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Stephanie Graham

Schools from Berkshire Country gathered for a final collaboration with the Hexagon Project to illustrate their understanding of the local indigenous history and culture.

Spanning four states in the Northeast, our community has countless opportunities to celebrate our differences, but occupying Mohican land is something that we all have in common. Teachers in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, took this to heart and recently joined forces in the teaching of local indigenous history and culture.

This project was centered around the implementation of place-based strategies in the teaching of Native American history. We are often tasked with teaching students about Native America, but it is impossible for students to categorize hundreds of tribes indiscriminately. This is how we end up with culturally inappropriate depictions of tribal tattoos, Plains regalia, and tipis in lands that had longhouses.

Learning from and working with members of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community, also called the Mohican Nation Stockbridge-Munsee Band, we were able to present lessons of a living culture and encourage students to understand their own relationship to the land and people.

Place-based knowledge engages students in learning about their immediate surroundings. Knowing the traditions and practices of the people who were here before us can instill a sense of belonging, unity, and protection.

The story of the Mohicans is similar to that of many First Nations peoples, but emphasizing local knowledge and connection can serve as parallel lessons for many tribal histories. Our lakes, rivers, and other landmarks bear the names of indigenous objects, words, and sachems, which raises questions of what and who they were, where they went, and why.

Knowing the traditions and practices of the people who were here before us can instill a sense of belonging, unity, and protection.

The framework for this project was structured around the Standard Model of Indigenous Learning (SMIL), created by Sandra Barton, Ph.D., a citizen of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. Initially used to support indigenous adults in distance learning, the model has been adapted for teaching indigenous history and culture in K–12 settings.

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