(uplifting music) - Dr. Aldora White Eagle has identified an educational characteristic she thinks every at-risk student needs to know.

Her word for it is resiliency, and she thinks it's every bit as important as any other academic subject.

I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS.

This is "Wyoming Chronicle."

- [Narrator] Funding for Wyoming Chronicle is made possible in part by Wyoming Humanities, enhancing the Wyoming narrative to promote engaged communities and improve our quality of life.

And by the members of Wyoming PBS.

Thank you for your support, - Dr. Aldora White Eagle, the known as Doty to your friends and acquaintances.

Thanks for being with us on "Wyoming Chronicle."

You are back in Wyoming, although you're originally from Wyoming, of course, to take part in an education conference here at Central Wyoming College in Riverton.

You gave a couple of presentations over the past few days, and your topic is resiliency.

What's your working definition of it as far as your research and work is concerned?

- It's about being able to continue to bounce back from either emotional trauma, mental, physical trauma.

And I talked about a lot of our Native people have had to come back from a lot of our traumas.

I started out the presentation with a poem from Abigail Echo Hawk, and she's like, I am, you know, I am pretty good at funerals.

- Funerals.

- Yes.

- The implication of that obviously is we're talking about children as well.

- Yes.

- Too many children go to funerals and have to be, have to deal with that.

- Yes.

And so when I was getting my master's, back in 2006, research showed the non-Native, non-Native at 18 went to one funeral.

The Native student, by the time they were 18, had gone to 50 funerals.

- Wow.

- Yes.

- Is this part of what drew you to your research?

What, what led you to think this was a good topic for study and in your case, academic research?

- My research is about how to keep our Northern Arapaho students in school.

And so it's published about, you know, what the factors, and it always comes back to cultural, cultural knowledge is cultural, our way of life.

And so the resiliency part of it, that really came a part of that.

However, I sit on the Native, the Wyoming Native Education Board here, and so the theme was resiliency.

I have investment in this conference because of our children, because of our community, and because of our people.

And so I wanted to do a workshop about resiliency, and I thought, how am I going to help not only educators, but our people ultimately, and our students, because it really is a life and death situation with our, our children.

- You told on that note, you recounted a really terrible story, unfortunately, about a, a student who seemed to have so many things going in the direction that everyone would've wanted, yet tragic outcome.

- Yes.

- What was that?

- Yes.

So, and I'll probably tear up.

I had just graduated from the University of Wyoming with my teaching degree.

So I have my undergrad degree is a secondary education social studies with an endorsement in middle school, so I can teach middle school as well.

My first year, I was going to, I got hired to teach high school, and so I wasn't supposed to start until the fall.

However, they approached me.

The principal said, hey, would you like to teach summer school?

And I said, yeah, I would love to teach summer school.

And so we created the curriculum, and we made this amazing, you know, field trips and just hands on everything was going to be about culture.

And so we had maybe 20 students, and it was, it was amazing.

And, but there was this superstar student.

She excelled.

She got all As, she passed all of the benchmarks that we asked her to do.

She was stellar.

- She liked being there, obviously.

- She enjoyed coming to class every day, and it was intense.

It was, summer school is intense.

You have to be there and if you miss anything then you, you can't because you trying to get credit.

And she was coming in as a freshman, but she was so excited to come to school and start high school.

She was going to be a freshman that she started early.

- So she came to summer school before.

- Before she even started high school.

- Yeah.

So she was basically a brand new eighth grade, like out of eighth grade.

And so she was starting new, and so we decided as a team that we were going to honor the best and brightest student and become the summer school student of the year.

And so we chose her, and like I said, I just had these high ambitions and I'm gonna just come save our students.

I'm native, I'm gonna be this and for them, and if I can overcome what I as a res kid, went through, then they can too.

And so I was so excited.

And so we honored her and we called her mom and her dad, and they all, they came and we had the celebration, and we presented her with a certificate and she was excited.

And so we had the celebration, and summer school ended and we sent them off and we said, we'll see you in the fall.

And she was so excited.

And honestly, a week later... - [Interview] What happened?

- We got the call and she had committed suicide.

- What a thing to go through here in your first few weeks of teaching with all of your high hopes as well.

- And I'm not trying to probe into too deeply to this family or this one person.

Do you have any idea what happened, what the factors were, or that's part of the resiliency mystery of it to you, I suppose?

- Well, you know, I think it was just a spontaneous decision after talking with her mom, and they were just devastated and it was just she had gotten angry and it was just a spontaneous decision.

