacher, veteran, and Senator from Hawaii Daniel Akaka

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Many fine educators have also served as capable politicians. One of these is former teacher and senator Daniel Kahikina Akaka.

Daniel was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on September 11, 1924. He was the youngest of eight children born to a father of Chinese descent and a Native Hawaiian mother. As a youngster, Daniel attended Hawaii’s prestigious Kamehameha Schools, founded specifically to provide a quality education to Native Hawaiian children. He graduated from high school in 1942.

Daniel was an American hero. He served in the United States Army Corps of Engineers during World War II, from 1945 to 1947. When the war ended, the US veteran used his GI bill to enroll at the University of Hawaii. There he earned his Bachelor’s degree in Education in 1952 and his Master’s degree in 1966. After earning his teaching credential, Daniel was employed as a high school teacher in Honolulu from 1953 to 1960. He taught music, social studies, and math. In 1960 he was promoted to vice principal, and in 1969 he became a high school principal. In 1969, Daniel left public schools to work in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare as a chief program planner.

A multi-talented individual, the former teacher won election to the US House of Representatives in 1976, where he served a total of seven terms. In 1990, Daniel was appointed to fill a vacant seat in the US Senate which had occurred upon the death of Senator Spark Matsunaga. Later Daniel was elected to that position in his own right, and he served there until his retirement in 2013. Daniel’s career in politics spanned a total of 36 years.

While in office, Daniel served on a number of committees, including Armed Services, Homeland Security, and Energy and Natural Resources. But he is best known for his work on behalf of America’s veterans. He supported legislation to re-evaluate the wartime service records of members of the Army’s 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Infantry Battalion. These units, comprised almost entirely of Japanese American soldiers, were engaged in some of the fiercest fighting in Europe. They exhibited some of the most exemplary combat records of the entire war. Despite this, only one Asian American soldier earned the nation’s highest decoration for military valor, the Medal of Honor. Because of Daniel’s efforts, more than 20 additional Asian American veterans of World War II were awarded the Medal of Honor in 2000.

Daniel Akaka passed away after a lengthy illness on April 6, 2018, at the age of 93. To learn more about this amazing educator and politician, click on this article at Washington Post Obituary.

Joel Truesdell of Hawaii inducted into the National Teachers Hall of Fame

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High school science teacher Joel Truesdell has been inducted into the 2024 class of the National Teachers Hall of Fame. Photo Credit: NTHF

There are many exceptional educators who have spent their careers working in American schools. One of these is Joel Truesdell, a science teacher from the state of Hawaii. For his work in the classroom, Joel has been inducted into the National Teachers Hall of Fame (NTHF).

Now retired, Joel’s career as an educator spanned 34 years. He taught chemistry courses at Kamehameha High School, a private school for Native Hawaiians located in Keanu, Hawaii, from 1987 to 2021. There he worked tirelessly to integrate aspects of Native Hawaiian culture into his lessons and labs. He spent the final year of his career at Tuba City Middle School, a Bureau of Indian Education school in the Navajo Nation of Arizona.

In 1991, Joel founded the Hawaiian culture-based Kamehameha Summer Science Institute in Organic Chemistry of Hawaiian Medicinal Plants, (KSSI). In this program, high school students isolated the bioactive components from medicinal plants identified by legendary Hawaiian traditional healer Papa Henry Auwae, who was recognized in 1997 as a Living Treasure of Hawai‘i. In 2012, Joel added a koa reforestation project along with other cultural practices to his 10th grade Chemistry classes.

Joel’s inauguration into the NTHF is not the only recognition Joel has earned. He garnered the National Science Teachers Association’s Shell Science Teaching Award in 2017. He was the winner of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching (PAEMST) in the state of Hawaii in 2002.

Joel earned both his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and his Master’s degrees in Organic Chemistry, both from the University of Maui. He earned his PhD in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from the University of Hawaii, Manoa, in 1987.

The NTHF was founded in 1989 by Emporia State University. The program recognizes dedicated and successful educators throughout the United States through an annual induction ceremony. Located on Emporia State University campus in Kansas, the Hall of Fame honors teachers through a gallery of previous honorees, a Wall of Fame, a museum, and resource center that records the history of education through antique textbooks and other artifacts. 

To read more about Joel, click on this link to an article about him published by Kamehameha Schools. To read more about the NTHF, click on this link to their website.

Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame

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Highly-esteemed educator and author Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve was inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame. Photo Credit: SD Hall of Fame

Here is an amazing Chalkboard Champion of Native American descent: Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve. Her accomplishments as an educator and author are so impressive that she has been inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame.

Virginia was born on Feb. 21, 1933, on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. As a young woman, she enrolled in South Dakota State University, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in 1954 and her Master’s degree in 1969. She then went on to teach in the public school system, first on the Flandreau Indian Reservation, and then at Oglala Lakota College.

