Whenever November would roll around, James Gensaw, a Yurok language high school teacher in far northern California, would get a request from a school administrator. They would always ask him to bring students from the Native American Club, which he advises, to demonstrate Yurok dancing on the high school quad at lunch time.

“On the one hand, it was nice that the school wanted to have us share our culture,” Gensaw told me during an interview. “On the other, it wasn’t always respectful. Some kids would make fun of the Native American dancers, mimicking war cries and calling out ‘chief.’ ”

“The media would be invited to come cover the dancing as part of their Thanksgiving coverage, and it felt like we were a spectacle,” he continued. “Other cultural groups and issues would sometimes be presented in school assemblies, in the gym, where teachers monitored student behavior. I thought, why didn’t we get to have that? We needed more respect for sharing our culture.” James Gensaw’s work in California’s public high schools as a Yurok language teacher and mentor to Native American students is part of a reckoning with equity and justice in schools.

Yurok language in schools

Tribal officials say Gensaw is one of 16 advanced-level Yurok language-keepers alive today. An enrolled Yurok tribal member, Gensaw is also part of the tribe’s , which is at the forefront of efforts to keep the Yurok language alive.

Today, the Yurok language is offered as an elective at four high schools in far northern California. The classes meet language instruction requirements for admission to University of California and California State University systems.

Yurok language classes are also offered in local Head Start preschool programs as well as in some K-8 schools when there is teacher availability, and at the College of the Redwoods, the regional community college. To date, eight high school seniors have been awarded California’s , a prestigious accomplishment that signifies commitment to and competency in the language.

When I started researching the effects of Yurok language access on young people in 2016, there were approximately 12 advanced-level speakers, according to the Yurok Language Program. The 16 advanced-level speakers in 2022 represent a growing speaker base and they are something to celebrate. Despite colonization and attempts to by interrupting the transfer of language from parents to their children, Yurok speakers are still here.

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, boarding schools in the United States operated as spaces for what I refer to as “culturecide” — the killing of culture — in my latest book, “.” Students in both the United States and Mexico were often made to attend schools where they were beaten for speaking Indigenous languages. Now, new generations are being encouraged to sign up to study the same language many of their grandparents and great-grandparents were forced to forget.

Language as resistance

The Yurok Tribe made the decision years ago to and as part of that, to teach Yurok to anyone who wanted to learn. They have many that are open for all. Victoria Carlson is the Yurok Language Program Manager and a language-keeper herself. She is teaching Yurok to her children as a first language, and she drives long distances to teach the language at schools throughout Humboldt and Del Norte counties.

“When we speak Yurok, we are saying that we are still here,” Carson said in an interview with me, echoing a sentiment that many Yurok students relayed to me as well. “Speaking our language is a form of resisting all things that have been done to our people.”

The students in Mr. Gensaw’s classes are majority, but not exclusively, Native American. Through my research I learned that there are white students who sign up out of interest or because nothing else fit in their schedule. There are Asian American students who wish that Hmong or Mandarin was a language option, but they take Yurok since it is the most unique language choice available. And there are Latinx students who already are bilingual in English and Spanish and who want to challenge themselves linguistically.

In my book and , I document how access to Indigenous languages in school benefits different groups of students in a range of ways. Heritage-speakers — those who have family members who speak the language — get to shine in the classroom as people with authority over the content, something that in other classes. White students have their eyes opened to when they study the Gold Rush, Spanish missionaries in California, or other standard topics of K-12 education that are taught from a colonizing perspective. And students from non-heritage minority backgrounds an increased interest in their own identities. They often go to elders to learn some of their own family languages after being inspired that such knowledge is worth being proud of.

Bringing languages like Yurok into schools that are still, as historian Donald Yacovone points out, , does not in and of itself undo the effects of colonization. Getting rid of curricula that teach the – the notion that colonizers “discovered” the Americas and had a legal right to it – is a long-term process. But placing Native American languages into public schools both affirms the validity of Indigenous cultural knowledge and also at the same time. It is a place to start.

One step at a time

In my experience, as a researcher on education policy and democracy, I have found that is something that better prepares young people to learn how to interact in healthy ways with people who are different from themselves.

Gensaw, the Yurok language teacher, is at the forefront of this. One year when he was again asked if he could bring the students to dance around Thanksgiving time, he said yes, but not on the quad. He requested a school assembly space where student behavior could be monitored. The school said yes, and the students danced without being demeaned by their peers. These steps are just the beginning of what it takes to undo the effects of colonization.

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the . Emerson College provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.

