Native American Indian reading a letter about his son.
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
feared teacher, I would like to introduce you to my son, Win Wolf. He is probably what you would consider a typical Indian kid. He was born and raised on the reservation. He has black hair, dark brown eyes and an olive complexion. And like so many Indian Children his age, he is shy and quiet in the classroom. He is five years old in kindergarten, and I can't understand why you have already labeled him a slow learner. At the age of five, he has already been through quite an education compared with his peers in Western society. As his first introduction into the world, he was bonded to his mother and to the mother earth in a traditional native childbirth ceremony. And he has been continuously cared for by his mother, father, sisters, cousins on uncles, grand parents and extended tribal family since this ceremony from his mother's warm and loving arms. When Wolf was placed in a secure and specially designed Indian baby basket, his father and the medicine elders conducted another ceremony with him that served a bond him with the essence of his generic father, the great spirit, the grand father, son and the grandmother moon. This was all done in order to introduce him properly into the new and natural world, not the world off artificiality, and to protect his sensitive in delicate soul. It is our people's way of showing the newborn respect, ensuring that he starts his life on the path of spirituality. The traditional Indian baby basket became his turtles show and served as the first seed for his classroom. He was stopped in for safety, protected from injury by Willow Roots and Hazelwood construction. The basket was made by the tribal elder, who had gathered her materials with prayer and in a ceremonial way. It is the same kind of basket that our people have used for thousands of years. It is especially designed to provide the child with a kind of knowledge and experience he will need in order to survive in his culture and environment. Wind wolf was strapped in snugly with a delivery restriction upon his arms and legs. Although you in Western society may argue that such methods serves to hinder motor skills development and abstract reasoning, we believe it forces the child toe first, develop his intuitive faculties, rational intellect, symbolic thinking in five senses win. Wolf was with his mother, constantly, closely bonded physically as she carried him on her back or held him in front while breast feeding. She carried him everywhere she went, and every night he slept with both parents. Because of this win, Wolves education setting was not only a secure environment, but it was also very colorful, complicated, sensitive and diverse. He has been with his mother at the ocean at daybreak when she made her prayers and gathered fresh seaweed from the rocks. He has sad with his uncles in a row boat on the river while they fished with gill nets. And he has watched and listened to elders as they told creation stories and animal legends and sang songs around the campfires. He has attended this sacred and ancient white deerskin dance of his people, and it's well acquainted with the cultures and languages off other tribes. He has been with this mother when she gathered herbs for healing and watch his tribal aunts and grandmothers gather and prepare traditional foods such as acorn, smoked salmon, eel and deer meat. He has played with a balloon shells, pine nuts, iris, grass, string and leather while watching the women, maybe the jewelry and traditional native regalia. He has had many opportunities to watch his father, uncles and ceremonial leaders use different kinds of colorful feathers and sing different kinds of songs. What, preparing for the sacred dances and rituals? As he grew older, Win Wolf began to crawl out of the baby basket, develop his motor skills and explore the world around him. When frightened or sleepy, he could always return to the basket as a turtle withdraws into its shell. Such a name word journey allows one to reflect in privacy on what he has learned and to carry the new knowledge deeply into the unconscious and the soul. Shapes, sizes, colors, texture, sound, smell, feeling, taste and the learning process are therefore functionally integrated, physical and spiritual matter and energy conscious and unconscious, individual and social. This kind of learning goes beyond the basics of distinguishing the difference between rough and smooth square and round, hard and soft black and white similarities and extremes. For example, when Wolf was with his mother in South Dakota while she danced for seven straight days in the hot sun fasting and piercing herself in the sacred Sundance ceremony of a distant tribe. He has been doctored in a number of different healing ceremonies by medicine, men and women from diverse places ranging from ranging from Alaska toe Arizona to New York and California. He has been in more than 20 different sacred sweat lodge rituals used by the native tribes to purify mind, body and soul since he was three years old. And he has already been exposed to many different religions of his racial brothers Protestant, Catholic, Asian, Buddhist and Tibetan lama iest. It takes a long time to absorb and reflect on these kinds of experiences. So maybe that is why you think my Indian child is a slow learner. His aunts and grandmothers taught him to count and know his numbers while they sorted out the complex materials used to make the abstract designs in the native baskets. He listened to his mother count each and every beat and sort out in America, Lee according to color. While she painstakingly made complex beaded belts and necklaces, he learned his basic numbers by helping his father count and sort the rocks to be used in the sweat lodge seven rocks for the medicine, sweat, say, or 13 for this summer solstice ceremony. The rocks air later heated and doused with water to create purifying steam, and he was taught to learn mathematics by counting. The sticks were used in our traditional native hand game, so I realize he may be slowing, grasping the methods and tools that you are now using in your classroom, once quite familiar to his white peers. But I hope you will be patient with him. It takes time to adjust to a new cultural system and learn new things. He is not culturally disadvantaged, but he is culturally different. If you ask him how many months are in a year, he will probably tell you 13. He will respond this way not because he doesn't know how to count properly, but because he has been taught by our traditional people that they are 13 full moons in a year according to the native tribal calendar, and that there are really 13 planets in one solar system and 13 tail feathers on the perfectly balanced eagle, the most powerful kind of bird to