By empowering our students to lead and serve lead for change is changing lives, transforming communities and improving our world. Learn more, check out the research and access free leadership curriculum now at leadforchange.org. Good afternoon everyone on behalf of the American Federation of Teachers, I'd like to welcome everyone today's webinar. My name is Emily Koplow and I'm an associate director in the educational issues department of the FT. Before we begin, I'd like to thank today's virtual conference sponsor lead for Change, which is celebrating its 10th year lead for changes, a free leadership curriculum for grades six through 12 with a with a community service framework that is easily integrated into any class, club or setting. Lead for change as the nation's fastest growing privately funded student leadership program with more than 15,000 educators and nearly two million students, give your class club or school a chance to win up to $10,000 in the lead for Change Challenge. You can learn more about leave for change by clicking on their logo on the right side of your screen. We truly appreciate your support. Now. Let's watch a short video on how our webinars work. Hello everyone, welcome to our 2022 share my lesson virtual conference. My name is Kelly Booze, director of the American Federation of Teachers. Share my lesson before we begin. We'll go over a few housekeeping items. For those of you who have joined us many times before, you know that we make our webinars as engaging as we possibly can. So to get us started, please open up that group chat box and tell us where you are from and why you are joining us today and what interests you about this particular topic. In addition to the group chat, if you're joining us live, you will be able to provide some different reactions throughout the webinar today, so let us know what you're thinking and throughout the webinar, whatever reaction you want to give, share it with us and share it with your fellow participants. At the end of this webinar, we will be facilitating a question and answer session. Use that Q&A widget to submit any questions that you want us to ask the presenter. If you have any technical issues, please also use a Q&A widget and one of our share. My lesson team members is there and ready to respond to you. If you would like a copy of the slide deck or any of the related materials, you can find those in the resource widget. For those of you who want professional development credit, you will be able to download a PDF certificate at the conclusion of this webinar verifying your participation today, you do need to answer the poll questions that you will see throughout the webinar. To access that certificate now, let's turn it back over to your moderator who will put up a sample poll question for you to try. The poll question is located directly in the slides. You can answer your question and then hit submit. From all of us at share my lesson. Thank you for joining us today. Enjoy your webinar. Alright, and now it's time for your practice. Whole question, you should see it in the main area on your slide screen and when you hit your answer, make sure you hit submit afterwards. So here it today's question is you have the option to live in a city for a year. Which do you choose? And I'm going to say. There's no pandemic in this scenario, and all your expenses are paid in this scenario, so don't worry about the cost of living. Don't worry about safety, this is just your dream scenario where you living. Is it when accessories or is it Cincinnati or are you staying home? Let us know and then go into the chat area and let us know why you chose your answer. Alright, we only have 51% of people up. We got 63 answering. Make sure you find their pool so that you know what to do when the time comes throughout the presentation alright? And let's see our answers. Where are you all going to live? Paris. A lot of people staying home and and some people go into Cincinnati great, alright, and now it's my great pleasure to introduce today's speaker, Casey Doctor Casey Wise, who will be giving us a great presentation. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks, Casey. Thank you so much. It's exciting to be here. I appreciate everyone joining. I was trying to look through the the chat box and I see that we have folks from all over the nation and also excited because I know this is a native, focused webinar. Excited to see folks representing a lot of our states that have more native communities present in places where the national Indian Education Association is working in. So thank you for joining the. Oh sorry, let me make sure I got that. There we go. So today's webinar is really focused on culturally responsive literacy, but with that lens of storytelling, I am doctor Casey Wise. I have transitioned from the education specialist position at NIHT to senior program director and I will share just a little bit more about Nihl briefly. But before I get started, it's important for me to share a land acknowledgement. I know that these are small steps that a lot of times people will say well. What can I do just in my classroom or Myspace? I'm in a land. Acknowledgement is one of those pieces that you can do. I would also respectfully ask that you seek help from elders or organizations in order to do a professional. I mean a respectful land acknowledgement, but I am joining you today from Memphis, TN. I am a remote employee with NIHL, but this land acknowledgement is always. I guess difficult for me in a sense, because I acknowledge that I am on lands that were the ancestral and traditional homelands of the Chickasaw nation, who now reside in Oklahoma, present day Oklahoma and other other regions in the US. Because of the forced removal and federal Indian policy. And so I wanted to make sure that I acknowledge that before moving into this space and speaking before you about storytelling and culturally responsive practices. And if you aren't familiar with the national Indian Education Association. I encourage you to look us up at nih.org. We are a national nonprofit, one of the only national nonprofits that focus on advocacy in native education. We have our main strands or program and policy work, and so not only do we advocate at the state and national level, but we also have programs that focus on educational sovereignty, tribal education, being able to work in communities that either have high native populations. In you know urban schools and public schools or reservation lands that have tribally controlled schools and so our whole goal is to. Fact and build and support, education, sovereignty, as well as increasing those educational opportunities for our American Indian, Alaskan native, and