LEARN NC

3.6 Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indian (EBCI) Studies Resource List

By Lisa Hodges

Provided by The North Carolina Humanities Council.

Print and Electronic Resources

Shifting Winds: A Literary and Arts Publication of Cherokee High School, Copyright 2004
This publication showcases the work and talent of participating students of Cherokee High School in Cherokee, North Carolina.
For more information contact:
Jamie Lightfoot
Shifting Winds Advisor
Cherokee High School
PO Box 134, Cherokee, NC 28719,
828-497-5111.
American Indian and Alaska Native Youth Career Development Guide
This manual, by Vivian Arviso-One Feather and Henrietta Whiteman, focuses on helping American Indian students understand themselves, their cultural heritage, and their role in the Indian community It is divided into five study units under two major headings, “You and Your Choices” and “Your Choices and Careers.” Each unit includes ideas for program leaders, background information, suggestions for implementing the activities, and references for related resources.

For example, Unit 1 (Who Am I?) incorporates American Indian creation narratives, Algonquin views on adolescence and adulthood, and the idea that the teen years are a time for learning, a search for the meaning of life, and preparation for adulthood. Assignments in this unit invite students to think about how they would provide activities for young people in their tribe – when possible, students are then scheduled to meet with their tribal chairman to share their ideas as a group. Students also work on career diaries to help them define their goals and consider the many possibilities before them.

Ness, Jean e. and Jennifer S. Huisken,Expanding the Circle: Respecting the Past, Preparing for the Future. Institute on Community Integration, The College of Education & Human Development, University of Minnesota, Minnesota Department of Indian Education, 2002.
This publication is available in alternate formats upon request. To request alternate format or additional copies, contact:
Publications Office
Institute on Community Integration
University of Minnesota
109 Pattee Hall, 150 Pillsbury Dr. SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Tel: 612-624-4512
Email: publications@icimail.coled.edu
Web: http://ici.umn.edu

The core of this curriculum is centered on involvement and participation of community members, elders, tribal leaders, and positive role models. At the core of the resilience of American Indian communities is spirituality. Because of the spiritual nature of all aspects of American Indian life, teachers, trainers, and facilitators must stress the concept of spirituality during the lessons.

Primary concepts include:

  • Belief in or knowledge of unseen powers.
  • Knowledge that all things in the universe are inter-dependent.
  • Humor as a necessary part of the sacred.
  • Relation to the earth and the inter-relatedness of all creatures.
Paul Pedersen, PhD. A Handbook for Developing Multicultural Awareness, 3rd Edition, American Counseling Association, 2000.
“The most important elements of multicultural awareness can be learned but cannot be taught. Good teaching can, however, create the favorable conditions for multicultural awareness to occur.”

Please see the following exercises for small group discussions concerning:

  1. Culturally learned assumptions;
  2. Nonverbal, non-rational, and symbolic cultural elements that are difficult to express using language;
  3. What someone says may be different from what s/he means or from what you think that s/he means; and
  4. What is public for one person may be private for another.

The following sections may be especially useful:

  • The Truth Statement, pp. 21-22.
  • Drawing Your Culture, pp. 81-82.
  • What you Said, Felt, and Meant in a Tape Recorder, pp. 41-42.
  • Public and Private Self, pp.157-160.

Also see:

  • Pp. 138-9 for examples of moral exclusion.
  • Pp. 40-1 concerning the reality of “White privilege.”
McIntosh, Peggy, White Priviledge: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.
This article provides examples illustrating white privilege in a list of statements about ordinary decisions of daily life, which can be routinely done by a member of the dominant culture but not as easily done by a member of a minority culture.
Axelson, 1999: Helms & Cook, 1999; D.W. Sue & Sue, 1999
These researchers have also done considerable work on white awareness, an attempt to get beyond guilt toward developing a positive cultural identity among white cultural groups.
Teaching Tolerance
This website offers a wealth of activity ideas tied to Thanksgiving, native mascots, and indigenous people’s proud heritage of resistance. See “A Day of Mourning,” the “Seminoles,” the “Redmen,” the “Savages,” and the “Fighting Sioux.” Educators may examine American Indian people’s struggles to hold onto heritage and secure justice.

