Darlene St. Clair
What happens when we as citizens of this land can explore Dakota perspectives? Perspectives that can build our relationship to the land, environment, and to one another? Today, we’ll be talking about the Mni Sota Makoce: the Dakota Homelands Curriculum. This curriculum was a project of Dakota Wicohan and led by Iyekiyapiwiƞ Darlene St. Clair.
Link to Dakota Wicohan
Leah:
Boozhoo. I'm Leah Lemm, citizen of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe.
Daniel:
Hau Mitakuyapi. I'm Daniel Lemm, citizen of Lower Sioux Dakota Oyate.
Leah:
And this is Wisdom Continuum. We are bringing you conversations from awesome Native folks to celebrate Native wisdom for a healthier, thoughtful, more just future.
Daniel:
Well I tell you what? I got my solid six-and-a-half hours of sleep last night, couple of cups of coffee in me. I'm good to go.
Leah:
Excellent. Well, recently we got our kid's report card and it got me thinking.
Daniel:
About what?
Leah:
About his future.
Daniel:
Oh. And like the educational system by any chance?
Leah:
Yeah. And how the education system supports students and teaches. I mean, he's doing fine. It's just how does education serve our students and how can it do better and open up doors and open up ideas for students to benefit even more?
Daniel:
Yeah. Yeah. It has me thinking about conversations that you and I have had over the years with his teachers when it comes to Native peoples and issues and just general topics.
Leah:
Just nonexistent curriculum in the main classes. Luckily, there's great Indian education-
Daniel:
Absolutely.
Leah:
-where we are. So that's really wonderful. But also, the education system is teaching students not just reading, writing, arithmetic, but also how to be citizens in the world as well with social studies and history and all of that stuff too. So I'm really excited for today's conversation because we're going to talk about opening minds to a Native perspective.
Daniel:
Today, we'll be talking about the Mni Sota Makoce, the Dakota Homelands curriculum. This curriculum was a project of Dakota Wicohan and led by Iyekiyapiwiƞ Darlene St. Clair, who is our guest for today's episode. Iyekiyapiwiƞ Darlene St. Clair is an associate professor at St. Cloud State University, where she teaches American Indian studies and directs the Multicultural Resource Center. Her work focuses on several areas, including Dakota studies, Native nations of Minnesota, the integration of Native cultures, histories, and languages into curricula and educational institutions, the arts and cultural expressions of Native peoples, Dakota places and sacred sites, and anti-racist pedagogy. She is Bdewakaƞtuƞwaƞ Dakota and a citizen of the Lower Sioux Indian Community in Minnesota.
Leah:
All right, well, I'm really looking forward to talking to Darlene, and here she is! [Ojibwe 00:03:13], Darlene. Well, thanks for taking time to chat with us, excited to feature this, feature your work.
Daniel:
With that, Darlene, I'm wondering if you would please introduce yourself.
Darlene St. Clair:
Yeah. [Dakota 00:03:27] Darlene St. Clair [Dakota 00:03:36] St. Cloud [Dakota 00:03:50]. So I said, hello, my relatives, this morning I'm greeting you with a good-hearted handshake. I'm Iyekiyapiwiƞ. That's my Dakota name. My Wasi'chu name is Darlene St. Clair. I'm Dakota. I'm originally from C̣aƞṡayapi, where Lower Sioux located. Now I'm living in the Twin Cities. I am a teacher. I teach Native studies and I work at St. Cloud State University.
Daniel:
Great. Thank you, Darlene. I've known you for many years now. Part of, and I think it was from our service on the Dakota Wicohan board is where we first came to meet and make that connection as relatives even, because we're both from the same community. So I'm happy to have you as a guest on today's episode. We wanted to talk with you about a project that you led that's called Mni Sota Makoce. So wondering if you would tell us about the curriculum.