Native Hawaiian communities. And so we're going to start out just a little bit, just to gauge. I know it's hard sometimes in this virtual space to not be able to see people, or, you know, as I'm presenting, it's hard to check the chat. But this poll question is for you to be able to share, like how familiar do you feel with the history of Native American education you've joined today? Either out of an interest in the topic or you're connected to this work. And so I'd love for you to answer. Whether you're very familiar or even not familiar with Native American education and what we call the United States. And I see we have about 25% response. I'll wait a little bit more. Right, getting close all right up to 55%. And it is OK. To not be familiar, and we welcome very familiar any of this. 67 Alright, we are close. Let's go just a couple more seconds. All right? OK, let's go ahead and see. Anymore responses. There we go. Alright, so it looks like the majority of us are in that middle range of maybe not very familiar to somewhat excited to see that we have, you know, almost 17% familiar and we welcome those of you who say I'm not familiar. That is exactly why you are here and we appreciate you being in this space with us, and I do want to share that in this webinar there will be a lot of information shared very quickly. This is such a critical topic to the success of our native students and even our non native students because we know there are a lot of spaces. In which this learning didn't happen for us as educators, and where we want to be able to share this with all of our students. And I a supports native education for all students, and so part of that. Education piece is understanding how federal policy has really impacted not just the educational practices for our students and the state of education right now. But in general has completely influenced and change and shifted the the cultural identity and the histories for many of our tribal communities. And so this is a very, very brief outline of Native American education. This this topic in this slide in itself. Can be built out over a deeper series of learning, but I would encourage you to go back and do more research if you aren't familiar with the federal policy eras and the impact. It's important to understand that the concept of education and native communities prior to pre invasion pre invasion was. I mean it was really community based. It's what we would call a traditional learning. It was learning from, you know, learning from elders, learning from doing and seeing and learning from questioning. Things that we know even in our own children. What's healthy for them to learn. But in the you know, after and after invasion after contact and the establishment of the federal government, there were several major eras forced removal allotment. When you know places were being reserved, the reservation era. A lot of communities were being shifted, especially from the east. There was land taken away. It was really this move towards, you know, towards genocide. In an extinction and that dissolution of culture in the 20th century, a lot of that policy started to shift, especially in that boarding school space where the idea was OK, while eradication didn't work. Now let's do assimilation policies. You've heard a lot lately about residential schools. Boarding schools here in the US and in Canada. The current work that the the national Native American boarding School Healing Coalition is doing, and so understanding that education for our native communities and native students. And a lot of our elders and older generation that's alive now was done at boarding schools where a lot of students or a lot of children were taken away from their homes, stripped of culture and identity. The practices in these schools was very detrimental, many times, very deadly and lethal to our communities, and so that policy in that federal era of trying to assimilate and divide and remove families and children from the land caused a lot of loss. Of identity and language and culture. And so even in that relocation and termination error where families were trying trying to locate back to urban settings and shift is is actually the reason why a lot of our native students today attend public schools. In fact, almost 90% of native students are in the US public education system because of this impact of boarding school and the relocation policies for our communities. Now since the 1960s, the civil rights movement, American Indian movement and a lot of activism. Post assimilation or these initiatives were really built around self-determination, and that realization and reenactment of tribal sovereignty that has been inherent and so over the last 50 to 60 years. There's been a shift in advocating policy that's the same reason that NIH was founded in 1969 out of the American Indian movement. In order for our communities, our native nations to be able to reclaim and take back education practices for our students. If you're not familiar with some of this data, I encourage you to continue with research. We can also share other sources of information, but like I said earlier, 90% of native students attend K12 public schools, and so a lot of times people will equate native education with just tribally controlled or reservation based school systems. But the reality is that native native education is more of a public school. National institution and so at Niht we work for both we we work to support both tribally controlled tribally operated as well as public schools and especially these urban education environments. Because we know a lot of our students are attending schools where they're they're not reflected in the teaching staff, they're not reflected in the curriculum, and so we have students who also attend. Bureau of Indian Education operated schools schools in which our students are sometimes a majority. But their teaching staff or their education leadership is is not a majority. Most of our students are taught by wider non native teachers and that becomes very significant when you think about that and in relation to education policy and in relation to how we are ensuring that our practices are culturally responsive. And so one of the things that you know I know, culturally responsive teaching, culturally responsive practices. These things have been at the forefront, especially over the last few years. As a lot of our focus and education is shifting. But the reason that becomes so important is because a lot of times when we look at statistics, we know that our native students tend to be underperforming or when we look at graduation. Graduation rates are native students graduate at a lower rate than any other ethnic group in the US. And