Indigenous Roots Teacher Education Program - Michelle Free LaMere

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03/01/2024 Added

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Michelle Free LaMere - Indigenous Roots Teacher Education Program - Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education - College of Education and Human Sciences - University of Nebraska-Lincoln

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[00:00:03.236]Our community is located
[00:00:04.537]in northeast Nebraska.
[00:00:06.306]I believe we have about a thousand people
[00:00:09.542]in our community,
[00:00:10.710]and it's predominantly Ho-Chunk or
[00:00:14.981]comprised of people
[00:00:16.199]from other tribes as well.
[00:00:18.368]And I think the most significant thing
[00:00:21.254]about our tribe is that education
[00:00:25.291]has always been important,
[00:00:26.459]but it's even becoming more important
[00:00:29.763]on a bigger scale than it had been.
[00:00:32.766]And the impact that that's been having
[00:00:35.351]is that more people with higher education
[00:00:38.938]degrees are coming back more often.
[00:00:42.776]I think the biggest influence upon me was
[00:00:47.180]my dad, who was a teacher.
[00:00:51.868]He stressed the importance
[00:00:55.221]of getting good grades
[00:00:57.057]and pursuing an education,
[00:00:59.542]being a lifelong learner
[00:01:00.894]and he demonstrated that
[00:01:03.780]by educating himself.
[00:01:06.516]I got my Associate of Arts degree
[00:01:09.335]here at Little Priest Tribal College,
[00:01:11.488]and I also got my bachelor's degree
[00:01:15.575]at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
[00:01:17.794]through the Indigenous Roots program.
[00:01:21.097]And when I got into the Roots program,
[00:01:24.634]the Indigenous Roots program,
[00:01:27.337]most of it was online
[00:01:28.371]and all of my classmates
[00:01:29.672]were Indigenous.
[00:01:31.391]And again,
[00:01:32.509]I didn't have to be distracted
[00:01:34.394]by any type of social discomfort or in
[00:01:38.498]trying to fit in or anything.
[00:01:39.766]It was just
[00:01:40.667]focusing on the academics
[00:01:42.552]and reaching my goals.
[00:01:44.671]Education from an Indigenous perspective
[00:01:49.409]and with emphasis on Indigenous culture
[00:01:52.879]really had a huge impact on me and
[00:01:55.765]getting me to think more
[00:01:57.350]about the students
[00:01:58.434]that I would be teaching
[00:01:59.602]and what I would need to know
[00:02:01.070]in order to best serve them.
[00:02:03.323]It became really obvious
[00:02:05.024]that a lot of the Indigenous people
[00:02:08.795]can save their languages
[00:02:10.079]and their cultures
[00:02:11.164]in the same way
[00:02:12.482]that any other Indigenous group has.
[00:02:15.001]So the biggest impact that I've
[00:02:17.610]had on my students
[00:02:18.404]was in learning about our culture.
[00:02:21.040]We need to teach children the language
[00:02:24.594]because they're the ones that are
[00:02:26.229]going to learn it faster
[00:02:28.431]and they're the ones
[00:02:29.199]that are going to be able to
[00:02:30.834]pass it on to more people.
[00:02:34.487]So it's important for me to
[00:02:36.973]try to do what I can to help
[00:02:38.741]save the language,
[00:02:39.609]because those those children,
[00:02:42.512]I think, are going to be the ones
[00:02:45.265]that save our tribe's
[00:02:48.535]very existence.
[00:02:50.436]They absolutely love anything we do that
[00:02:54.891]involves Ho-Chunk language and culture.
[00:02:57.377]And
[00:02:58.593]I think
[00:03:00.613]if we could teach nothing but Ho-Chunk
[00:03:02.599]language and culture,
[00:03:03.349]that would be great.
[00:03:05.118]So the dual language classroom,
[00:03:07.086]I think has been
[00:03:09.906]very successful.
[00:03:11.257]Even in our state standards test,
[00:03:13.993]the scores have been reflecting
[00:03:16.446]the success of this program.
[00:03:18.781]They do love
[00:03:20.633]what they learn here
[00:03:22.035]and their families are
[00:03:25.488]there are constantly
[00:03:26.990]thanking us for being here
[00:03:28.758]and for teaching these kids.
[00:03:30.793]And they're thanking us for developing
[00:03:33.479]the program,
[00:03:34.230]the kind of program that we have.
[00:03:36.633]And they tell us that their kids come back
[00:03:39.452]home each day and they teach them,
[00:03:41.938]which is phenomenal.

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Indigenous Roots Teacher Education Program - Michelle Free LaMere

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