Memoir of a bear clan womans educational journey

University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs Education ETDs 7-1-2016 Memoir of a Bear Clan Woman's Educational Journey Angelina Frances Medina Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.edu/educ_llss_etds Recommended Citation Medina, Angelina Frances. "Memoir of a Bear Clan Woman's Educational Journey.edu/ educ_llss_etds/61 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Education ETDs at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact disc@unm.

Angelina Frances Medina Candidate Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Dr. Lucretia Pence, Chairperson Dr. Carlos Lopez-Leiva Dr. Donald Zancanella MEMOIR OF A BEAR CLAN WOMAN’S EDUCATIONAL JOURNEY By Angelina Frances Medina B., Elementary Education, Fort Lewis College, 1974 B., Humanities, Fort Lewis College, 1974 M., Educational Administration, University of New Mexico, 1978 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico July, 2016 Dedication Joe Medina of Zia Pueblo, the best dad ever, this is for you! Calsue Murray, my wonderful and most patient husband, your loving heart carried me; this is for you, as well! iii Acknowledgements First and foremost acknowledgements are made to the students who taught me to listen, hear, and do or this memoir might not have become a reality.

Loving thanks to my husband, Calsue Murray, for your patience, endless encouragement and support, day and night! Special thanks to my wonderful dissertation chairperson, Dr. Lucretia Penny Pence, for your endless encouragement, support, and for providing a different and valuable perspective when I least expected but who also provided the guidance and direction needed for me to successfully complete my dissertation. I must also give my heartfelt thanks to the rest of my dream team, Dr. Carlos Lopez-Leiva, and Dr.

Don Zancanrella for your wonderful support, beautiful praises for my memoir, and for passing me with Distinction! Loving thanks also to friends and colleagues Dr. LaNysha Adams-Foss, Laurie Ihm, Erin Hulse, and Anni Lemming for your endless support through thick and thin. iv MEMOIR OF A BEAR CLAN WOMAN’S EDUCATIONAL JOURNEY By ANGELINA FRANCES MEDINA B., Elementary Education, Fort Lewis College, 1974 B., Humanities, Fort Lewis College, 1974 M., Educational Administration, University of New Mexico, 1978 Ph., Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies, University of New Mexico, 2016 ABSTRACT This study utilizes memoir, a qualitative research method, to tell how a Pueblo teacher’s Pueblo cultural interactions with her students led to positive classroom behavior and achievement. It describes three diverse and separate sets my life experiences, in thematic chapters, that took place.

I describe my Pueblo traditional upbringing and interactions with family and community wherein I spoke only the Keres language. Then, I describe my first encounter with White people who introduced me to the foreign language of English and another world, through comic books and a Hershey bar. I was introduced into American schooling where negative experiences with racist teachers shredded my esteem and self confidence enough to dread and hate American schooling at all levels. Later, when I accidentally became a teacher, I freely implemented the Pueblo way of interacting with and teaching my students whose life experiences were very much similar to mine! In implementing Pueblo epistemology and pedagogy, my students’ negative behavior became positive.

They accepted responsibility to improve their studies and surprised themselves by catching up and advancing into higher levels of achievement. v Table of Contents Chapter 1: Memoir. 3 Chapter 3: Sick of School. 5 Chapter 4: Shra-me.

13 Conflicting, Confusing, Misguiding Messages. 14 Consequences of Colonial America Not Being Shra-me. 15 Top of the World. 17 Wanna-be Scientist.

19 Examples of the Bureau of Indian Affairs not Being Shra-me. 20 Be Proud, Third Graders, for Being Shra-me. 38 Chapter 5: New Horizons and Realizations. 52 Native American Language Teacher’s Institute at UNM.

54 Isleta – My First Lessons. 55 Chapter 6: Amazing Discoveries. 69 Hershey Bars and Little Lulu. 69 On My Own in San Francisco and College.

83 “Don’t Cry, Lie!”. 84 vi No More Broken English!. 88 Fort Lewis College – Who Me?. 90 Chapter 7: Exploring, Discovery, Practicing and Learning.

94 Consequences of Favoritism. 94 Student Teaching Internship. 95 Chapter 8: Students and Teacher Learning Together. 98 Fantastic Fifth Graders.

99 To Share or Not to Share – That was the Question. 100 Students’ Voice and Choice. 110 Planning for the Future. 116 Learning Big Words.

120 Throw Out the Spelling Book!. 121 Fifth Graders Meet Third Grader’s Challenge. 124 Overcoming Writing Challenges. 127 Curiosity Earns an Excursion Trip.

137 Chapter 9: Why, How Come, Because…. 142 vii I Can’t Be One. 145 Third Time Around – Revolving Door. 146 No Piano Lessons for You!.

148 You Were Supposed to Punish Him!. 149 Chapter 10: Recognition – Skill Sets Appreciated!. 158 Miss Indian Expo - Key to College. 159 In the Shadow of My Dreams.

161 Chapter 11: Birth, Identity and Roots. 165 Traditional Pueblo Upbringing. 173 Daily Life in Our Ancient Dwelling. 174 Weedima and Chuyai.