Darlene St. Clair:
Sure. So Mni Sota Makoce, the Dakota Homelands Curriculum, is a 10-lesson unit that was developed for sixth grade students, sixth grade social study students, or Minnesota studies in this region. It was originally developed, the idea really came out of Dakota Wicohan, the Native nonprofit that's located in Morton, Minnesota, and the Dakota Wicohan had been getting so many calls from people outside of Dakota communities. So white people, non-Native people, primarily lots of educators because a piece of legislation was passed in 2008 that drew Minnesota tribes and communities and contributions of those communities into academic standards in Minnesota. Once Minnesota's educators sort of saw that they were going to be called on to teach about the tribes in communities of Minnesota, I think there was a general kind of freak out because clearly our educators were not prepared to teach about Native nations of Minnesota.
Darlene St. Clair:
They didn't learn about Native people in their own K-12 experience. They mostly did not learn about Native people in their higher ed experience, in their teacher preparation programs. And so once they were going to be called on to not sort of, "Maybe I'll teach about Native Americans by having people build a small model of a Pueblo or making a totem pole," so once they were really called on teaching about the Native communities on whose lands they live, then it was sort of a shock at how little educators knew and how ill-prepared they were to teach to these standards.
Darlene St. Clair:
So Dakota Wicohan, DW, got all these calls from outside saying, "We have to teach about the tribes of Minnesota and we don't know anything. Do you have a curriculum? What can you share?" And I think initially, as good relatives, they tried to share what they knew and maybe send staff to talk to schools or teachers. But at some point they realized that really what was needed was a larger kind of effort.
Darlene St. Clair:
So the original, the first draft of the curriculum was developed by Terri Peterson and Nora Murphy with kind of contributions from other folks. I was kind of on the committee, but I was not the curriculum leader or anything like that. But after we wrote a first draft of it and we piloted it and we had a lot of issues. Essentially what happened with the pilot was we had shared the pilot curriculum with two schools, and one of them said, "I can't even attempt to teach this. This information is so far outside my understanding that I don't even think I can teach it." So at that point, we recognized that we had to develop additional supports and also build in professional development.
Darlene St. Clair:
So I then took on the lead of the project and did a complete revision. So there are some things that exist from the first draft, but most of it has changed. I spent over a year with a team of other folks rewriting and redeveloping based on what we gleaned from that pilot, which was not particularly successful.
Darlene St. Clair:
So since then, I've been the project lead and we have now the curriculum sort of lives online because we recognize that it is never complete, never perfect, that it's forever a work in process. I mean, I think I just learned so much from developing the curriculum and I'm really proud of the work that we've done. It's now being used. Our goal is that it would be used throughout Mni Sota Makoce, and for people who are not sure what I mean when I say Mni Sota Makoce, I don't mean the colonial borders of the state of Minnesota because Mni Sota Makoce is much older than the state of Minnesota, and Dakota people had this understanding of this region long before there was a United States. So Mni Sota Makoce to me is a larger region that would include Minnesota, but it also includes Western Wisconsin, Eastern and North and South Dakota, Northern Iowa into Canada. It's sort of like those broader homelands.
Darlene St. Clair:
So certainly because it is developed to align with Minnesota state standards, by far most of our trainings have been in the state of Minnesota, but we trained teachers at Sisseton Wahpeton, the Lake Traverse reservation. So we have done trainings outside but still within Mni Sota Makoce, and I think that's really rewarding.
Darlene St. Clair:
So there's always more work to be done. But I'm a professor and a teacher and I have a lot of projects going on. So while Mni Sota Makoce, the curriculum, is one of my proudest accomplishments as an educator, I never have enough time to do what I think needs to get done. But I'm really proud of the work that we've done.
Leah:
That sounds so wonderful. I would like to get maybe a bit better understanding of what somebody might experience while going through the curriculum. So can you give maybe some examples of what would somebody be learning? What would they be experiencing?
Darlene St. Clair:
So the idea of Mni Sota Makoce is that we are helping sixth grade students around this region have a deeper understanding that Mni Sota Makoce is Dakota homelands, and that Dakota people have a particular relationship to the land and the landscape and everything that lives there, and that those things are founded in traditional teachings and philosophy.
