Liaison+for+Indigenous+Arts+Education

For the past 20 years, I have been primarily an instructor in the Arts High School dance program as their dance musician and music director. Since the day the school opened in the fall of 1989, it has been my responsibility to provide live music for all the dance classes including modern, ballet, classic jazz, and improvisation. In addition, I have helped build the dance curriculum and taught Dance Composition, Improvisation, Music for Dance, and iMovie and Sound for Dancers. I have also taught and developed curricula for elective courses in **Arts and Ideas - Sensory Aesthetics for High School Students**, **American Indian Aesthetics**, **Arts Improvisation** - Exploration of Improvisation in Six Art Areas, **New Music Ensemble,** **Drumming and Sound Exploration**, and a practitioner and trainer of **Visual Thinking Strategies**©.

It has also been my responsibility to provide music direction, audio/visual support, and technical theater support for dance performances, conferences, video interactivity instruction, computer audio/video programing, and web page design and production. In the past, I have also been the performance coordinator for a school-wide live performance series called **Common Experience**.

Presently, I am continuing to teach two elective courses for the Arts High School (Arts and Ideas - A High School Level Aesthetics course (Fall-Winter 2009/10), and American Indian Aesthetics (Winter-Spring 2010), and have been appointed **Liaison for Indigenous Arts Education for the Perpich Center for Arts Education**, Teacher On Special Assignment. This new and emerging assignment is designed to bring the arts and educational practices of our Minnesota Native American community to the Perpich Center and to bring educational options and resources of the Perpich Center to the Native community.

As an arts teacher who has developed and implemented curricula for high school level courses in Sensory Aesthetics (http://artsideas2008.wikispcaes.com and http://artsideas2009.wikispaces.com ) and American Indian Aesthetics (http://aia2009.wikispaces.com) among others, I have been formulating and conducting action research with my students using the concept of **Indigenous Pedagogical Techniques.**

The concept of **Indigenous Pedagogical Techniques (IPT)** has emerged in my teaching because of protracted, profound and persistent exposure to the American Indian culture of the Minnesota Ojibwe, Lakota, and Dakota people.

For the past 26 years I have: and am now working as the **Liaison for Indigenous Arts Education for the Perpich Center for Arts Education.**
 * maintained a friendship and mentorshop with the hereditary Chief of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, George Earth, Sr. (http://georgeearth.wikispace.com), who is my primary teacher (wen'enh) and adopted brother;[[image:Tom_&_George.sm align="right"]]
 * participated in, observed and documented countless Native powwows and ceremonies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_erQfzPCvOo );
 * continued to learn from elders and musicians with the Wakayzo Drum (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdNBLv2GEeg);
 * participated in workshops conducted by the White Bison, Inc. (http://www.whitebison.org) on Native culture and health;
 * served as an adviser and participant in the Recovery Maintenance Program at the Division of Indian Work (http://diw.gmcc.org/);
 * instituted the American Indian Support Group, a student club for Native students at the Perpich Center;
 * continued a strong relationship with noted author and researcher, Kent Nerburn ("The Wolf at Twilight", “Neither Wolf Nor Dog”, “Chief Joseph and the Flight of the Nez Perce: The Untold Story of an American Tragedy”;
 * performed with and continue a friendship with Smiley Shephard, a Minnesota Dakota from the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe;
 * developed a collaborative relationship with the Leech Lake Youth Development Center in Cass Lake, MN, and its director Gary Charwood;

This exposure to the Native culture of MN has given me a renewed hope that educating our children with the ancient and proven teaching and learning methods of the indigenous people will help us survive. If we can learn from and implement basic pedagogical techniques practiced by our indigenous elders for millennia, we may have a chance to continue to live on Mother Earth with respect, dignity, and co-existence.

"Listen to all the teachers in the woods. Watch the trees, the animals, and all living things - you'll learn more from them than from books." --Joe Coyhis, STOCKBRIDGE-MUNSEE

Nature is a living example of how communities live in harmony. If you go into the forest or mountain and sit still and watch, ask yourself, what lessons are being taught? Then watch how the animals conduct themselves. The trees could represent diversity. The flowers could represent people. Notice how everything in nature assists one another. See how balance works. See how conflict is handled. Can you see acts of forgiveness? Can you spot respect? Nature is full of wisdom if we will only consider her to be our teacher. - - White Bison, Inc. “ If we teach our children the simple principles, laws, and values of our indigenous brothers and sisters, we may have a chance at knowing our true place in the world. If we practice some of the indigenous techniques of teaching and learning, we may have a chance at reaching our most marginalized and disenfranchised children. If we suspend our intractable allegiance to the euro-centric pedagogical methodologies and ask, “What if. . . ?”, we may have a chance at attaining and transmitting true, relevant, and viable knowledge.

= Mii-gwech =