2005 Coalition of Educators for Native American Children Professional Development Rally

“Smart Teaching: Content + Pedagogy = Student Learning” Summary

As demonstrated by the overall evaluations, the general session was a big hit this year. It opened with an invocation from Santa Fe Indian School staff member and Santo Domingo tribal council member Bill Coriz. Joseph Abeyta, SFIS Superintendent, welcomed the staffs from CENAC schools. SFIS is an ideal location to host an event grounded in community-based education (CBE) since it is the first Indian school to take advantage of the Self-Determination Act. It is owned and operated by the 19 Pueblo Governors of New Mexico. In addition, SFIS has piloted the highly successful Community Based Education Model.

One approach to CBE is to validate Native knowledge. Giving a peek into the past success of Native scientists, Pat Sandoval of SFIS and Anna Sofaer of the Solstice Project, talked about the sun dagger at Chaco Canyon. This petroglyph not only tracks the summer and winter solstice, it also predicts lunar eclipses. Western scientists working with Native people have been uncovering more and more elements of this prehistoric “computer” for the past 30 years.

Keynote speaker Regis Pecos gave an overview of SFIS during the past 100 years. Native people are now in the position to set the education of their children not only in their home communities, but also in their schools. Having leadership identify the priorities for student learning and assuring student learning is concretely tied to those priorities within the community are two important parts of CBE. Because of the power, passion, and clarity, Mr. Pecos’ speech was a highlight of the Rally for many participants.

The first two Rally session topics focused on the theme “Smart Teaching: Content + Pedagogy = Student Learning” that covered community-based education as pedagogy, and mathematics and science as content. There were 425 educators and support staff from the 12 CENAC schools in attendance. Participants chose from 26 various sessions (refer to session descriptions). Among the most popular sessions were Edible Math (common sense ideas to teach mathematics, using food to teach math concepts) and Chaco Canyon Investigation. Some comments from participants included: “As Native teachers why we don’t focus on what’s meaningful and important to our community and native students”; “Early people were very preoccupied with their place in their cosmos without use of any books or scientific equipment.” These were but two of the powerful statements that made it clear that the sessions had significant impact on participants’ teaching and learning to incorporate CBE.

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