176 My Brother, My Teacher. 177 Tsiya aka Zia. 180 My Many Names. 186 Chapter 12: In Beauty It Begins.

188 Pueblo Life Core Curriculum. 190 Exploring the Natural World. 193 Dedication and Diligence. 194 The Field Trips Became a Reality.

196 Researching – A New Experience. 200 Chapter 13: In Beauty We Were. 206 Please Donate Computers. 208 Chapter 14: Sacred Space.

220 ix Chapter 1: Memoir Memoir is a self-narrative, a qualitative research method, that depends on memory, poems, personal essays, or journals to tell one’s story (Chang, 2007). The first thing that a writer needs to consider is the point and purpose for writing the memoir initially (Kirby & Latta, 2007). In this memoir the writer needs to focus on the question “so what happened to me” that relates to the research question for this particular memoir, “How does a Pueblo teacher’s cultural background guide her interaction with her students?” This helps the writer “to know the message and the point that they want to develop and emphasize in their memoir pieces (Kirby & Latta, 2007)” that readers may relate to their own lives. Will someone identify with the memoirist’s story enough to find meaning in their own lives? How will that story change their lives? What is it that the writer wants their reader to understand as a result of reading the memoir? Memoir, written by individuals who want to tell a story, using data from their memory cannot conform to a dissertation format because there is no one way of collecting data.

According to Victor Villanueva, “Memory simply cannot be adequately portrayed in the conventional discourse of the academy. I am grateful for the acknowledgment of perceptions that academic discourse provides, for the resources the conventions of citation make available, for the ideocentric discourse that displays inductive or deductive lines of reasoning, a way to trace a writer’s logical connections. Academic discourse is cognitively powerful! But the cognitive alone is insufficient. It can be strong for logos.

It can be strong for ethos. But it is very weak in pathos. Academic discourse tries, after all, to reach the Aristotelian ideal of being completely logocentric, though it cannot be freed of the ethical appeal to authority (Villanueva, 1993).” 1 Research studies have been conducted by collecting self-narratives from authors which were then published in a book called Stories of Experience and Narrative Inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). This book contains personal narratives of various memoir genres written by teachers of their personal stories.

These stories were used in the authors’ studies of educational experience. There is no one way of using memoir as methodology. Poetic inquiry (Pelias, 2013) that reveals the memorist’s emotions felt from experiences of curiosity, critical thinking, sadness, depression, or elation and enlightenment is another strong way of expressing or telling a story. Poetry is a way of expressing one’s thoughts on the injustices that occur in one’s life time and then using poetry as a way of slinging those stings away as it has been done in this memoir to make a point.

Memoirs are selective in that “memoirists focus on the most significant experiences in their lives” on those “hours and minutes that are keen in their lives –the time when the memoirist felt or was most alive, when experiences penetrate to the quick (Phifer, 2000). These can then be organized into thematic chapters to tell a story. 2 Chapter 2: Introduction Racism toward Native American people continues as lawmakers in Washington, D. verbalize we should have equality in all ways.

Unfortunately, their idea of equality is inequality for Native people and Native Students. So much of what is supposed to be fair to Native people is in conflict with the American mainstream way of life. This is also true in the Public schools as it is in Bureau of Indian Education funded schools. Institutional racism results from ignorance that is threaded in covert and overt racism.

For decades, institutional racism has been the conscious and unconscious exclusion from the curriculum of American Indian history, culture, languages, literacy, and instructional practices relevant to students’ lives. As I have described my student behavior in American schools, students who have been mistreated similarly exhibit reactive-passive behavior, like I did. Some teachers may claim that Pueblo students have delayed adolescence because such students, in their estimation, become resistant but this resistance may actually be an expression of hopelessness and powerlessness. I grew up in Public schools where racist attempts were made to mold me and shape me into a brown-skinned Indian Caucasian thinking American.

I have resisted being controlled, by teachers and public school administrators, as have my ancestors and those who came after me. The resistance by Native students is what many Caucasian teachers complain about. We, Native students, are resilient. Our resistance and resiliency and reasons behind them are still misunderstood.

My writing about our Pueblo way of teaching and learning will hopefully bring insightful enlightenments as to how a Pueblo teacher’s Pueblo cultural interaction with her students lead to positive classroom behavior and achievement that pre- service teachers and seasoned teachers can attempt to model with their diverse students. 3 I want Indian students to be acknowledged for the life experiences they bring to school that make enormous contributions not only to their classmates but to their teachers as well. I want teachers to understand that learning a foreign language when one’s own language is not written or based on Latin is an insurmountable challenge. English, with all its rules and complexities, has little in common with an oral language based on a Pueblo way of life.

English is complicated. It’s frustrating and stressful. Honest communication is important to the practice of respect, acknowledgements, and sincere compliments in a safe and harmonious classroom environment. Most Pueblo and other Native American children enter schools with lived experiences that have formed much of their identity and knowledge about family and community duties and responsibilities.

This includes their knowledge about school rules and classroom self discipline. It is common for Pueblo children to have voice in making family decisions at an early age. It is also very common for them to have choices in duties in the home and community. I would strongly encourage this type of interaction with students.