what happens is people start talking about an achievement gap and they talk about the lack of critical thinking and and this lack of independent learning and what happens is a lot of times this is exacerbated by the fact that these environments that our students are learning in mostly public school environments are void of those cultural scaffolds and that cultural responsiveness, like our students, just don't see themselves as valued or reflected in that system. And a lot of times as teachers. Bit of a non native teachers. There's an intentional need to establish that cultural relationship and connection and so for nihl when we discuss cultural responsiveness and pedagogy and instruction. We're really looking at how can we? Close that so called achievement gap. How can we support our students through culture? Because culture is what activates learning and cultural relationships, and so we really focus from a space of culture based and community based education which is grounding our instruction in those ways of being and knowing and doing. And so when we think about culturally responsive literacy, it is again literacy practices that are grounded in our students ways of being knowing and doing, and that's very powerful, even as a teacher. Who is whether you're teaching native students, you're teaching African American students. Any any cultural group of students that you teach. That is still a critical aspect of literacy, and one of the things when people think about literacy, they go right to, you, know, to literature, to storybooks to the amount of written text that is available. And a recent study. This was done in 2015 and redone in 2018, and I would love to see if it's being done again. But children literature specifically. The Diversity study found that really the majority of literature was white. 73 You know approximately 73%, and of course, that's shocking. What do we do about this? A lot of us, probably on the on this webinar, would say, Yep, we could have anticipated some of that, but our American Indian and First Nations were represented less than 1%. So a couple years later, the study is done again. And this time we see a 25% reduction in white focused characters. But if you look, most of those moved into animals. And so instead of shifting to cultural representation that use of animals became kind of the the blanket or the band aid to this issue, and we still don't see an increase a significant increase in representation for other cultures, especially our native nations. And so this becomes something that NIH focused on and we we recognize that literacy goes beyond just literature itself, but having access, curricular access, classroom access, library access to two diversity, and students being able to see themselves, especially in these public education settings where we know the majority of our students are, is very critical to that success. The National Indian Education study. These are. This is just a small snapshot of results from 2019. If you're not familiar with this study. Again, encourage you to look up some of the data reports. I know there's a new excuse me new one coming out, but what was significant to this snapshot? Is that across even grade four and grade 8? Obviously Internet access at home was a huge factor in success, but one of the things that stuck out to was that their school has materials about American Indian or Alaskan native people, and so that was a that was a significant increase compared to higher performing and lower performing students in this study. And when we think about school materials, we know again it goes beyond story books and literature, but it was so important a factor in success. Those students being able to see themselves, and I think a lot of us probably on the web and R as educators and community members. We would agree. Students want to see themselves reflected in their materials. What happens is in general, and I think about this, reflecting back to my, you know, K 8 experience I went to high school outside of the country, but even going up growing up to K-8, these are some very recognizable images. So a lot of times when our students open social studies curriculum. Curriculum or or textbooks or storybooks or teachers are on the Internet. We're searching for pictures and things. What happens is a lot of times there's this historical concept of native students of native communities and in history becomes it's it's. It was back then, but it's not now and a lot of these images to will depict violence that our native communities were violent people or in this misconception of the first Thanksgiving that they were lowly on the ground and served by. The gracious pilgrims and there is a discrepancy and discrimination and really miss truths and false representation and what happens is a lot of times our native students in schools, public and other institutions are seeing themselves reflected in that way. So I started thinking about OK, well, what about literacy? Let's think about K2 phonics instruction, literacy space. So I got on teacher pay teachers and and was searching as if I was going to shop for specifically for you know, culturally responsive literacy materials. And this is what I found. And this is actually live and for purchase, and when I look at this and I think about OK, so I'm I'm working on teaching foundational literacy to my students. And here is what is being purchased, represented, used, freely used across the nation. So no wonder students native and non native have these misconceptions and feel that disconnect in class or that that that disvalue in a way when you think about one. The images here are again there are weapons in hand. There's always these stereotypical costumes you know, and feathers and painting, and then not only that, but this. Language and literacy materials packet. This is Native American Indians which is not even a proper terminology use and so our students again not seeing modern representation when in reality across the board from Pre K to 12 to higher Ed. Our students need to see themselves reflected as you know, resilient and thriving and in spaces of you know public leadership in in spaces of veterans. The work in our. Military, I mean our native communities. Join the military at a higher rate again than any other ethnic group. We've got to celebrate the the Now it's important to recognize history and culture. It's important to tell those stories, but it's also important for our native students and non native students to see that resiliency and to see the modern aspects of our communities and to know that they are contributing and and sustaining and thriving and revitalizing culture and language. And so I know this is a lot of intro. So I'd love to