This article originally appeared in the November-December 2001 issue of the Children's Advocate, published by Action Alliance for Children.

"School feels like family"

Early education programs for American Indian children emphasize culture and connection

By Lauren John

Geraldine Martinez expected her three-year-old son John Dean to cling to her on his first day at the Hintil Kuu Ca preschool in Oakland. Instead, John Dean immediately started playing with the other kids. When Martinez went to kiss him goodbye, he shrugged and casually said, "Mom, I thought you left already."

"I think one reason he adjusted so quickly is that a lot of the kids at the school are related to my son and the school feels like an extension of our family," says Martinez. Hintil Kuu Ca has been running preschool, summer school, and after-school programs for American Indian children for over 25 years. Martinez and her son are American Indians of Sioux and Blackfeet descent, and Martinez, now 21, attended the school when she was a child.

"Hintil Kuu Ca" means "house of children" in the language of California's Pomo Indians. Currently there are 125 children, ages three through 12, who are enrolled in the school's preschool and after-school programs. Eighty percent of the kids are of American Indian descent, representing 64 different tribes, says Marlene Beltran, a teacher in the school's prekindergarten class.

"The kids take great comfort in seeing faces like their own," Beltran says. "Originally, the state developed programs for American Indian children because the kids were dropping out as early as third grade, with few kids making it through high school." Today, she adds, far more American Indian kids are graduating from high school and some are attending college.

Martinez, now a student at the United Indian Nations business school in downtown Oakland, says, "I know I have continued my education because of the support I received when I was young." She adds that she is still close to her childhood friends from Hintil Kuu Ca and that some of the teachers she had when she was there are now teaching her son.

Teacher Beltran, descended from the Paiute tribe in Nevada, serves as a role model for the students. She says that she wishes that there had been programs like Hintil Kuu Ca's when she was a kid.

"When I attended Everett High School in Washington state, I was the only Native American in a school of 2,000 kids," she says. "The reason I graduated and went on to college was because I had a lot of strong family support. But it would have been great to also have programs that recognized my history and culture at school."

Hintil Kuu Ca preschool programs are designed to build self-awareness and self-esteem and better prepare children for elementary school, Beltran says. For example, she points out that Native American culture teaches young children to listen to their elders rather than speak up. "Many of these kids may know the answer to a question raised in class, but they will be the last ones to raise their hands and give the answer," Beltran says. "The culture teaches them not to show off." At Hintil Kuu Ca, they learn to speak up.

Hintil Kuu Ca also offers students classes in crafts such as clay work and beading. Martinez says that to this day she continues to do beadwork on a loom-a skill she first learned as a child attending the school. In addition she remembers field trips out of the inner city to Tomales Bay and Half Moon Bay-trips that taught her about Native American values such as respect for the environment.

Indian education statewide

While Hintil Kuu Ca is run and funded by the Oakland Unified School District, a statewide American Indian Early Childhood Education program sponsors education for American Indian children in prekindergarten through grade four. Andrew Andreoli, California's Indian Education director, says the programs aim to help students master school standards without compromising their cultural background.

The early childhood program emphasizes literacy. Kids and teachers tell traditional stories that have been passed down orally through the years. Older students write down and publish the stories.

Twelve schools around the state are currently conducting American Indian Early Childhood Education programs. At some schools, local elders teach Native languages, others encourage older children to mentor and tutor younger ones. In Fresno County, Sierra Elementary has a home-school liaison who works to involve parents and community in cultural activities. Toyon Elementary in Shasta County provides after-school and preschool programs, home-visiting, and other services for parents and the community.

Elementary school students also learn about history from a Native American point of view. "We let the students know how the American government treated the Indian people," says Andreoli. Many American history books, he adds, present American Indians as people that "once were here and now are gone"-confusing for Indian children.

Indian charter school

In Chico, American Indian parents and community leaders have taken Indian education a step further and created their own charter school, jointly sponsored by the Butte County Office of Education and the local Indian Education Center. Of the 120 children at Four Winds School, more than three-quarters claim Native American heritage. The school includes grades one through eight.

At Four Winds, as at Hintil Ku Caa, education is a family affair. Teacher Janice Delgado and school secretary Marty Gore are sisters-both from the Maidu Indian tribe based in Susanville, and they often see their nieces and nephews who are enrolled at the school.

The upper-grade kids and preschoolers both participate in morning drumming circles that start the school day, says Delgado. It is at these drum circles that the school prinicpal makes announcements and birthdays are acknowledged. Students also pass a sage smudge stick, following a Native tradition in which a smoking bundle of wood and dried herbs is passed to cleanse the group of negative spirits.

"The preschoolers aren't at the circle every day," says Delgado, "but they are brought over for special occasions, and we have a set of smaller drums that the older kids teach the younger ones to play."

Recently, a local salmon hatchery sponsored a program in which kids of all ages learned about the life cycle of the salmon-and about how Native Americans cleaned, cooked, and prepared salmon, says Judy Strang, associate director for student support services. That fit well into early grades' curriculum, described by Strang as "a Montessori educational model with an American Indian cultural focus."

Another cultural activity of great appeal to younger kids and their parents are quarterly pow-wows-where the kids sing and dance for friends and family. Often parents work for days to help prepare the traditional regalia and the local Native American community turns out to watch.

The school strives to give children "an education that honors American Indian traditional teachings and learning," Strang says. "For example, when teachers introduce the A-B-C's, they use pictures of objects that are familiar to the students-baskets, feathers, crafts, and places in their neighborhood," she explains. She adds, you would never see a flashcard like those used in some elementary schools that say, "I is for Indian.'"

"Our culture," she adds, "is always there." 

California Department of Education American Indian Education Programs, 916-657-3700, www.cde.ca.gov

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