Darlene St. Clair:
So one of the things that I think is often shocking to the social studies, Minnesota studies teachers that take the training, is that they have a kind of vision of what social studies curriculum looks like, and I would argue that this curriculum is more philosophical in nature. I think there's some paradigm shifts that we're asking for folks who engage in the curriculum. So the curriculum is based not so much on a timeline of American or Minnesota or Dakota history. It's more about traditional Dakota teachings and how they help non-Native students develop a bit of a lens or a window in which to have a deeper understanding of Dakota experience in our own homelands. So that might be things like teaching about the concept of Mitakuye owas’iƞ, all my relations or teaching about the ideas of traditional values, might be something about understanding the importance of relationality and kinship. The concept in Dakota we have of Ikcẹ Wicaṡta or a common man or common person.
Darlene St. Clair:
So these are some of these philosophical concepts, and the way the curriculum is set up is the first five lessons focus on these traditional teachings and how they help together combine to develop what I might call a Dakota worldview and helping sixth grade students around this region understand what is some of the lessons in a Dakota worldview, and then the second half, the second five lessons is then applying that worldview to Dakota experience here in Mni Sota Makoce.
Darlene St. Clair:
So for example, we can understand treaty-making, land cession treaties, or what some of us call land seizure treaties. We can have an understanding of what they mean, and typically from a Western worldview, we see them as an experience where two parties sit together to come up with an agreement that's mutually beneficial, and it's fair and it's legal and they sign the documents and, you know, so it... Well, from a Western worldview, it all looks cool, right? But if we really look at the same experiences through Dakota worldview and understand that connection that Dakota people have to land, landscape, to everything that lives on the land, in the water, in the air, those spirits, the rocks, if we have an understanding of that, those teachings, we actually look at treaty making in a very different light and understand actually the trauma of treaty making in many respects for Dakota people and certainly a land loss.
Darlene St. Clair:
While I do believe that Dakota students will benefit from the curriculum as well as would other Native students would benefit from the curriculum, as I developed it, my intention was very much considering non-Native students. I think I have some sort of, my sort of intellectual grounding for the whole project is that Dakota people suffer from the intentional erasure of Dakota people from the public consciousness. And of course that's not done accidentally. It wasn't just like, "Those things happened a long time ago, so we forgot." That actually American institutions were intentionally used, intentionally, to erase Dakota experience. One example of that is the use of the power of educational institutions to sort of not teach about the people on whose lands they live. That that is intentional of a way to both erase Indigenous experience, but also I think for white folks to hold onto their desire to be innocent and to not be culpable or to not recognize that they have ongoing privileges and benefits at the cost of Indigenous people.
Darlene St. Clair:
So it's looking to how do I address this erasure? And I think that is sort of the intellectual grounding for the whole curriculum. And that's why in many respects, I'm looking to the greatest shifts in understanding among non-Native students. Now, it's not to say that I definitely believe that Native students would benefit from this, but I also think that when we look at the academic equity gaps for Native students in Minnesota, which we have some of the worst in the nation, especially, for example, looking at what we call a four-year cohort graduation rate, which is how many students graduate from high school in four years. Minnesota's been 50th in the nation, 49th, 48th. We have some of the worst graduation rates in the entire United States, and that is very shocking to Minnesotans because we all believe we have a good education system in Minnesota, and we do, but we have an education system that works better for some and not as well for others.
Darlene St. Clair:
So if I look at those abysmal rates, I think what is it about Minnesota's system that does not work well? There's lots of things. There's school funding inequities; there's other kinds of issues that are interrelated. But I also think one of the issues is it is the ways that Native people feel erased or feel unrepresented. When they are brought up, it's often within sort of stereotypical tropes of violence, victimhood, sort of a tragic narrative, a noble Savage. So there's certain kinds of tropes that I think that Americans do absorb and Minnesotans do absorb about Native people, but they don't really learn about Native people and our real experience.
