Focus In: Place-Based Learning and Integration

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.

The Stockbridge-Munsee Community
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.

The SMIL Approach
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.

Using this approach, teachers created learning opportunities through the five threads of SMIL: place, storytelling, intergenerational interaction, experience, and interconnectedness.

At my school, we presented this project as arts integration lessons in art, ELA, and social studies. We explored the SMIL threads through exercises such as comic strips, illustrating interview narratives, investigating place names, and more.

Hexagon Project Collaboration
Integrating local indigenous history and culture into our curriculum, we hoped to strengthen our school and community culture. The Hexagon Project, whose foundational mission is interdependence, was the perfect platform to elevate this knowledge, and schools from all over Berkshire County gathered for a final collaboration.

Students used the hexagon format to illustrate their understanding of the local history and culture, and their connection to the land, to each other, and to themselves. Private and public K–12 classrooms engaged in the work with varying degrees of relation to the Hexagon Project’s 2023 theme of Environmental Justice.

Every school adopted the SMIL framework and tailored it to fit their particular circumstances. They also accessed resources at hexagonproject.org. Contact Beth Burkhauser at beth@hexagonproject.org to find out how you can participate.

Exhibition
Our work was exhibited in an outdoor mural during the Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebration in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. My gratitude goes out to Sandee Barton, Shawn Stevens, and the Stockbridge-Munsee Community’s Cultural Affairs and Education departments for their support and guidance. Many thanks to the Fund for Teachers, who awarded me with an Innovation Circles grant that made this exhibit possible.