Incorporating Indigenous Influence When Studying the Inception of American Democracy
Artifact Justification
This lesson does several things to convey my strength in creating learning experiences that fully engage my students with the content in a transformative way. First, it centers around a central theme of the discipline: perspective. Students are developing an understanding for how perspectives are shaped and how they influence our view of things. Secondly, it offers a unique story that most students had not encountered, despite their familiarity with the tales of the founding fathers. Bringing in an Indigenous perspective made the information more meaningful to my Swinomish students and made a future assignment more accessible to all of my students.
A wonderful thing about this lesson is that it could work within several contexts for future use. While I used it within a unit on the Enlightenment, it could tie into studies of the American Revolution, the Constitution, Indigenous culture and civilizations and even symbolism or philosophy. The video selected conveys ample information in a digestible amount of time, providing pronunciations and explanations surrounding the Great Law of Peace.
About the Lesson
During our unit on the Enlightenment, I included a lesson about the Great Law of Peace - an Indigenous tradition of inter-tribal relations that influenced America's founding fathers. This was important for me to do because as a history teacher, I feel it is paramount to provide as diverse an array of perspectives as possible.
My school has a large population of Native students and most of the time, history curriculum that references Indigenous peoples tends to center around oppression and the atrocities waged against tribal communities. In this instance, where it was a celebration of Indigenous ideas, customs and culture, my students were engaged, interested and all ears.
This lesson set the stage for a culminating experience towards the end of the unit where students looked at the United States seal and analyzed its symbols; they were looking for influences from Enlightenment-era ideas. The video from this lesson points out the symbols tied to the Haudenosaunee so students begin that activity with confidence.
This was a late start day with shortened class periods. Below are the slides from the lesson, with captions explaining teacher and student activities.
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