Darlene St. Clair:
So I think one of my beliefs is that one of the reasons... We've been trying assimilationist education. We've tried to assimilate Native people since the late 1400s. The first educational institutions were mission schools in Florida and those schools... So we've been trying for a very long time to assimilate Native kids into a Western model of education and waiting for that to take and waiting for that to be successful. And it really has never been successful. So I look at this big picture and ask the question, why are all educational initiatives in general assimilationist at their core? Why is the question always how do we change Native people so they can be more successful instead of asking how do we change systems so that Native people can actually be successful and be themselves?
Darlene St. Clair:
I think one of the things is that most Native students in Minnesota go to public schools. I think a lot of non-Native people will say, "Well, most of those, if they're not doing well, it's because those tribal schools are terrible, or those BIA schools, they're awful, and that's why Native students aren't doing well." But I think it's like 98% of Native kids in Minnesota go to public schools. So we have to firmly look at public schools as the place where we sort of mix these kinds of changes.
Darlene St. Clair:
I think about Native kids being in schools that are still assimilationist at their core. I believe all American schools are assimilationist. Even the school that I work at is a colonial institution that still is assimilationist at its core. And so how do we, within those systems, start to change things so that it's actually non-Native kids that are making the paradigm shift, that we're asking non-Native kids to actually see Native experience with more compassion and just sort of an effort at understanding Native experience.
Darlene St. Clair:
I think the thing that I landed on was that it is through exposing non-Native kids to some of these traditional teachings as a way to allow non-Native kids to sort of have even a inkling, even a small understanding of Dakota thought in terms of our relationship to land. It seems like it's been successful. I mean, I'm also an academic and we built this project with a research project sort of wrapped around it, and then we're still analyzing the data. So I'm still in a process of analyzing, but from what the data that we have looked at and what I've seen, you do start to see that non-Native kids have total capacity to make paradigm shifts and to start to sort of see, "Oh, Dakota people may have ongoing trauma based on the removal from their homelands," that there are these injustices that they never heard about that help them understand Minnesota history with more complexity and more nuance. So it's really been very rewarding and there's still a lot to be done, and this is a single project.
Darlene St. Clair:
I have lots of goals. This is a sixth grade social studies curriculum. So the curriculum was built with that grade level, that age level, those stand standards in mind. But I often, constantly get questions like, "When are you going to develop something for the littler kids, or when are you going to develop something for older people, older students?" And so I definitely want and intend to write K-5 lessons that sort of build toward the sixth grade curriculum. That sixth grade curriculum will always be sort of the big intervention, but I want to build scaffolding lessons that help you get there. Then I want to develop lessons, 7th through 12th grade lessons that sort of pull on threads that are introduced in the sixth grade curriculum, but then reinvigorate students' interest using different disciplines, so maybe in science or in language arts or art.
Darlene St. Clair:
So I have great interests and ambitions to continue to expand that. It's just kind of time and resources, which is often the thing that slows stuff down. But I'm still on it. I think this project will be the work that I do my whole career, for the rest of my career. So yeah, it's been really rewarding and I'm really grateful that you guys have interest in this work because I'd love to see it get out into more Native communities, especially.
Darlene St. Clair:
Often it has been a lot shared in the Twin Cities, a lot in and near Dakota communities, but I'm still trying to make more of an argument about this curriculum really needs to be taught in Northern Minnesota, where there are more Ojibwe communities. I think that is just comes from an incorrect mindset that they're only required to teach about the people who live near them. But the state standards really do mandate teaching about Dakota and Ojibwe, so all the nations in Minnesota. So that means Redwood Falls needs to teach about Ojibwe people and the Bemidji needs to teach about Dakota people. It is in the standards.
Leah:
I like that.
Darlene St. Clair:
So.
Daniel:
Darlene, as Leah and I live in Northern Minnesota, just know that I'm always saying Dakota people were here too. And we are here too.
Leah:
Well, and I really...
Daniel:
So I carry that.