To further contribute to her students’ education, Virginia authored several children’s history books and highly-regarded adult non-fiction works. Some of her works include Jimmy Yellow Hawk (1977); High Elk’s Treasure (1995); Completing the Circle (1995); When Thunder Spoke (1974); and The Chichi Hoohoo Bogeyman (1975). In these works, Virginia blends personal narratives with broader historical contexts, offering her readers insights into the Native American experiences and traditions.

During the course of her lengthy career, Virginia has garnered widespread recognition and numerous prestigious accolades. Her honors include the Distinguished Alumnus from South Dakota State University (1974); the National Woman of Achievement Award (1975); and an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Dakota Wesleyan University (1979). Furthermore, her literary skills earned her the Distinguished Contribution to South Dakota History by the Dakota History Conference (1982) and two Native American Prose Awards from the University of Nebraska Press in 1992 and 1996. Virginia was also the recipient of the South Dakota Education Association Human Services Award (1994) and the Spirit of Crazy Horse Award (1996). In addition, Pres. Bill Clinton recognized Virginia with the prestigious National Humanities Medal in Washington, DC, on Dec. 20, 2000. She was the first person from South Dakota to earn this honor.

For all these reasons, Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve was inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame in 1985.

 

Teacher and WWII Seminole Indian Code Talker Edmond Harjho

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Edmond Harjho

The amazing story of teacher and WWII Seminole Indian Code Talker Edmond Harjho. Phot0 credit: Equal Voice for Families

I love to share stories about hardworking teachers who have also served our country in the military. One of these stories is about the amazing Edmond Andrew Harjho, an elementary school teacher who served as a Seminole Code Talker during World War II.

Edmond was born in Maud, Seminole County, Oklahoma, on November 24, 1917. He spent his boyhood in Maud, eventually graduating from Seminole High School. He earned both his Bachelor’s and his Master’s degrees from Oklahoma City University in Oklahoma.

During World War II, Edmond and his brothers enlisted in the US Army. The men served in Battery A of the 195th Field Artillery Battalion, and participated during the landings at Normandy in 1944 and the Battle of the Bulge in 1945. The story goes that one day in 1944, Edmond was talking with his brother in their native language. The pair were overheard by their Army captain, who quickly recognized that the men could communicate with each other in their native tongue on the army radio and not easily be understood by soldiers from the opposing army. That’s how Edmond became a Seminole Code Talker.

For his military service, Edmond was recognized in 2013 with the Congressional Gold Medal. He was also awarded the Eastern African Middle Eastern Campaign Service Ribbon, a Silver Service Star, and a Good Conduct Medal.

After the war, Edmond taught elementary school, first in Maud Public Schools, then in the Justice Public School in Wewoka, Oklahoma, and lastly in the Pickett Center School located in Ada, Oklahoma.

Sadly, Edmond Harjho passed away from a heart attack in Ada, Oklahoma, on March 31, 2014. He was 96 years old. When he died, he was the last surviving Seminole Code Talker. He was buried at the Seminole Nation Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Seminole, Oklahoma.

Indian boarding schools were places of cultural genocide

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While conducting research for my first book Chalkboard Champions, I was surprised to learn a great deal about numerous types of schools that I had never heard about in the 36 years I had been teaching. I learned about industrial schools, soup schools, farm schools, normal schools, and specialist schools. One of the types of schools I was particularly interested in reading about was Indian boarding schools, and the controversies these facilities generated.

Indian boarding schools were created specifically for the purpose of educating Native Americans. American Indian children were sent to these facilities, sometimes involuntarily, because it was believed the only way Native Americans could ever succeed in a predominantly white society would be if they abandoned their tribal ways and adopted the lifestyle practiced by the dominant culture. Proponents believed that this assimilation could best be accomplished when the Indian children were very young.

Most Indian boarding schools were originally founded by church missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Later, some were established and run by the US government. Maybe the intentions were pure, but the results were disastrous. Some historians go so far as to assert these schools were institutions of cultural genocide.

The children, some as young as four years old, were taken away from their families, sent many miles away from home, and forced to give up their native languages, customs and religious beliefs, art and music, clothing, and even their names. These youngsters often found it traumatic when they were forced to cut their long hair, a symbolic act of shame and sorrow to many Native Americans. The highly regimented routine and military atmosphere of the boarding schools were harsh on the youngest ones. Exposure to diseases to which they had no natural immunities, coupled with homesickness and, in some locations, unsanitary conditions, led to a disturbingly high death rate. In despair, some of the youngsters ran away from their schools, freezing or starving to death trying to make their way back to their home reservations. Such a terribly sad thought for educators who care so much about kids and really believe in the liberating power of schools.

You can read more about these schools in the book Indian Boarding School: Teaching the White Man’s Way, available on amazon.com. You can also read about them in my book, Chalkboard Champions.