do another poll. I'm also going to kind of look into the chat box to see if there's anything there as well. So in this poll based on just what you've heard so far. Do you feel or would you think that your literacy program or practices are inclusive or responsive to native students? And that can be Native American, Alaska Native Native Hawaiian 'cause I know we're joining from all over. Alright, we have about 55%. Let's go just a little bit more. Have to say I'm excited that. Hill week Catherine. I'm excited to see you here. Alright, we are almost 75. Anybody else just a couple more? Love the shout out Michelle for Debbie Reese's site as well. That is one of the links that we share so and I can share more information about that. Alright, so let's see. Our poll, so do you think your materials? Are inclusive of a responsive to alright so? I I hate to say that I'm not surprised, but it also is very frustrating to see that we say that the majority of our materials are either not very inclusive or somewhat inclusive, and I'm excited that you're here today and recognizing this issue because that is one of the things even in my role in IA that I'm passionate about, and that is curriculum, not just big box published curriculum, but being able to provide access and awareness and change so that that inclusivity is there and not just inclusivity and social studies. But across the board, so we're talking about culturally responsive literacy. We know sometimes that tends to, you know, fall into that bucket of eyalet practices. But this goes across the board. And what happens is. So many of our published material, so many of our like teacher pay teachers and instructional sites. We're excited to be apart of share my lessons pages as well so that we can share vetted lessons around native communities and native content. But the reality is, we know that a lot of times in our classrooms we're working with mandatory curriculum pieces that have long been controlled by a mainstream Eurocentric narrative. And so in our own classrooms. That's that space in our schools and in our communities where we begin to think about culturally responsive literacy practices and these practices are there multi sensory. It's not just about written text, which is really one of the things we're going to talk about. It is a partnership between teacher, parent, community student. It's about the experience of literacy. It's about the experience of culture and community and how to bring that into the classroom. And the act of reading and oral response and. Storytelling. And it's also a place of being informed and a place of being vulnerable and sometimes uncomfortable when we think about being culturally and linguistically informed for our students. Sometimes that can be overwhelming 'cause we're afraid, like we don't know the right thing or or we don't know what we don't know. But the act of really getting to know your students and their linguistic and cultural backgrounds is very critical in the cultural responsiveness piece for literacy. And so I know, walking away from a web and are sometimes, you know, some of us said, hey, we're very familiar. We've got inclusive curriculum. We're excited about this. A lot of us on here may say I'm really not sure, but is there something I can do right away, such as using Debbie Reese? Is site that I'm going to share with you and there are. There are some quick wins that you can do in your classroom, and those can be the same thing of you know in built-in incentives and and rewards and excitement for engaging parents and engaging students and reading. Figuring out how to make sure that your classroom library and your books are inclusive and vetted. And we'll give some resources for that as well, but also, how can I establish that connection in the home or in my school library? How can I make sure that there's access to digital and storytelling and you know, actual text and another thing is establishing those community connections now in our virtual world, sometimes it's easier now to be able to invite people into our classroom, but laying on your on your if you are close to a tribal community, if you know how to access and if you're not sure you can reach out. To NIH to be able to invite elders in your community and to share in the storytelling and the reading, that collaborative piece of buddy reading with other students and then also again being sure that you have vetted resources in your classroom, that that is one of those. Sometimes difficult, but early steps that we can take to go back and think about our library. And again, we'll share tools for that as well. But sometimes this is a long term work. It's a long term practice and so that long term work is getting to to know or better understand the history of your local communities, your local tribal communities. Understanding federal policy. Federal Indian policy understanding. And you know, a lot of times we get into the space of native languages and it's like, well, I you know, I don't know. I'm not supposed to speak the language. I'm not sure, but it's really being able to understand the structure. You know, some native languages have been written down, and that that it's been agreed by that native nation that they want their language written and others feel that language is sacred and it's not written. It's a completely oral society, and so knowing things about that structure and being able to invite the community in and know how much of language should be shared and recognized. That's very critical to our students, and also valuing that language immersion and and being able to speak a native language. This is another long term piece is really getting a better understanding and embedding storytelling, which is what we're going to talk about in your program. Not just literacy but across content. Having your you, yourself, your team, your school, your district, really think about reviewing materials, literacy and other content areas for those stereotypes that we've you know briefly mentioned, or lack of representation, or how we can bring in other instructional resources to support thinking about literacy programs. That really bring in parents and grandparents. I know there's options to with title one and Title 6 funding for doing this. Thinking about how that digital access at home, you know that we know that digital literacy. We know that digital access is critical to learning and and yet a lot of our communities are still trying to get whether it's affordable or actually being able to to have access to the Internet. And then another aspect that's really long term work that, again, NIHL seeks to support with is really trying to. You know, repair could be one word, but really just rebuild and