Abstract
The Montana Indian Education for All (IEFA) Act is an unprecedented reform effort 40 years in the making. In this paper we summarize the IEFA professional development opportunities provided to faculty at a land grant university in the western United States while highlighting a faculty member’s personal efforts to integrate IEFA in a culturally responsive manner. We explain how, instead of limiting the transmission of ideas, expanding discipline boundaries has opened a flood-gate to new information and other ‘ways of knowing’ for the faculty member and her students.
Highlights
The Montana Indian Education for All (IEFA) Act is an unprecedented reform effort 40 years in the making
We summarize the IEFA professional development opportunities Dr Jioanna Carjuzaa, the lead author, has provided to faculty at Montana State University (MSU) and highlight the journey of Dr Holly Hunts, a professor in the College of Education Health and Human Development
The data suggest that integrating IEFA across the curriculum in a culturally responsive manner is a challenging task for many faculty members who feel inadequately prepared to do so
Summary
Over the past seven years I (Jioanna) have facilitated 14 IEFA workshops. After administering an initial survey to faculty in the teacher preparation program to find out where we stood collectively as a department and what knowledge individuals had about IEFA, I scheduled the first workshop. Even though all Montana educators have a constitutional obligation to integrate IEFA, some faculty in higher education feel a natural fit to their discipline, while others struggle to find logical connections. The resistance I have observed usually results from both a misunderstanding of the goals of IEFA and fear. Some educators voice their concern about what they perceive as an unfair bias when the focus is put on American Indians. Bobbi Ann Starnes (2006), a former reservation classroom teacher offered this explanation: Whether or not there are large numbers of Native Americans or reservations in every region of the country, Indian Education for All underscores a national challenge to our education system to improve our teaching about Native American history and culture more evident than during the month of November. (p. 186)
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