Leah:
Never lets me forget. No, I wouldn't forget. But I think this is so wonderful because I think it parallels really well with what we're trying to accomplish too, because we have Native listeners, which is great, but I hear from a lot of non-Native listeners, non-Native allies, supporters. So this knowledge and this wisdom, it benefits everybody. When you're learning something new and you can see through, as you said, like another lens, develop another lens and appreciate teachings and these concepts that people might not know about, kinship and all my relations and how we're all connected, I think, makes a big impact when people haven't heard that before. It will take that because it will take non-Native people, allies, supporters to help change those systems and to understand Native people for those changes to be made, to help support Native people as well. Like, it's going to take all kinds of approaches.
Leah:
So I see this curriculum fitting into that really brilliantly because our last conversation was with another person who works in higher education. He talked about how the education perpetuates erasure of Native people, so when you get to become a professor or when you get to become an instructor, that mindset is already ingrained. So it just perpetuates on into the future. So there needs to be that paradigm shift; there needs to be that disruptor that will help change that. So this is really great.
Leah:
I was thinking too, about the sixth graders. I'm like, how do you reach the sixth? I'm trying to remember when I was in sixth grade. It was definitely like lip gloss and Lisa Frank notebooks and Salt-N-Pepa CDs. I'm trying to think what my mindset would be as a sixth grader. So can you talk a little bit about sixth graders? And I know they're smart. Kids are smart. So how do you go about creating curriculum for sixth graders specifically?
Darlene St. Clair:
Well, the reason that we initially selected sixth grade is sixth grade is when you learn about Minnesota state history. So that's really the time when we have to sort of interrupt the traditional, what I'd say is a colonial narrative of a long time ago, there were Indians here, but now they're gone. So now this is all ours. While they're teaching about the history of the state of Minnesota, that's really critical that it happened at that level. But I think the other thing that I found in both working with sixth graders and working with sixth grade teachers and developing the curriculum is that sixth graders are really at those early stages of self-defining; they're figuring out who they are. They're asking that really important question, who am I? They'll be answering that question into their middle 20s at minimum, if not much longer. But I mean, it's where they're starting to ask, really think about those questions. They're starting to define themselves as having some distinctions from their parents.
Darlene St. Clair:
So one of the lessons asks about traditional values and what values you hold. The idea is that values are intended to guide decision-making and action. So we're really asking sixth graders to think about what values do you say that you hold and what is your actions in your life and how do they connect with one another? So we're asking some pretty deep questions of sixth graders about themselves and their own identity as it's sort of developing and forming. Sixth graders have a laser focus on the beginning to understanding of justice but also fakeness. And so they are very interested in justice; they're interested in fairness, and they're interested in people and really calling out people who say one thing but act in another way. You can just think about the social dynamics of sixth graders that like, "They're fake!" You can see that this is something that they're forming at that stage of life.
Darlene St. Clair:
So in many respects they're developmentally at just the right age to start to understand that they have an identity, they have a world view, there are other lenses that they can consider. What would it be to look at a similar kind of problem with different sort of philosophical underpinnings, different world views?
Darlene St. Clair:
So, yeah, it's great to work with sixth graders. They're amazing. I think middle schoolers often get, just because so much is happening with them, there's a lot of growth and sometimes it appears to look chaotic. But they're, to me, in many respects at a really great age to be doing this really challenging work. I often will tell, when I'm doing my trainings, I'll say, "I love my 40 year olds, but I'm not really investing in you. Sorry. Good luck to you." But I really feel my investment with sixth graders really can have really significant results because I think of developing a citizenry, not just of Minnesota, but of this region.
Darlene St. Clair:
What if our citizenry grew up and firmly understood that the impacts of American history and Minnesota history on Indigenous people and the ways that they, no matter who they are, are part of that story? That's one of the big lessons of the curriculum is it doesn't matter who you are. You're part of the story of Mni Sota Makoce. If you live in this region, you're part of the story. So how do you see yourself within that story of Mni Sota Makoce? How will you live in ways that may be different than people of Mni Sota Makoce did 250 years ago? The curriculum sort of calls on students to start seeing themselves as having that power.
Darlene St. Clair:
I think of, in the next years, what will happen when people are voters who have that understanding, when people are educators, when people are business owners, when people are farmers? This problem was created, I would argue, intentionally over a long period of time. But that means that we can undo it. We just have to put in the time and put in the investment in our own people. By that I mean the people of Mni Sota Makoce, not just Native people.