bridge a trust between education systems and native communities and families. So many of our communities have still have you know, boarding school survivors. A lot of our communities are struggling with even understanding how that boarding school and the native education policy has really disrupted traditional ways of learning and disrupted culture and history, and our students identities. A lot of parents are nervous to come into an education system because it wasn't set up. Our education system completely was not set up for resiliency and thriving and valuing of our native languages and culture, and really the education system was was implemented to eradicate and assimilate and so that becomes a very distrustful and tense relationship, and so sometimes you're in your classroom and you're like I wanna do better and I wanna help my students and you're not sure or you don't understand why there is a a lack of engagement. Or a challenge between building community relationships with tribes. And so those those are some of the short and long term pieces that as educators you know that we we can begin to do and we can begin to work in these spaces and they're uncomfortable. And it's important to do them respectfully and to reach out to you, know to community, reach out to organizations like NIA or the boarding School Healing Coalition and and even local organizations or Office of Indian Education departments. There are people out there that can help support with this work, but one of those culture when I think about culturally responsive literacy, one of those practices. Storytelling, and you know, even though we know that in English and our you know our society is what we now call the US is set up on, you know a written, you know success in in literacy and success in writing and success in being able to read. But at some point all of us can trace back to storytelling and oral tradition as foundational and prior to invasion and prior to contact storytelling and oral tradition was the mechanism of education and the mechanism of passing down knowledge and the mechanism of saving of preserving culture and preserving language. And so when we get into the storytelling pace pace in academia, a lot of times what happens is it shifts into that, like you know, college and career ready standards W. 3. A narrative writing and reading literature standards, but the power of storytelling is really in helping students to develop their oral literacy and their capacity to understand beginning middle end and their ability to communicate. Because that connection between oral communication and reading and writing is so powerful. But what happens is because we're so focused on reading as the aspect of literacy and writing as the aspect of literacy that we tend to skip that storytelling speed storytelling piece. So this is not a poll question. This is more of a chat. So in the chat box. Excuse me when you think of that term. Storytelling, like what comes to mind for you in your classroom. Or how, how? Maybe do you use storytelling? Currently if you do? And I'll give about. Just give about a minute if anybody wants to come. Share a quick chat what comes to mind when you think about storytelling? I see sharing stories related to the lesson book reading. I love that folks are sharing links. Thank you for doing that. Students sharing experiences. Tier 1 instruction. How my ancestors shirt. Thank you Tiffany. Community engagement there you go. Poetry I love poetry. And we've got Edtech. We've got jam board. Cheering together, I love the consistent word of sharing. Reading aloud. Achievement yes oh this awesome. Alright, well, I mean I think you guys have covered it. A centering opportunity for students to share thoughts and feelings. Yes, love padlet oral tradition, awesome. Alright, well I don't even know if I have to continue the presentation, but I guess technically I agreed to, so I will. I love that and and yes, I believe there there is a recording this should be recorded. You'll be able to access it. Opening channels of communication. So I'm excited because it sounds like we have. We have a good grasp on storytelling and the power and I love too that a lot of you said sharing and personal. Connections being able to invite students to be able to share experiences. There's the ways of knowing, expanding those ways of knowing so you know, I think one of the things that we as educators. This is something actually that I studied in my doctoral program is that identity is so closely connected to our stories like our story is our identity and our student stories are their identities as well. But a lot of times our students stories are also their family stories and their community stories because. They are from that early age they're building who they are, and so being able to understand have the space and the value of their story. Hearing other stories, inviting elders and community members and tribes into your classroom digitally. You can do that as well, because there are some fantastic storytellers online. These this is where that identity space is so important for our students. Where that relationship comes in. It's where that communication is, and I know we have that pressure for literacy. We have the pressure to. You know, get him to read and we gotta meet that proficiency. Mark, I know. But neglecting that space of storytelling, not only harms that relational aspect, but it also disregards, like the cultural values and the just historical value and emphasis on storytelling. All of us have a story to tell, and if you let me start telling stories, you know I won't stop because I feel like I'm pouring out who I am. And so one of the things that I think is, you know, has become more aware to me in the space and the work and has really as I sit and think about literacy. And I talk to other people. Is that that oral tradition has been that method of education transmission for so long for our native communities? I mean, since time immemorial, literacy was a colonial construct because it was oral tradition before. And then you know, invasion contact colonial settler ISM all of that brings in this space of written word and scholarship, but that was offered by and controlled by a colonized narrative. So anything that is really known and understood from that aspect was again authorship under colonialism. So then, as we saw that federal policy, the establishment of education systems, the development of native, some native languages into, you know, writing into a phonetic system, then you have this slow emergence of native authorship as it begins to translate to written word. However, a lot of that written word had to be in the sense of. Activism or you know refusal to federal policy or