- It led me, it led you and the discussion in the session to an interesting point, which was that resiliency is not always an issue related to a negative trauma necessarily.

And there's a positive resiliency as well.

Here, she'd had this great experience and then it was over then, and it seems like the easiest thing in the world for anyone to deal with.

Something great happened to me, it's gonna be great.

I know just what to do.

That's not always true either, is it?

- No.

- There's a, you've gotta kind of bounce back from that and get back to your yourself as well.

The positive resiliency was an interesting part of the conversation, My co-presenter, Jen, runs close to lodge.

We talked about bringing in certain cultural resiliency tactics that teachers can use.

- Some of these are fairly simple, aren't they?

- Very.

- It's not like you have to do the equivalent of gymnastics to make students feel more centered as if they belong in a school room.

One of the ones that she brought in was some sage.

Because a student had said to her and said, I think I'd feel better if I could just smell some sage.

And so now that's, she does that all the time.

- Yes.

- And did it for us in the room.

- Yes.

And as I was talking, as Arapaho people, I was saying, you know, there's a story that we're told and that we have this innate connection to creator.

And part of that story, which, you know, I won't tell or can't tell, you know, creator leaves us things.

And so that sage is, is one of the tools that we can use.

And so I feel like it just activates that genealogical memory or the blood memory.

So it just activates that peaceful feeling.

And I don't know if you had felt that or if you were able, when you were able to smell that.

Sometimes when I'm really nervous or I know I'm having a bad day, I will put on one of my earrings that have the back buck skin, the smoke buck skin, because it smells so good.

And I just know that I'm gonna be safe.

And I know a lot of our children will come into the classroom having a bad day or having a just having had a bad night.

One of the times I remember a student had come into my classroom and he was tired.

And I was, knowing my background or even my own history, I asked the student, what's wrong and are you okay?

And he's just like, I'm tired.

And I said, well, what, we'll just talk about it later.

Just go ahead and just sit there quietly.

It'll be okay.

And he came up to me later and he said, I just wanna tell you, you know, that I had a bad night.

I had to stay up all night because my dad was drinking.

And, you know, he was gonna be fighting us.

And so I had to fight off, fight him off and keep my brother safe.

And so I was tired 'cause I stayed up all night protecting my brothers.

You know, sometimes our students will come in with stories like that.

- It's a lot to ask of a kid just to go to any school, whether it's gonna go to kindergarten for the first time or to go to high school, or to go away to a university, and then to add anything on top of it like that.

It just, it adds to the challenge of the educator in the classroom.

And this is part of what you're working on.

You think it's more than just a bit a matter of recognition.

I mean, it's of course starts with that and acknowledgement, but also there's a professional development aspect that you believe is essential for a professional educator.

- Yes.

It's vital that our educators get these professional development opportunities because they come in without understanding and they have their own implicit bias is, and so being able to understand or learn about these techniques, to utilize and without, without knowing these simple activities, being able to have these cultural mentors put in place.

- We're speaking from Riverton today.

The most racially diverse school district in Wyoming is School district 25.

And so most of the teachers there, I don't, I mean, I'm not sure I most, I think almost all the teachers in district 25 are white.

And it's to everyone's benefit, including theirs, especially theirs, to know more about what you're talking about because it's just, and for the other students to as well, because it's just a reality now, a good reality, I would say that this is what more and more Wyoming classrooms are gonna be like.

- Hopefully it'll become mandatory that the teachers come to these trainings because the mentality is, oh, that's a Native education conference.

So it's just for the native schools.

- Right.

- And so it is vital that they start coming to these professional development opportunities so that they can start breaking down these stereotypes, these barriers, these misunderstandings.

I had an educator come to me yesterday and say, I live in Lander.

I work in Lander and I've lived here for 15 years and I've never made any communications.

I've never made any relationships with the tribes, with the Shoshone or the Arapaho tribes.

And I said, why not?

So I still, you know, that still baffles me as to why the teachers aren't finding these valuable.

- Well, because the schools, that's the melting pot now.

- It don't matter what town you're in, you go to school here.

And so here we are all together, it just, it pays to know you, you a way that it was illustrated, a comparison was made, for example, to a student who might come to school with asthma.

And if that's true, a school, a child comes to school with asthma, everybody is made aware of that.

The teacher knows it, the para knows it.

The cook knows it in the kitchen, the bus driver knows it, the custodian knows it.

So that this is someone we can watch, be aware of and be ready to help as if we need to.