use and ceremony and healing. But he also knows that some eagles may only have 12 tail feathers or seven that they do not all have the same number. He knows that the flicker has exactly 10 tail feathers and that they are red and black, representing the directions of East and West life and death, and that this bird is considered a firebird, a power used to native doctoring and healing. He can probably count more than 40 kinds of birds, tell you and his peers what kind of birds each is and where it lives, the seasons in which it appears and how it is used any sacred ceremony. He may have trouble writing his name on a piece of paper, but he knows how to say it. Many other things in several different Indian languages. He is not fluent yet because he is only five years old and required by law to attend your educational system, learn your language, your values, your ways of thinking and your methods of teaching and learning. So you see all of these influences together make him somewhat chai and quiet and perhaps slow according to your standards. But if Win Wolf was not prepared for his first tentative foray into your world, neither were you appreciated of his culture on the first day of class, you had difficulty with his name. You wanted to call him Wind. Insisting that Wolf somehow must be his middle name. The students in his class laughed at him, causing further embarrassment while you were trying to teach him your new methods, helping him learn new tools for self discovery and adapt to his new learning environment, he may be looking out the window us of daydreaming. Why? Because he has been taught toe watch and study the changes in nature, it is hard for him to make the appropriate psychic switch from the right to the left hemisphere of the brain when he sees the leaves turning bright colors, the geese heading south and the squirrels scurrying around for nuts to get ready for a harsh winter in his heart. In his young mind and almost by instinct, he knows that this is the time of year he is supposed to be with his people, gathering and preparing fish, deer, meat and native plants and herbs, earning his assigned task in his role, he has caught between two worlds thorn by two distinct cultural systems. Yesterday, for the third time in two weeks, he came home crying and said he wanted to have his hair cut. He said he doesn't have any friends at school because they make fun of his long hair. I tried to explain to him that in our culture, long hair is a sign of masculinity and balance, and this a source of power. But he remained adamant in his position. To make matters worse, he recently encountered his first harsh case of racism win. Wolf had managed to adopt at least one good school friend on the way home from school. One day, he asked his new power if he wanted to come home to play with him until supper. That was okay with Wind Wolves mother, who was walking with them when they all got to the little friend's house. The two boys ran inside to ask permission while Wind wolves Mother waited. But the other boy's mother lashed out. It's okay if you have to play with him at school, but we don't allow those kind of people in our house. When my wife asked, why not? The other boy's mother answered. Because you are Indians, we are white and I don't want my kids growing up with your kind of people. So, no, my young Indian child does not want to go to school anymore. Even though we cut his hair, he feels that he doesn't belong. He is the only Indian child in your class, and he is well aware of this fact. Instead of being proud of his race, heritage and culture, he feels ashamed when he watches television, He asked why the white people hate us so much and always kill our people in the movies and why they take everything away from us. He asked why the other kids in school are not taught about the power, beauty and essence of nature, or provided with an opportunity to experience the world around them firsthand. He says he hates living in the city and that he misses his Indian constants and friends. He asked why one young white girl at school who is his friend, always tells him, I like you win wolf. Yes, you are a good Indian. Now he refuses to sing his native songs, play with this Indian artifacts, learn hiss language or participate in a sacred ceremonies. When I asked him to go toe on urban power, help me with a sacred sweat lodge ritual. He says no, because that's weird and he doesn't want his friends at school to think that he doesn't believe in God. So, dear teacher, I want to introduce you to my son. Win Wolf was not really a typical little Indian kid, after all. He stems from a long line of hereditary chiefs, Madison men and women and ceremonial leaders whose accomplishments and unique forms of knowledge are still being studied and recorded in contemporary books. He has seven different tribal systems flowing through his blood. He is even part white. I want my child to succeed in school and in life. I don't want him to be a dropout or juvenile delinquent or to end up on drugs and alcohol because he is made to feel inferior or because of discrimination. I want him to be proud of his rich heritage and culture, and I would like him to develop the necessary capabilities toe to adapt to and succeed in both cultures. But I need your help, what you say and what you do in the classroom, what you teach and how you teach and what you don't say and don't teach will have a significant effect on the potential success or failure off my child. Please remember that this is a primary year of his education and development. All I ask is that you work with me, not against me, to help educate my child in the best way. If you don't have the knowledge, preparation, experience or training to effectively deal with culturally different Children, I am willing to help you with few resources I have available or direct you to such resource is millions of dollars have been appropriated by Congress and are being spent each year for Indian education. All you have to do is take advantage of it and encourage your school to make an effort to use it in the name of equal education. My Indian child has a constitutional right to learn, retain and maintain his heritage and culture. By the same token, I strongly believe that non Indian Children also have the constitutional right to learn about our Native American heritage and culture because Indians play a significant part of the history of Western society. Until this reality is equally understood and applied in education as a whole, there will be a lot more schoolchildren in grades K to identify the slow learners. My son win wolf. It's not an empty glass coming into your class to be filled. He's a full basket coming into a different environment and society with something special to share. Please, Adam share his knowledge, heritage and culture with you and his peers.