to be able to fight against that loss of culture and tradition. And and a lot of times, again, that education is taking place in a dominated colonial space, and so it wasn't really until the past. You know, 7080 years that this concept of like native literacy and literature and this renaissance if we want to give it a term of Native American Renaissance, is when that body of literature and written practice for cultural expression, for you know, resistance for activism and self-determination. That's when this really happens. So storytelling itself has had an immense impact on identity and culture and history transmission, and there was that attempt to silence it and that attempt to re author it, but only in the past. Let's just throw out century only in the past century has there been a reclamation or an embodiment of that native voice through literature. So when we think about, you know bringing in native literature into our classroom and accessing literacy and all of that. This concept of literacy. Really, is a colonial construct that has only been. I don't even like the word control, but has only been a part of a native voice in a native space for really the last century, and so our role at niht and our job and our communities is to empower our young people to write up to respectfully share stories to capture. You know what our elders know and to to to continue that tradition of transmission, but also recognizing that for a lot of our communities written word and written text and English as a literacy space is still a colonial construct. It's it is still a method of transmission. That was forced onto our native communities and so a lot of our students, you know historically and and genetically have existed on an oral tradition and oral society. So then moving into that written language space becomes even more challenging. And sometimes there's that loss of sacredness even, and so storytelling. Like you guys said, is a shared experience like it is it's identity. It can happen in the moment. It doesn't have to follow a linear space. It is empowering for students. It's empowering for teachers. It's it's empowering for building identity and bringing in value for our students and being able to have them share and understand each other better. Native and non native students. It can be used across all content areas like this is not just an ELA event that's going to help our students be better readers, but it is. It's it's a pathway to even help students begin to think about capturing their thoughts in a written language and being able to transfer between native and non native languages. And so storytelling. I love the the the Freeman. Al says that storytelling is a two way interaction like we think a lot about this exchange. Our native communities are built on an idea of exchange and transactional experience and so that listener and storytelling storyteller in that moment are exchanging something powerful. And when we think about that in our students like we, we know we have to teach communications. We know we teach respect. We know we teach this system of. You know academic and relational conversation, but this is a a way of us being able to educate each other and better educate our students and bringing that community in so that identity aspect and that cultural transmission in our students learning from each other in our communities, learning from each other is very powerful and storytelling is that conduit in a native space in our nations. You know, storytelling takes many forms. It can be a lot of it comes from creation stories and being able to. Pass those down and tell like our origin and where we come from and how our language came to be. Its interaction with you know our spiritual teachers and and sharing knowledge and wisdom. A lot of times they're life lessons built in on why we behave certain ways and what is appropriate for our behavior. And there's also that natural phenomenon explanation why things happen the way that they do. And then also there's the lesson. And there's the elements of you know of humor too. With animals you know. Why does the animal? Why is the coyote Gray? Why does the sun, you know appear to rise and said why? There's these explanations behind them, and then a lot of times our animals are used in that sense of either, you know, teachings of wisdom or you know, mischievous and so our story telling in a traditional aspect was really used to transmit all side all types of knowledge and even to teach those life skills in our classroom. It holds that same benefit and you know, I caution you to I, you know, be respectful. Not every story is to be shared and to be told. That is something that you would build in that trust with the Community, but bringing in storytelling and having students you know empowered to share theirs. Learn to listen and be active listeners to others. Learn to respond. Not only does it build that engagement or participation, but you're also teaching language structure in story structure. Someone mentioned poetry. Poetry and storytelling are great ways to bring in those reluctant readers. I mean, I, I remember a student I had that was highly dyslexic, could just struggled completely to read. But he was able to listen and and retell and and really rely on that oral space. And he could tell amazing stories. Everything he did was oral, and he was such a successful student then and isn't a success, excuse me, successful adult now, but I had to understand and recognize that his his pathway and his education had to be predominantly oral, and I had to make sure that I shared a lot of that. I morally as well. It also really develops that visual imagination. We know our, we know our young. Our youngsters are extremely creative and part of that creativity is built out of our storytelling beyond just the read Aloud's in the pictures, but storytelling gives them that ability to develop their own imagination and it directly connects to strengthening you know, comprehension, strengthening vocabulary, helping with expression and intonation. So with that identity connection as well, you get that safe space for students to be able to share. You find those social and emotional benefits, and we know that right now that's a it's an extremely critical space for our students because of the, you know, just the trauma of being through the pandemic. Trauma of like social unrest. There are so many historical traumas that our community, especially our native nations, have experienced through federal policy and have been exacerbated. And so in that classroom space, sometimes that storytelling is really. Again, a conduit to social and emotional strengthening and well being, and bringing that Community environment. We know we