And it could apply to someone with, I don't know, a hearing impairment or visual impairment or something else.

But the idea was, the suggestion was that maybe a child that comes to school with a problem, like the one you described a couple minutes ago, maybe not everybody knows about that and doesn't realize this is also someone to watch, someone that we need to be aware of and be ready to take care of.

- That's exactly right.

And why wouldn't we want to know that?

You know?

And it's just about serving our students and, honestly, our students, you know, have higher rates of suicide, you know, higher rates of academic failure.

We have the lowest rates of graduation, higher rates of dropouts.

And, you know, being able to understand and putting in cultural relevant curriculum and attacking or being able to build upon our students' knowledges and incorporating culturally relevant and responsive curriculum pedagogy, it's going to increase scores, increase retention, increase so many, you know, self-esteem.

And that is what my reach research has shown.

- But you grew up here, you graduated high school where?

- At Wyoming Indian.

- Yes.

- You left to go to college.

- Not everybody does that.

- Right - On the reservation or off, but college isn't for everybody.

- [Interviewee] Right.

- What drew you to it, and how was it for you when you first got there?

- So my college journey was interesting.

I originally wanted to, I was a teen mother.

I originally wanted to become a teacher.

I come here and I still remember the guidance, the counselor told me, you can't be a teacher, you have two children.

You need to go into business, just get a data processing degree.

It's gonna take you nine months.

You need to take care of your family.

So I did that.

I just didn't even think, you know, and so I had always wanted to become a teacher.

So I came here and then I knew I was- - When you say here, you came here to CWC Central Wyoming College.

- Yes.

So I end up coming back, getting my two year degree, and then moving to the University of Wyoming.

And it was a culture shock.

It was very hard for me to leave.

And I knew that, 'cause I was leaving my whole family, I was leaving the culture.

I was not going to be able to go to our ceremonies that, you know, that sustained me, and not going to be around other people that were my color.

And, but it was also, it was also good because I didn't know that I didn't have to be followed around in stores.

I didn't know that people greeted me in restaurants and said, hello, where would you like to be seated?

That was, that blew me away.

I didn't know that.

- Was part of the culture shock in this positive way.

- In a positive way.

I brought my children with me because I had, it came, went back later in life.

And then, you know, them also not understanding about, you know, having to come back home for funerals because of the close knit relationships that we have and them missing so much school.

And it was, it was very hard.

But I wanted the education.

I wanted to come back and help my people because that's what we wanted to do.

Now at the University of Wyoming, there's much more students there when back then there was just a handful and not so low.

It isn't so lonely or so scary anymore.

- Because all the things that any student has to do with, of going to a college campus for the first time.

- And then they have this layered on top of it.

Just an extra challenging thing.

It's where the resiliency comes in.

- [Interviewee] Yes.

- Is this when you first started thinking about this, I mean, what resiliency tools were you able to use personally because you went through this experience?

Do you remember?

- Yes.

Yes.

Because I grew up in a very traditional home with my grandmother's teachings, and our Arapaho teachings.

And I remember she was telling me, no matter where you are, you can pray, and you can pray to our most sacred covenant, and no matter where you're at.

And so that's what I would do.

And I remember, you know, saying, hey, can we build a sweat down here?

And so we built a sweat down in Laramie, that was amazing.

And so the family came down and we were able to do that, and be able to start incorporating things down there.

And always knowing that I had the sage, I had the cedar that I could burn and pray, being able to play our powwow music or our Native American church.

- Just like any college kid would in a way.

Play music.

- [Interviewee] Right.

- You did it.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

And so that's what just being able to rely on our traditional way of life.

- There's sort of a, I think I've observed, at least in some political debate and everything is politics now, unfortunately.

It seems like sort of an anti-college feeling among some people.

Well, don't waste your time going to college, waste of money, waste of time, get a job as in a trade.

Nothing wrong with that, but as if something about college is not valuable.

I have a feeling you don't see it that way.

- No, I don't.

- It's doing a lot to you.

- So I understand that college isn't for everyone.

It really isn't.

There's some people that go out and get a trade, they're making more money than me.

And I have a doctorate, and I'm like, I should have went and did that.

You know?

But you know, what's important to me really is, you know, education.

My grandmother, my grandmother and grandfather, they would tell me, education is really important.

That piece of paper nobody's ever gonna be able to take away from you.

And so education is very important to me.

And my grandmother had a sixth grade education and my grandpa had a second grade education, and I remember playing teacher, whatever.