Darlene St. Clair:
So I really, I think of this as a very long term project, but it really is to address the erasure or the invisibility of Native people from the public consciousness. So I do other projects as a teacher and as a scholar. I think that's my through line is how is this work that I'm doing address that erasure? So all my projects kind of intersect with that in one way or the other.
Daniel:
Darlene, as a teacher, as a scholar, you've been doing Wisdom Continuum since way before Wisdom Continuum was a podcast. I was thinking what you said earlier, maybe that initial curriculum being so far outside of another teacher's current thinking, it might be, and I imagine it will be, one day kids who have gone through the Mni Sota Makoce curriculum will be further along and say it still might be outside, but they get pieces of it a little better, and we can build on that as a society toward a shared history, which is something I know you've touched on a little bit here. You've talked about education systems gaps. You've talked about erasure. You've talked about assimilationist education and this curriculum really being about sixth grade students learning about Native lands, and that goes back to that shared history of Mni Sota Makoce.
Daniel:
So I'm wondering if you could talk just a little bit about what does it mean to have a shared history as a society rather than here's the mainstream history or dominant society's history, and then them over there, that's their history. That's not necessarily our history. But this curriculum is, it sounds like saying, we do have a shared history and all of this should be taught so that we know who we are and where we come from and how we've worked together and not over the years.
Darlene St. Clair:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Our final, the lesson 10 in the curriculum is really focusing on how now, now that we've been through the curriculum, how will we be better relatives to Mni Sota Makoce, the land. I think that also ties into this larger societal paradigm shift because the traditional teachings that are in the curriculum, they don't just make sense to Dakota or Ojibwe kids. These traditional teachings, they make sense to lots of kids. These teachings click with lots of kids their age. So when we talk about developing a relationship with the land, that the land is your relative, that you treat the land as a relative, that when you make decisions, you think about when you make decisions in life, you're thinking about the impacts on your relatives, both your human relatives, all the relatives, the plant nation, the star nation, the Ina Makȟá grandmother earth. I mean, all these things we think of as relatives.
Darlene St. Clair:
So if we have developed an understanding of how to be a good relative, which is kind of, to me, the thing that I think was hammered in my head, I guess that's not a lovely metaphor, but certainly something that I learned a lot was to be a good Dakota person is to be a good relative. So if you're going to be a good relative to all of creation, including the humans, and you hold certain values, how is that going to affect the decisions you make? How is that going to affect your actions? And this is a framework or a teaching or a way of thinking about living life that is not owned by Dakota people, but this is something that makes sense to lots of kids.
Darlene St. Clair:
So when we ask them to think about a connection, do you have a connection to Mni Sota Makoce, the land, we want them to have a connection to Mni Sota Makoce the land because people with connections to the land are going to make policy decisions and make decisions with their pocketbook and vote in ways that protect the land. So it's better for Indigenous people, for all, for non-Indigenous people to have a connection to the landscape, to have a connection to the place.
Darlene St. Clair:
So you start hearing kids talking about gardening or a rock they like to sit on, or a lake that they go to with their family or something they walk by when they're going to school. I mean, we've heard lots of stories about kids working to develop a connection to the land. That's a good thing for everyone. That's how I see it. That would be a greater good for the land, and that's the greater good for Indigenous people, I would argue.
Darlene St. Clair:
So, I mean, I think that developing that connection between all students who are in the class, developing their connection, that they have an understanding of this relationality concept that Indigenous people hold, that they're related to land; they're related to creation; they're related to other human beings in a way that's different than a Western worldview of my relatives are, it's more about biology or what people call blood or something like that. To have that more expansive understanding of who your relations are, that is a big paradigm shift, but it makes sense to lots of kids.