have our kiddos that struggle struggle with behavior struggle with expressing themselves, struggle with building relationships, and this is that space that storytelling space. Can benefit our students. And so again we shared this before too, like storytelling goes across content. It is not limited to literacy standards or phonics instruction or spaces like that. Storytelling is directly connected to our art and our music and our poetry the way that we tackle math. The way that math was used, even in a traditional space building character. I mean storytelling across the board is just a powerful way to engage our communities, engage culture. In the classroom, engage our students in their native language and really just cross those barriers. And I know we're getting close to time for the Q&A, so I wanted to kind of pull out one more poll. This was a super fast look at storytelling and I provided some additional resources to help with a deeper understanding, but thinking about it right now, we've got the quick wins in the long term. Which statement best explains what might hinder you from being able to use or increase your use of storytelling in the classroom? What could be an obstacle? Alright, as more people respond, so excited to see the chat. I love the resource sharing. Landed knowledgement sharing. Thank you. And another shout out to paddle it. I absolutely love paddle it. Another way to digitally invite students into the storytelling space. Alright, 67% alright. Just about 10 more seconds. We say, you know storytelling is amazing. Great, wonderful. I want to put in my classroom. But there's always challenges. We know when we are dealing with the Community in the schools and curriculum. So let's see. And yes, time constraints. Due to proficiency levels and exams. Alright, so let's see some of our challenges could be. Alright, not sure the majority said well, I just need to learn more about it. I'm excited that you said that and then nothing like I just want to do more. I want to try it. I want to do more and then we know that there's the can't fit that time factor. And unfortunately there's times then we know in this space right now administration policy all of those powers that be, say, well, we're not going to do that. Yeah, it's nice, but or maybe our students aren't. We're not sure that it will work. I would encourage you to to try it and see. Sometimes. We're surprised but. Needing more learning about it, I appreciate that you acknowledge that because it's not something you just want to up and pump down into your classroom tomorrow. There are processes and learning spaces so some of the resources shared. I know some folks have shared some resources in the chat research. Some of the you know, storytellers. There are some great YouTube videos and other tribes have shared videos of their stories and listen to the flow and listen to read some of the research and reach out. If you're not sure how to reach out. Email me like email me anytime and we can help with you. Know figuring out what what tribes or what native nations are in your community. And we can help with that learning process. Yes, Mary, I was told it was a waste of academic time. Wow, we got some research to help with that and it is not a waste of time. But of course that is generally. What we get. So there are some very just small things. One of the handouts I shared is the project. It's a project based learning. There are some links already to some storytellers, if that's helpful. Even if you don't use the project based, you know packet. There are links in there and then teaching cultural and teaching responsibly. Is A1 pager that we published recently, and that could be beneficial if there are people who are saying well, why is this important? Why would we want to do this? You know, even with non native students, that's usually what I hear. Well, I don't have any native students in my school. So. Native education for all is critical. All of our students need to know these stories, and some of those suggestions of YouTube videos. Yes, sometimes things are not good. Sometimes things were not meant to be shared, and if you are unsure, reach out and ask and we can definitely try to share resources. There are some other spaces too if you're not familiar with NIH, we have instructional resources on our website. Those were shared in the handout as well, and so we encourage you to check those out. And this is just a small subset we are opening up a bigger repository in the next year. That you'll have access to. These are vetted resources, but feel free to use and share and we encourage you. Alright, so I'm going to wrap up and get to the Q&A. I know this site was mentioned multiple times so please check out Debbie Reese site if you are unsure about any text, novel, literature, story. Make sure that you look at this work. Debbie Reese has done a powerful immense amount of work in vetting past and current literature. There are some fantastic books actually just published this year. That you can look at if you're unsure. This is a great place to start. Alright, and then again, if you want to join us, Nihl has an annual convention in Oklahoma City. We actually have one every year, but this year it's in Oklahoma City, so check out our website as well. There's links to this. We'd love to have you there to do more digging into literature and literacy and cultural responsiveness. And I just please reach out. I honestly mean that like reach out, ask questions, ask for resources. My email is simpleseawise@nih.org and I am happy to help and provide as much as I can. And if I can't, we have the folks to connect you too. So thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for this space. I know I ran a few minutes over so. I wanted to open it up for our Q&A time. Thank you so much for such a great presentation. We have a few questions. I've come in Heathers asking how do we support students who are being pulled from their adoptive families back into Native American school. I work with elementary other than telling them it is exciting and keeping my responses positive, I want to better help them with the moves they feel displaced. Going back to the reservation. Miller ah, that's a huge. That's a huge question because that goes beyond. I mean one that goes beyond ensuring that your classroom and your school environment is reflective for them, because a lot of times and this is not an unusual situation. We have so many students who are in foster care or have been in adoptive situations, and you know the desire and the want is to reconnect to culture and identity. But that is almost a reverse of that boarding school experience of being pulled away, maybe from something that became what you knew and