2. Native Language Schools Are
Taking Back Education
More than a century ago, the last fluent speakers of
Wôpanâak passed away. Now this school is working to
revive the language.
3.
4. For more than 150 years, the Wôpanâak language was silent. With no
fluent speakers alive, the language of the Mashpee Wampanoag
people existed only in historical documents. It was by all measures
extinct. But a recently established language school on the Mashpee
Wampanoag Tribe’s reservation in Massachusetts is working to bring
back the language.
The threat of extinction that faces the Wôpanâak language is not
uncommon for indigenous languages in the United States. Calculated
federal policy, not happenstance, led to the destruction of Native
American languages such as Wôpanâak.
But today, Native language schools are working to change that by
revitalizing languages that have been threatened with extinction.
5. Today, the education system in the United States
fails Native American students. Native students
have the lowest high school graduation rate of
any racial group nationally, according to the
2017 Condition of Education Report. And a 2010
report shows that in the 12 states with the
highest Native American population, less than 50
percent of Native students graduate from high
school per year.
By founding schools that teach in Native
languages and center tribal history and beliefs,
tribal language schools are taking education
back into their own hands.
6. Mukayuhsak Weekuw: Reviving a silent
language
On the Massachusetts coast just
two hours south of Boston is
Mukayuhsak Weekuw, a
Wôpanâak language preschool
and kindergarten founded in 2015.
The school is working to revitalize
the Wôpanâak language. As one of
the first tribes to encounter
colonists, the Mashpee
Wampanoag faced nearly four
centuries of violence and
assimilation attempts; by the mid
19th century, the last fluent
speakers of Wôpanâak had died.
7. Baird found a lot of resources. To translate the Bible,
colonists had transcribed Wôpanâak to the Roman
alphabet in the 1600s, which the Wampanoag used
to write letters, wills, deeds, and petitions to the
colonial government. With these texts, Baird and
MIT linguist Kenneth Hale established rules for
Wôpanâak orthography and grammar, and
created a dictionary of 11,000 words.
In 2015, the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project was
ready to open the Mukayuhsak Weekuw preschool.
According to the school’s Project Director Jennifer Weston, 10
students attended in the first year it opened, growing to 20 in
the current school year. As part of the language program,
parents or grandparents of students at the school are
required to attend a weekly language class to ensure that the
youth can continue speaking the language at home.
The curriculum is taught entirely in the Wôpanâak language,
and it is also grounded in tribal history and connection to the
land. “Our languages embody our ancestors’ relationships
to our homelands and to one another across millennia,”
Weston says. “They explain to us to the significance of all the
places for our most important ceremonies and medicines.
They tell us who we are and how to be good relatives.”
In addition to language learning, the children also learn about
gardening, hunting, and fishing. They practice tribal
ceremonies, traditional food preservation, and traditional
hunting and fishing practices. At Native American language
schools like Mukayuhsak Weekuw, students experience
their culture in the curriculum in a deeply personal and
empowering way.
8. ‘Aha Pūnana Leo: Overcoming policy barriers
Considering the violent history of America’s education system
towards Native Americans, it is perhaps unsurprising that policy
barriers continue to hinder contemporary language
revitalization schools.
Federal policies are often misaligned with the reality of tribal
communities and language revitalization schools. Leslie Harper,
president of the advocacy group National Coalition of Native
American Language Schools and Programs, says schools often
risk losing funding because they lack qualified teachers who
meet federal standards. But these standards are paternalistic,
notes Harper, who says that fluent language teachers at Native
schools are often trained outside of accredited teaching colleges,
which don’t offer relevant Native language teaching programs.
These teaching colleges don’t “respond to our needs for teachers
in Indian communities,” she says.
In Hawai’i, ‘Aha Pūnana Leo schools have had some success in
overcoming policy barriers like these. The schools have led the
way for statewide and national policy change in Native language
education.
When the first preschool was founded in 1984, activists
estimated that fewer than 50 children spoke Hawaiian statewide.
Today, ‘Aha Pūnana Leo runs 21 language medium schools
serving thousands of students throughout the state, from
preschool through high school. Because of this success,
emerging revitalization schools and researchers alike look to
9. Looking back, looking forward
A movement to revitalize tribal languages is underway. The success of ‘Aha Pūnana Leo and promise of
Mukayuhsak Weekuw are examples of communities taking education into their own hands. When Native
American students are taught in their own language and culture, they succeed.
Weston says parents are eager for Mukayuhsak Weekuw to expand into an elementary school, and in fall
2018, the school will include first grade in addition to pre-school and kindergarten. It is a testament to
the work and vision of the Wampanoag that just two decades ago, their language was silent, and today,
they have a school that expands in size each year. “All of our tribal communities have the capacity to
maintain and revitalize our mother tongues,” Weston says—no matter how daunting it may seem.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article said that Native American language medium schools were not
able to assess students in their own language. Grades 3-8 have been able to do so since 2016.
10. Abaki Beck wrote this article for YES! Magazine.
Abaki is a free-lance writer and researcher
passionate about Indigenous community resiliency,
public health and racial justice. She is a member of
the Blackfeet Nation of Montana and Red River
Metis.