Darlene St. Clair:
When you ask, kids definitely think of their pets as an equal, as a family member, as someone who needs to be considered at all times. So it's like they have that connection already. Those things are human, I would say, but it is the way that sort of a worldview starts to shape those thoughts to set them aside. So for sixth graders to have a window or an understanding that actually, there's another way to think about who my relatives are and it makes sense to me in a deep way, these are the kinds... So throughout the curriculum, it isn't just we're teaching about Native people. The curriculum is really connecting the students who are in the classroom, whoever they are, with these teachings so that they can better understand our experience, but also hopefully our future because the curriculum really ends with how will we be better relatives to Mni Sota Makoce going forward?
Daniel:
Well, Darlene, this curriculum needs to be taught to everybody. You talked about that a little bit, too, about high school students and certainly adults as well because that's something we should all be thinking about that don't think that many of us do or don't do.
Daniel:
Yeah. Sixth grade. I remember from sixth grade, that was when I learned about probability and how many different combinations a six-sided dice you can make with two of them and how those lessons keep coming back time and time again. I mean, I was playing a game with Leah and my son the other day that you're rolling dice and your flipping down tiles and it got to the end, and it took us 20 rolls to get a 3 when I'm like, "You know, we should have had a 3 a long time ago." So not completely off topic here. It's such a pivotal time in our lives.
Daniel:
There's still so much that the students are going to learn as they advance in middle school and into high school and how all of their geometry courses, how their science courses, how their history courses are going to tie into this curriculum. So they're going to have that, a little different worldview than I think, well, than most of us had at that point in going through their schooling. So really, really wonderful and inspiring work that you're doing, Darlene. So with that, I want to ask you as a final question here, are there any final thoughts that you'd have that you'd want to share with us at this time?
Darlene St. Clair:
Well, I want to say, well, I feel this project is really investing in sixth graders, or it's really investing in K-12 experience because it is my goal, my plan, let's just say my plan, to develop lessons that scaffold up to the sixth grade and to expand and extend. But I mean, I teach at a college level and I use these lessons with my students, and this is new to them. I've not completely given up on the 40 year olds. I mean, I think I do other work that is addressing kind of where they're at in a way. I do some work on Dakota sacred sites that are in what is now the Twin Cities area, and those are much more likely to be kind of adults who are part of that work. I think that's really appropriate for them because they're often, they have already developed a connection to place in their minds, like the place that they live in, or the place that they visit as having a history, and to illuminate a much longer Indigenous history of these places is often a real paradigm shift for other folks.
Darlene St. Clair:
So I really, I have a lot of other different projects going on. I do lots of work with teachers around the state. I teach Native arts and cultural expressions. I teach Native literature. I teach about the Native nations of Minnesota, and I teach about Native education. So I have all of these kinds of projects that kind of seem disparate in a way. But to me, that center thing is how do we address the paradigm shift? How do we start shifting our people in this region, Minnesotans, all of, how do we make that shift and how do we address that erasure.? So at least in my world, that makes sense.
Darlene St. Clair:
But I think the curriculum project, I hope will have this kind of ongoing effect. I'm happy to be talking here today because I do think my strong suit is not in the marketing side of things. So I think people find out about the curriculum more than they are reached. So I think it's always a benefit for me to have more platforms to talk about it because that's the area that I think I don't do that well on. I think how do I connect with adults who are the decision makers and the gatekeepers around Mni Sota Makoce so that they consider adopting a program such as Mni Sota Makoce. So I'm very grateful to use your platform to maybe connect with more folks.
Darlene St. Clair:
People ask, "Well, how can I make change on any of the work that I do?" They're like, "Well, what can I do?" I always encourage people to think of your own sphere of influence. You have power. Everyone has power in their sphere of influence. Do you have kids or grandkids or nieces or nephews? Maybe you start make some suggestions. You ask the teacher, "Have you heard of this curriculum?" Ask the principal, "I'd love to see this be adopted in our school district." There's ways for people to advance this project, even if they don't feel like they're decision makers in education.
Daniel:
Definitely. So to that end, is through the Dakota Wicohan website is that, in our show notes, we want to make sure that we link to the curriculum. So would that be the best way-
Darlene St. Clair:
Yep. [crosstalk 00:47:16]
Daniel:
-to direct people online other than to you?