now you're being, you know, you're you're being pulled back to your reservation or pulled back to your homelands and you're unsure what that. Feels like, and that's an uncomfortable space and I think the frustrating thing with that is that that system is what set up that removal in the first place. I mean, I think I don't know if I'm fully qualified to answer that question, but I would say that our that social and emotional support not necessarily just oh training on historical trauma, but knowing that anybody who's you know staff, or you know community members that are working with that student, understand that history of historical trauma and how to approach in a social emotional learning space. Being very being understanding of students as they either if they want to or even are not sure how to learn about their community and it really goes back to that relationship. Building and recognizing. Like I know this is a major challenge, but here's a way that we can, you know. Look at language. Here's a way that we can slowly introduce relationships back into the community. They need that friend. They need that ally and to know that it's OK like that that struggle between worlds. Is something that students even on if they've come out of a highly native community where they're connected to their community, and then they go to school in a whole other region, or they go off to college, finding people that have those experiences would be helpful too. Please whoever asked that question if you will email me and reach out. I actually have colleagues who could better support you in that. I don't want to leave that question hanging. Alright, anything else, so I'm looking. Alright, yeah, another question from Sonia, how can we view children books that use invigor skin tones in their characters? How can we view children's books that use and big are these children children's books? You know that's a great question. I mean, I think it would go back to who the author is and what the intention is, and I think there's a space for that one too. Where it's like sometimes that ambiguity can help students. Place themselves in the story, but I would still go back to who wrote it. What the character is supposed to represent and and can a student see themselves in that same situation? That, and that's a good conversation to bring up with students like we noticed that. Their ethnicity isn't identified, so how could this story relate to us? How could we see ourselves in it? It's a great question. I see the title indigenous and Native American. I'm I'm not the expert on this as well, but when I think about indigenous I think of a global perspective of communities that are native and rooted in the the the region so their ancestors. They have been the original peoples, the First Nations so indigenous to me is a blanket term capital. I means that you are recognizing those native communities to that space, but when you are talking about the continental US. Their Native American refers to our 48 states. That's why we have Native American, Alaska native and Native Hawaiian, because those are distinct regions with their own history and their own interaction with colonialism. So when you're talking about US based native nations and the 48 states that's Native American. And please make sure you ask because other people have different perspectives on the use of Native American and indigenous. So always ask. How does? Uhm? Any other I see a couple more questions. How to push back on current efforts to whitewash children literature in the classroom? That's great sometimes that can be a challenging space of activism. That's one of the things that NIA does. We're actually reviewing some larger publishers. We've had a lot of reach out about that, but I think or easy put. The quick pushback is building an inclusive library in your room and in your in your school building awareness of how culture engages the brain, and how students need to see themselves in the importance of representation, but also getting into those spaces of advocacy. At the district and state level, and again email me because our pledge team and our advocacy and policy team supports around this work a lot so we can build more resources. Uhm alright, I know we're running out of time. Is there any more time to answer yes and please make sure your native students see other tribes materials as well just like any other student we need. They need a global and national perspective while also knowing that their culture is valued and recognized and their history is valued and recognized. I think we have time for one more question. I'm going to push one more poll question that we previously had in case anyone missed it. And will you answer that last question? Alright good. Let's see and I know Megan asked a pretty pretty big question about critical race theory. I, I mean, obviously there's definite backlash. I'm I can't speak to all of our communities, but I think what you said is key continuing to value culturally responsive education. Culturally responsive practice those educators in their room that say I'm moving forward. We're going to be inclusive. We're going to keep pushing through. That's that's really what's happening overall and just know 2 NIA is through advocacy policy and programming like we are working on this. Every day, and there are some some bigger policy legislation that's coming out and things that we're pushing to really keep working in that space. And I just advocate, advocate and reach out. Please reach out to me. I will help in anyway. Thank you so so much. This was such a great presentation. Doctor Rice, we're so glad that you could join us and that the audience could join us. If you're interested in on. Set in Sessions on book standing and honest history. Check out our sessions tomorrow. We also have a short reminder video before we close out. Be sure to download your certificates and enjoy the rest of your evening. Thank you very much for joining and thanks for being so responsive in the chat. 1 Kelly Booze rejoining you again. I hope you enjoyed today's webinar as much as I did. I want to go over a couple reminders and I have one big favor to ask of you. First, you should now be able to download that PDF certificate for your participation. Today you can access that PDF certificate using one of the widgets, the one with the checkbox. From here you should be able to open up that PDF certificate and download it. The certificate will be saved to your name for up to a year. Now you are required to have answered at least 2 poll questions and met the criteria for watching the minimum amount of time when you open up that PDF certificate, it will be populated. 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