Tag Archives: Native American Teachers

Elaine Goodale Eastman: She was a “Sister to the Sioux”

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Elaine Goodale Eastman: The teacher who was a “Sister to the Sioux” (Photo credit: Boston University)

Many talented and dedicated educators have devoted themselves to working for disenfranchised groups of students. One of these was Elaine Goodale Eastman, who often called herself a “Sister to the Sioux.”

Elaine Goodale Eastman, originally from Massachusetts, was a talented teacher who established a day school on a Sioux Indian reservation in the territory of South Dakota. She believed very strongly that it was best to keep Native American children at home rather than transport them far away from their families to Indian boarding schools. She hadn’t taught on the reservation very long when she was promoted to the position of Superintendent of Indian Education for the Two Dakotas. In this capacity, she traveled throughout the five Dakota reservations, visiting the more than 60 government and missionary schools within her jurisdiction, writing detailed evaluation reports on each school she visited.

It was because of her work that Elaine just happened to be visiting the Pine Ridge Reservation when the tragic Wounded Knee Massacre took place. As a result of this tragedy, more than 200 men, women, and children from the Lakota tribe were killed, and another 51 were wounded. In addition, 25 government soldiers were also killed, most by “friendly fire,” and another 39 were wounded. Following the massacre, she and her fiance, physician Charles Eastman of the Santee Sioux tribe, cared for the survivors and wrote detailed government reports to accurately describe what happened.

In her later years, when America was experiencing a back-to-nature revival, Elaine and her husband operated Indian-themed summer camps in New Hampshire. Read more of the life story of this fascinating educator in Theodore D. Sargent’s biography The Life of Elaine Goodale Eastman, or an encapsulated version in my first book, Chalkboard Champions: Twelve Remarkable Teachers Who Educated America’s Disenfranchised Students, both available on amazon.

Rhode Island’s Loren Spears: Teacher, essayist, artist, and tribal council woman

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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.

Wowaus of Massachusetts: Native American printer and teacher

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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.

Third grade teacher Lynette Stant named 2020 Arizona Teacher of the Year

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Third grade teacher Lynette Stant of the Salt River Reservation named 2020 Arizona Teacher of the Year. (Photo credit: Allen Patrou of Raising Arizona Kids Magazine.)

I love to tell stories about talented educators who have earned accolades for their dedication and hard work in the classroom. One of these is Lynette Stant, a third grade teacher from Arizona who has been named her sate’s 2020 Teacher of the Year. She is the first Native American teacher to earn the top educator honor in Arizona, according to the Arizona Educational Foundation.

Lynette, a Navajo, is a member of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. She was raised in Tuba City on the Navajo Reservation. Both her parents attended Federal boarding schools. “It is not a secret that education of Native peoples is one drenched in historical trauma,” Lynette asserts. “As a Navajo woman, teaching in a Native American school, teaching Native American students, my goal is to change that narrative,” she declares. Lynette believes passionately that schools should be a reflection of a student’s culture and family.

The honored educator teaches third grade at Salt River Elementary School. The school was established as Salt River Day School in 1934. The facility was built by Phoenix Indian School students and funded by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Currently, Salt River offers grades K-6, as well as a FACE Program, an early childhood and parental involvement literacy program. The school is controlled by the tribe and funded by a grant from the Bureau of Indian Education. Enrollment is approximately 380.

To read more about Lynette, see this article printed by Raising Arizona Kids.

Science educator Alex Joanis teaches Native American students

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Science teacher Alex Joanis works with Native American students on the Spokane Indian Reservation in the state of Washington.

Throughout our country, there are many talented and dedicated educators who work with culturally diverse groups of students. One of these is science teacher Alex Joanis, who works with Native American students on a reservation in the state of Washington.

Alex was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1995.  As an adolescent, he attended Santiago High School in Corona, California. After high school, he enrolled in California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, in San Luis Obispo. There he earned his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry, cum laude, in 2017. He earned his teaching credential from the same college in 2018.

Alex cites several sources that influenced his decision to become an educator. First, he gives credit to his AP Chemistry teacher, Dr. Branton Lachman. “He was a great teacher who pushed me to do the best I could, and provided all of the resources and opportunities that I needed to achieve my academic potential and engage in authentic science learning,” Alex remembers.

Also, Alex says his experiences a a tutor deepened his resolve to go into the profession. “There’s a really neat feeling I get whenever I help someone else understand something they were struggling to get before,” he declares. “The light bulb goes off in their head, I can sense that, and I’m flush with a good feeling. It’s just nice to help people do the things they struggle to do on their own, and I like having that feeling,” he continued. “I also had an internship class in high school, where I got to drive down to my old elementary school and essentially act as a teacher’s assistant for two hours in one of the fifth grade classrooms. Just like how I loved the feeling of helping people ‘get stuff,’ I loved the feeling of building rapport with a group and being relied on for help,” he concluded.

After his student teaching experience at Templeton High School in Templeton, San Luis Obispo County, California, Alex accepted a teaching position at Wellpinit High School in the state of Washington. Alex has taught there for two years, instructing courses in biology, physics, chemistry, food science, and environmental science. The Wellpinit School District is a K-12 public school system located on the Spokane Indian Reservation. The school’s minority enrollment is 94%, and 82% of students are economically disadvantaged.

“Because I’m at a very small school, I get to sink more time into building relationships with the few students I have,” asserts Alex. “I’ve really taken a liking to this year’s sophomore class. They’re very easy-going, and now that I understand them better as individuals and as a group, I’m able to get them to engage more with the content and buy into the educational experiences I’m trying to give them,” he says.

In addition to his classroom responsibilities, Alex is one of two advisers for the sophomore class. He’s also working with a colleague to revitalize extra-curricular clubs that would provide students with leadership opportunities.

What advice would Alex share with fellow educators? He suggests that it is important to remember that there are students in your classroom that recognize the work you put into it and appreciate what you do. “Real recognizes real,” he says, “and as long as you present yourself authentically and do the best you can, you will have students that recognize that, respect the work you do, and put in some effort,” he advises.

Alex Joanis: A true Chalkboard Champion.