Rhode island’s Loren Spears: Teacher, essayist, artist, and tribal council woman of the Narragansett Tribe. Photo credit: Rhode Island State Council on the Arts

Many talented and dedicated educators work diligently to foster an appreciation for the cultures of under-represented ethnic groups. One such educator is Loren Spears, a teacher, essayist, artist, and tribal council woman of the Narragansett Tribe in Rhode Island.

As a youngster, Loren attended Chariho Regional High School in her home town of Charleston, a rural village in southern Rhode Island. After her high school graduation, she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and Teaching at the University of Rhode Island, graduating in 1988. She earned her Master’s degree in Education at the University of New England in 2002.

Loren’s teaching career spanned two decades and included twelve years as a first grade and fourth grade teacher in the Newport Public School system working with at-risk children. Throughout her professional career, Loren has always been a strong advocate for integrating more Native American history and experiential learning into school curriculum. Loren says she remembers, “Being in a history class during my elementary days and actually reading that I supposedly didn’t exist, that my family didn’t exist, that my people didn’t exist.” She has spent much of her adult life correcting that misimpression.

In addition to her professional accomplishments as a teacher, Loren works as the executive director and curator of the Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum in Exeter, Rhode Island. The museum was the site of a private, state-certified school, the Nuweetooun School, which this talented educator directed from 2003 to 2010. Nuweetooun, which translates as “Our Home” in the Narragansett language, was founded by Loren with the help of the Narragansett community and generous donations, including monies from a local charity, the Narragansett Tribe, and the Rhode Island Foundation. Though Loren is Narragansett, the school is not connected to any specific tribe. As the school’s director, Loren made sure that the Nuweetooun School provided Native American children from kindergarten through the eighth grade an experiential, collaborative curriculum based on Native American traditions and culture, as well as standard academic subjects, including mathematics, language arts, social studies, science, and health.

In June, 2005, Loren received the Feinstein Salute to Teachers, Teacher of the Month. In 2006, she earned the Native Heritage Gathering Award, and in 2010, Loren was chosen as one of eleven Extraordinary Women honorees for Rhode Island in the area of education. In 2016, First Lady Michelle Obama awarded a National Medal for Museum and Library Service to Loren Spears during a ceremony at the White House in Washington, DC. 

Today, this Chalkboard Champion lives in Providence, Rhode Island, and uses her vast energy to focus on educating the public on indigenous issues, arts, culture, and history through cultural arts programming, lectures, art classes, inter-generational programming, grant writing, exhibit development and design, curriculum development, school design, Native American education, and educational consulting.

To read a short interview of Loren see this link to the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts.

A page from the Bible printed by Samuel Green and translated into the Algonquin language by Wowaus. Wowaus was a Native American printer and teacher.

There are many examples of Native Americans who have become talented classroom teachers. One of these was Wowaus, also known by the name James Printer. He was a typesetter, translator, and educator who helped translate the Bible into the Algonquin language.

Wowaus was born in Hassanamesit, a Praying Indian settlement founded by colonist John Elliot. The remains of the settlement are located in modern-day Grafton, Massachusetts. The exact year that Wowaus was born is uncertain, but researchers believe it was approximately 1650. Son of William Sudbury, an indigenous leader who converted to Christianity, Wowaus was a member of the Nipmuc Tribe.

As a child, Wowaus attended an Indian charity school where he became fluent in the English language. He went on to study at Harvard University’s Indian College. As a youth, he was apprenticed to Samuel Green, the printer who published The Cambridge Press in 1659. While there, Wowaus assisted in printing many of the books in the Algonquin language that were used throughout the American colonies in his day. He also helped create the first Bible in the Massachusett language. These Bibles were used by English colonists in their attempts to assimilate Native Americans of the Algonquin tribe.

During King Philip’s War, an armed conflict between Native Americans and New England colonists (1675-1678), Wowaus joined forces with tribal chieftain Metacom. Once the war was over, he returned to the printing press. His work during that period is most notable for his work typesetting the famous captive narrative of Mary Rowlandson. In his later life, the former printer returned to his home town of Hassanemesit, where he became a teacher. This intriguing historical figure passed away in 1717.

To read more about this Chalkboard Champion, you can click on this link to The American Antiquarian Society.

Native American teacher Nicole Williams returned to her home school, Calcedeaver Elementary School in rural Alabama. There she teaches her tribe’s culture, language, dance, and history to a community with a large Choctaw Indian population. On the way, she mentors many of those students through high school.

Approximately 90 per cent of the students who attend Calcedeaver are Choctaw. Most of them live in poverty. Until recently, they had to trudge through raw sewage to get to class when rains were heavy. Most qualify for free or reduced lunch.

In a career that has spanned 15 years, Nicole has devoted herself to overcoming those obstacles. As one of many dedicated teachers, administrators, and support persons, she has helped turn things around at the school. And the efforts are paying off. The state math and reading test scores for Chalcedeaver students outpace those of their fellow students in Mobile County and across Alabama year after year.

In addition, high school graduation rates are up dramatically. When Nicole inaugurated her mentoring program, the high school graduation rate for Native American students who were elementary students at Calcedeaver was only about 50 per cent. Now, the high school boasts a 91 per cent Native American student graduation rate. That’s one of the highest in the state. “I try to ensure the community and students are getting my best and they’re giving me their best,” Nicole remarked. In fact, among her classmates, Nicole was the first, and one of only a few, who went on to college and earned a degree.

To read more about the work of this Chalkboard Champion, click on this link: Education Week.