Darlene St. Clair:
Yes. If you go to dakotawicohan.org, you'll see even on the homepage, there's a button that says click here for the curriculum. But there is another page in there that is the curriculum. In that page, I give lots of arguments. There is a recorded webinar that I gave to educational administrators, and so the webinar's recorded and in that I give an hour long argument for why the curriculum. So anyone can look at that. I give an overview of the curriculum and talk about some of the connections to state standards, and all of that can be seen. So essentially that the Dakota Wicohan website will have resources and the overall sort of argument that I make and a way for people to connect with me to set up a training.
Darlene St. Clair:
The way the training is set up is the curriculum, there is no cost for the curriculum. However, there is a cost for the training, and that is going back to DW to support both this project within Dakota Wicohan but also to hopefully to support Dakota Wicohan broadly. So there is a cost to become trained, but once you're trained, you have access to the curriculum for forever whether you move jobs or move districts, you'll be able to access that. The curriculum lives online. So that makes it easier for us to make changes in which we know there's always going to be changes needed. The curriculum's not perfect. It never will be. But we're in sort of a forever process of building and making changes. And so, yeah, it's all available on the Dakota Wicohan website.
Daniel:
Great. Well, we really appreciate your time this morning, Darlene to talk with us about Mni Sota Makoce and just, wow. You've given me a lot to think about here, as well as being grateful for the work that you do because it is so important to us not only today, but certainly for future generations.
Leah:
Yeah, for sure. [Ojibwe 00:49:56] Darlene. Thank you for your words. And this is great. I'm really glad that you were able to chat with us a bit here and give us a insider look at the curriculum. I want Marvin to do this.
Darlene St. Clair:
Yeah. I look forward to doing this in Grand Rapids.
Leah:
Yeah, that would be wonderful for sure. Great. Well, thank you.
Daniel:
Look forward to... Maybe we should get together Darlene. That's something we talk about-
Darlene St. Clair:
Yes.
Daniel:
-from time to time. Now that I intend to travel more than I have over the last couple of years, I will certainly be down in the cities and would love to connect with you in person here. Maybe when it warms up, whenever that seems to happen.
Leah:
Don't jinx it. Yes.
Darlene St. Clair:
It would be great to see you both. Yeah.
Daniel:
Have a great day.
Darlene St. Clair:
Thank you so much. Tókša akhé.
Daniel:
Tókša
Leah:
I really appreciate what Darlene is talking about. Especially people, especially citizens of Mni Sota Makoce, understanding themselves as a relative to not just one another, but to the land, and also seeing themselves as a part of the larger fabric of the state and of this lands, like really being invested in it and being invested in one another through that lens. I can't say it enough, but it's like Wisdom Continuum to a T. It's these teachings and these points of view aren't just for Dakota or Native people, but they're for everyone, and everyone benefits when we can see through these lenses, when we can share in these points of view and kind of walk in one another's shoes, I guess. But, yeah, and how all of this addresses erasure and that perpetuation of erasure for Native people. So just really it's a win, win, win. It's not just a win, win. It's a win, win, win.
Daniel:
I'm looking through my notes here, and I think you just nailed the analysis or the recap of the conversation.
Leah:
That's fine because you did that last time. So you can just say ditto.
Daniel:
Ditto.
Leah:
Miigwech, Darlene St. Clair.
Daniel:
Wopida tanka, Iyekiyapiwiƞ.
Daniel:
We are talking with so many great people, and we want to say that your input matters too. Do you someone who's working on systems change or centering Indigenous values, or do you have a topic or interview suggestion? If so, then email wisdomcontinuum@gmail.com.
Leah:
And you can find Wisdom Continuum online at wisdomcontinuum.com and on social media, on Instagram and Twitter, @wisdomcontinuum. Thank you to Wisdom Continuum's consulting producer multitude, and Chi-Miigwech for Manda Lillie for the production help. I'm Leah.
Daniel:
I'm Daniel. This is Wisdom Continuum.
