Indian Style
It has been a few weeks since I visited Ms. Bright’s class. Bad weather and a death in the family held me back for a while. I was eager to rejoin.
And to my great pleasure, as soon as I arrived Ms. Bright asked if I’d like to read aloud to the class—two chapters from Island of the Blue Dolphins. Oh yes, yes I would. At my eager reply, a handful of students (my Ty included) actually squealed with delight. Man, that made my morning.
In the section I read, our heroine Karana attempts to escape the island in her canoe. However, her canoe begins to leak and she realizes she will be in grave danger if she doesn’t turn back toward the island. A menacing red star and comforting blue dolphins make their appearances.
After my reading, Ms. Bright asked the class to make inferences about the star and dolphins. She wanted to know how these might be symbols for something greater—something profound that underscored the story, itself. The students provided some impressive feedback, drawing connections between the red star and the red ships (captained by a Russian and carrying the Aleuts that swindled Karana’s tribe and killed her father in battle) and the red sea (which entrapped Karana), and the blue dolphins and safety/home. These kids are smart!
Then it was time to make more “inferences” (from what I gather, this is a current focus word for the class)—this time from two side-by-side paintings on the projector screen: one of a group of settlers, staking their flag in seaside soil while mysterious eyes peer at them through bushes in the background, and another of a group of Indians in their village, surrounding a group of “white men.” From these two pictures, the class was able to draw many accurate conclusions about the settlers and their Native American counterparts.
“Book Club” meetings followed. This concept interests me: students form groups (of however many or few they want, apparently) and choose a chapter book for their group. As a group, they decide the pace at which they will read, and they keep individual reading journals to take notes for later reflection within the group. This is quite the group project for fourth-graders and the dynamics from group to group varied drastically. I sat with each for long enough to learn what the book was about, what the students liked/disliked about the book, and how the group was communicating (either successfully or unsuccessfully) about the reading pace and journal entries. Communication and overall satisfaction appeared to be the greatest in the smaller groups, and these groups were comprised of mostly females (okay, all females except for three males, one of whom is my son). In these groups, all of the members were enthusiastic about the reading. They couldn’t wait to share their inferences, and their journals were full of notes.
The majority of male students had formed one large and loud group. Ms. Bright had to quiet them down every several minutes, and even put four of them on silent lunch. One boy was sitting by himself, not reading or doing anything. It was the silent luncher who was not lunching silently—who’d stood up to me—my first day volunteering. We’ll call him John.
I sat next to John and asked why he was sitting alone. He said the boys were too loud (I agreed); also, he didn’t like his book. I reminded him that he wouldn’t be able to get around reading the book so he might as well attempt to get into it, and asked if he wanted to read aloud to me. He told me he was nervous to read aloud. I told him I’d been nervous to read aloud that morning (it was the truth), so I related. He was shocked: “You didn’t seem nervous!” I said it’s amazing how we can sometimes be nervous and no one can tell. It was then clear to me that John and I had forged a friendship through our mutual information sharing, and that made me very happy.
In spite of Ms. Bright’s disciplinary actions, the rowdy group continued to monopolize the classroom’s quiet, until Ms. Bright had to send everyone to their seats and shut down Book Club meeting time altogether. She then called “only those who are willing to pay attention and learn” to the front of the classroom to sit on the “learning rug” for discussion. It was time to read from the social studies book and make inferences about the Native American lifestyle. About half the students came forward to learn. I sat on a chair and my Ty sat next to me, leaning on my lap. I whispered to him that he needed to sit the way Ms. Bright had instructed the other students to sit: on the rug and with their legs crossed. Only I called it “Indian style.”
Ty asked, “What’s Indian style?”
It occurred to me for the very first time that Ms. Bright never used the term “Indian style.” She called it “criss-cross applesauce” . . . as had all of Ty’s teachers before her. What a shock to realize that the seemingly innocent term I’d grown up with had been phased out by the PC (that’s politically correct) movement. I wondered what applesauce had to do with sitting. I also wondered if the Native Americans would have been offended at us describing their way of sitting as their way of sitting. I think that if a whole nation of people wanted to refer to sitting with legs extended (my knees often hurt) and hands clasped (for warmth) as “Holly style” I’d probably be flattered. But that’s just me.
John joined the active learners about ten minutes in, and sat on my other side. Ms. Bright seemed surprised at this, and made it a point to involve him in the discussion. When the class inferred that the Native Americans were hunters, John raised his hand to volunteer his “connection”: He’d once seen a bus hit a deer. The deer was bleeding, its eyes were “bloody,” and it was “crying some.” John didn’t skimp on the melodrama. However gruesome (and seemingly unrelated) his story was, it was delightful to listen to. I hoped I wasn’t smiling too big. Ms. Bright, saint that she is, pulled off quite the feat when she used his story to relate back to the Native Americans and how much their lives differed from ours: “These days, we aren’t used to seeing animals die, and we don’t have to think about what goes into preparing them to be cooked.” Well done, Ms. Bright, well done.
On that note, my time was up. I said goodbye and left the classroom with a bounce in my step.
Until next week,