But there's a quote by Chief Plenty Coup that I always quote and I forgot to use that in my session yesterday.

- Well use it now.

- I will.

And he, Chief Plenty Coup, the Crow Chief says, education is your most powerful weapon.

With it, you are the white man's equal.

Without it, you are his victim, and so shall you remain.

And so I try to use that and remind my own children and other children that you've got to get that education with that education you're going to be able to use, use that and help our people.

And that is going to.

And maybe that education is using our traditional knowledges and getting, because you know, in that education, traditional knowledge, you start at the bottom and then you use, use your entire life.

Learning about our ways and getting to use it that way.

But yeah, as college is, it's is very important.

And my daughter just graduated with her Juris doctorate.

- No kidding.

- [Interviewer] Yes.

- From where?

- The University of Wyoming, yes.

And she will begin working for the Native American Rights Fund, yes.

- A few years ago, the Wyoming legislature adopted this.

State law, which is operates sort of under the term general term Indian education for all.

And the idea being that some of the things you're talking about, and more specific historical things as well, become part of the general public school curriculum across Wyoming.

How do you think we're doing on that?

- We're failing.

I'm gonna just be honest.

Wyoming is failing.

We continue to perpetuate stereotypes and keep our native people in the 1800s.

We're still mystified, we're still romanticized.

Thankfully principal from Star Valley came up to me after my first session yesterday and said, can you help me?

I want to get rid of, we're still the Braves.

And I said, that's very harmful.

But so in one way that maybe, maybe he recognizes that through the Indian Education for All Act.

I don't wanna say that it were failing totally.

However, educators are afraid to teach these standards because they don't know themselves.

They don't wanna offend how are we supposed to teach?

And I just wrote a chapter on, and it's entitled "A Love Letter to My Granddaughter," because she was last two years ago, a third grader and Laramie.

And she was the only Native student.

And so they continued to put the Native American unit on her to correct her entire classroom.

- And she's eight years old.

- Yes.

Nine years old.

More than she needs to deal with right?

- [Interviewee] Yes.

- That's not her job.

- So I wrote a chapter to her, but it's really geared to social studies educators and relational scholarship and Indigenous knowledges.

So yes, we've got a long ways to go, but at least it's a start.

At least there's a law in Indian education for all in Wyoming.

And, you know, we've got to start providing resources to our educators so that they feel confident in what they're teaching.

- How do we accomplish that?

Who, if it's not your 9-year-old granddaughter's job, whose job is that?

How do we make this better?

Because it's such an important part of Wyoming history that the state law now dictates it, yet not really being done to the satisfaction of experts who are looking at it.

- Right.

- What's your advice to the state superintendent or the governor, or the lawmakers or the Department of Ed?

What do you recommend?

Big question there.

30 seconds, answer.

- We wave my magic wand, right?

So I think we started fashioning ourselves, looking at like Montana's Indian education for all.

They've got some fabulous resources.

You start looking and start looking to the tribes.

What do they need?

I know that I had sat on that social studies standards back 20 some years ago, Lynette St. Clair and I, trying to give our recommendations, but they were overlooked.

Why aren't we looking specifically at the two tribes here on the reservation?

Because it affects the two tribes.

They didn't wanna look at that.

They wanted to look at all the tribes.

So start looking to the tribes for those knowledges.

Start looking at experts, providing a real office for it that provides these resources and the providing these resources, and then a real office for Indian education for all.

- So it can be done.

- It can be done, and it will be done.

And I have faith that the state of Wyoming will honor our children.

- And the interview we did the following, or during the same conference last year was with a tribal leader, not an educator, but he said, what the state of Wyoming needs to understand is there's such great potential here.

- [Interviewee] Yes.

- That just wake up to that idea and seize on it, and it'll make the state better.

- [Interviewee] Right.

- And I'm sure you'd agree with that.

- Absolutely.

There is, there's so much potential and it's just, I feel like it's just bubbling and waiting and what, you know, we just need to all come together, come at it at every aspect to be able to ignite it and make it successful.

And, you know, all of us come together.

We don't need any more excuses.

Nobody needs to drop the ball anymore.

It's all right there.

- Dr. White Eagle, I've really enjoyed speaking with you.

I know that people attending this conference got great value from what you said and from the work that you're doing.

So thanks for being with us today on "Wyoming Chronicle."

- Yes, thank you very much for having me.

I really enjoyed speaking about my experiences and especially about our people.

- Good, thanks.

(uplifting music)