Teaching Tolerance’s online Images in Action gallery is a simple critical literacy activity for students and includes:

  • “The Noble Savage Stereotype”
  • “The Demonic Indian Stereotype”
  • “Stereotypes and Mascots”

Activities about Heritage, Resistance & Justice include:

  • “Against the Current”
  • “The Land is Ours”

Additional Resources on Bias and Prejudice

Understandingprejudice.org
This website offers educational resources & info on prejudice, discrimination, multiculturalism and diversity, with the goal of reducing the level of intolerance and bias in contemporary society. Be sure to test your American Indian IQ with their self-test.
Students and Teachers Against Racism (STAR)
STAR seeks to bring the image of American Indian into the present, to support the well being of American Indian children in schools through the accurate depiction of history and by raising awareness of the need for sensitivity to American Indian culture, as well as bring recognition to the ongoing contributions of American Indians today, and the to celebrate the varied and rich cultural traditions of all American Indian people in the US.
Changing Winds Advocacy Center
This American Indian civil rights and education agency aims to provide a “deeper understanding of the Native experience in education and in the workplace.”
Teaching Tolerance Magazine Curriculum Ideas
Nations Within
Karen Gayton Swisher discusses education for American Indian children.

Youth Perspective

Reznet: Reporting from Native America
An online student newspaper for American Indians and the winner of the Native American Journalists Association’s 2003 Native Media Award for Best Internet News Site.
United National Indian Tribal Youth (UNITY)
UNITY Inc. is a non-profit organization focused on promoting “personal development, citizenship, and leadership among Native American Youth.”

Additional Recommended Readings

Voices From Wounded Knee, in the words of the participants, AKWESASNE NOTES, 1973.
McFadden, John, ed.Transcultural Counseling, 2nd Edition, American Counseling Association, 1999.
See especially Chapter 6: Revisiting Transcultural Counseling with American Indians and Alaskan Natives: Issues for Consideration, John Joseph Peregoy. This chapter explores biases and myths that may hinder communication between students and non-Indian counselors, focuses on different value systems, and helps counselors understand the different worldviews of American Indians so that they can communicate more effectively with American Indian students.

Useful References

Berlin, I.N. “Prevention of emotional problems among American Indian children: Overview of developmental issues”, Journal of Preventive Psychiatry, 1 (1982): 319-330.
Peterson, Ralph. Life in a Crowded Place: Making a Learning Community. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, c1992, 142.
Brendtro, Larry K., Martin Borkenleg, and Steve Van Bockern. Reclaiming Youth At Risk: Our Hope for the Future. Bloomington, Ind.: National educational Service, c1990, 110.
Perdue, Theda. Native Carolinians: The Indians of North Carolina, the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.
Rainer, Howard T. “My Dreams, Hopes, and Vision” Brigham Young University, Native American Educational Outreach Programs.
Arden, Harvey, Steve Wall and White Deer of Autumn, Wisdomkeepers: Meetings with Native American Spiritual Elders, Beyond Words Publishing, 1991.
See Page 56. Vernon Cooper, Lumbee and Epilogue: “Unto the Seventh Generation”.
Krupnick, Jane, North Carolina Wildlife Resources commission, Division of Conservation Education. This Land is Sacred: A Teacher’s Guide to Environmental Ethics.
See Contents for the following activities:

  • The Blood That Unites One Family (Cherokee story)
  • This Land is Sacred (videotape)
  • The Sparkle of the Water (poetry)
  • The Passing of a People (timeline)
  • The Earth is Our Mother (simulation)
  • A Common Destiny (personal ethics)