Early Childhood Curriculum Related to American Indians: Appropriate Or Not?

The 2005 International Focus issue of Childhood Education focused on the education of aboriginal and indigenous children. Guest Editor Jyotsna Pattnaik located too many excellent articles on that important topic to include in one issue. Therefore, we revisit the issue here. Curriculum activities related to American Indians, including the use of children's books, are common in many U.S. schools; while some are appropriate, plenty of them are not. Teachers implementing inappropriate curriculum may be inexperienced, lack professional training, or have been seriously misinformed (Jones & Moomaw, 2002). Sometimes, teachers want to make the necessary changes, but may not do so "simply because they have not had time to reflect, research, and restructure their teaching style" (Reyhner, 1992, p. 93), or because they lack a strong cultural identity and cultural sensitivity (Banks, 2001; Jones & Moomaw, 2002). Thus, inappropriate practices are perpetuated by a lack of culturally relevant curriculum materials (Jones & Moomaw, 2002; Reyhner, 1992) and leadership that fails to support culturally respectful learning environments (Banks, 2001). Yet, educators have a responsibility to incorporate material that is authentic as well as developmentally and culturally appropriate for the children they are teaching.