In an effort to abide by the state's Indian Education for All Act, the Missoula Art Museum's Summer Art School 2007 incorporated American Indian literature into its preschool “Art Start” class.
The law, enacted in 1999, was a reminder that Montana's Constitution commits the state - in its educational goals - to the preservation of American Indian cultural integrity.
The Native component was a first for the MAM and its preschool curriculum since the museum first offered art classes in the mid-1980s.
About 12 non-Native students are enrolled in this week's class.
“I think it's great,” said Erin Roberts, the seventh-year instructor who decided to implement the Native component. “When I teach a lesson focusing on a tribe, I want to do it as respectfully as I can.”
Roberts, an art teacher at Bonner School during the academic year, said it's something she tried in her own classrooms and wanted to bring to the museum.
They “got an idea about who was here before us and why that's important to acknowledge,” Roberts said. “Some were more familiar with the term Indian, but understood what the reservation was and that we were close to them.”
The instructors made the decisions on topics to cover, said Renee Taaffe, curator of education at the Missoula Art Museum. The museum has in the past offered classes for teachers on how American Indian contemporary pieces displayed in the museum can be used to teach students.
“The museum has a contemporary art collection to help develop lessons to help teach Montana Indian culture,” Taaffe said.
There are 80 pieces, Taaffe said.
During a class Tuesday, Roberts invited students to the “reading circle,” as she called it, and they sat on individual mats listening to American Indian short stories from the book “Thirteen Moons on Turtle's Back,” by Joseph Bruchac.
The story was about an Abenaki grandfather who tells his grandson about the turtle and how its back is used like a calendar. In Abenaki traditional stories, the turtle is commanded by the Great Spirit to leave the waters to become the land during the people's first creation.
“There are always 13 shapes on a turtle's back,” Roberts read. “And always 13 moons in the year. Not many people know that.”
Roberts said she brought 12 books to read to the students, all supplied to Bonner School by the Montana Office of Public Instruction.
Other books that the students browsed included Gerald McDermont's “Raven” and “Coyote,” and Paul Globe's “Love Flute” and “Star Boy.”
To complete the component, students each received a chunk of clay, enough to fit into their palms, where they sculpted a turtle and put on the finishing touches with orange and silver paint.
Roberts said some students seemed unaware that they were being taught about Native culture simply because they were so young, but said she was glad to have added it to her lesson.
“I feel a lot of the books are above their level,” she said. “But I was surprised with how they grasped the stories. They understood that there was a story going on and a lesson to be learned.”
Parents who waited outside the museum for the class to end had praise for the class.
“That was one of the things that attracted us,” said Kay Grissom-Kiely. Her 4-year-old son attended the class. “The rest of the community didn't offer anything like this, except this one.”
She said educating her son about Native communities and their culture is “the way to defuse racism and to expose him to cultures so he has a better understanding of them.
“At the preschool level,” Grissom-Kiely said, “he will have more knowledge of Native American history, through the arts, that he can bring to the classroom.”
Kristi Havlik, whose 4-year-old daughter attended the class, said she grew up in North Dakota where Native culture was always talked about in her town.
“I hope they find an appreciation and respect for other cultures,” Havlik said about the students. “I think it's fantastic.”
“I hope to teach again,” Roberts said. “I feel it went really well. There were more kids than I anticipated, but they seemed really interested in the books.”
Candace Begody is an intern at the Missoulian. She can be reached at 523-5268 or at candace.begody@missoulian.com.
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