Food drives were back in a big way, with schools reporting record donations. With the pandemic pushing up food prices, classes took up lessons in budget friendly Thanksgiving feasts and spending money locally. The annual Thanksgiving high school football game returned. Schools celebrated staff with food giveaways to recognize work above and beyond over the last 20 months. 

It wasn’t all good news, but even difficult circumstances were couched as celebrations: Staff shortages and burnout meant extended Thanksgiving break, giving students and staff the entire week off.

From record-breaking food drives to practical lessons and more, here’s how schools are “giving thanks” in 2021:

A middle school in Pittsburgh has held Thanksgiving food drives for 20 years, but this year they collected more food than ever — a record 12,000 pounds for families in need. “Last year was a little bit of a setback with COVID and this year we wanted to come back real strong,” science teacher Kevin Gennaula CBS Pittsburgh.

First graders from Valley View Elementary School in McHenry, Illinois, proudly posed with items they brought in for their school’s food drive. “We have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving season!!” teacher Dana Clingingsmith tweeted.

In St. Louis, Missouri, students welcomed back a beloved tradition that was cancelled last year because of the pandemic. Excitement for Webster Groves and Kirkwood high schools’ annual Thanksgiving Day football game was at an “all time high.”

In Washington state, East Rowan High School students took a close look at grocery prices pushed up because of the pandemic and practiced budgeting meals in Ashley Edmonds’ class. 

Students also got a “real life” lesson in Mrs. Jones’ math class at Pleasant Valley Primary School in Vancouver, Washington, calculating online costs for budget-friendly Thanksgiving provisions.

Rather than buying store made pumpkin pies, high school students in Fruitport, Michigan, learned “valuable lifelong skills” and prepared homemade meals: 

The pandemic inspired many to spend their money locally and shop at small businesses. In Pawtucket, Rhode Island, high school students partnered with a local food hub for an “eat local Thanksgiving challenge” preparing 7,500 made-from-scratch meals.

Masks and gloves, spotted at this California school’s outdoor turkey day celebration, were still an important part of in-person festivities.

In the spirit of being thankful for all school staff do to keep campuses a safe space for students, Clear Spring high school students in League City, Texas, put together 16 Thanksgiving Baskets for their custodians. “We are so thankful for all they do for our school and all the help they give us!,” they tweeted.

In Florida, school bus drivers, cafeteria and custodial staff also received turkeys for their dedication to Jupiter high school.

A school in El Paso, Texas, recognized this school year has been nothing short of a challenge and gifted faculty a full Thanksgiving meal, complete with turkeys. Principal Jon Flores thanked them for their “relentless work this school year,” and for “their commitment to our kids.”

Before leaving for Thanksgiving break, school officials at Harlan High School in San Antonio, Texas, took a moment to thank a student named Joel for volunteering his time during lunch to help pick up trash in the cafeteria. 

But in between posts of in-person celebrations were a steady stream of school closure announcements. Districts facing staff shortages and increasing COVID cases extended Thanksgiving break, focussing on the additional time off as an expression of staff appreciation. 

“While this is something that has not been done before, we felt that there’s never been a more appropriate time to show our appreciation and recognition of efforts made each and every day across our district.” said Brevard Public School board chair Misty Belford in a recorded announcement.

“We’re not extinct,” the young student ventured, nervous about contradicting the lesson, but feeling she had to speak up. “I’m a Narragansett.”

No response came from her teacher or classmates, recalls the Chariho Regional School District alum, who graduated in 1986.

“It just didn’t matter,” she told ����Ӱ��. “You were insignificant.”

Now, decades later, Baker has two children in the same school system who have navigated similar experiences of hurt and invisibility. Sometimes, the racism has been overt, like when a classmate muttered the N-word at her daughter in middle school. But more often, it comes in the form of quiet erasure and inaccurate tropes.

“In history class, it’s mostly the history of the colonizers,” said her daughter Nittaunis Baker, 19, who graduated from Chariho High School in spring 2021 and now attends the University of Rhode Island. 

“We didn’t really talk about Native people that much,” she told ����Ӱ��.

Even now, as the topic of how to teach U.S. history in schools is receiving an unprecedented level of public attention, Indigenous parents say the debates still largely exclude lessons on Native people. 

“It’s [been] very Black/white centric,” said Samantha Cullen-Fry, a member of the Narragansett Indian Tribe who has two young children in the West Warwick School District. She agrees that highlighting the Black experience is important, especially in wake of the police murder of George Floyd. But efforts to diversify K-12 curricula are incomplete, she says, if they fail to accurately teach about Native people. 

When English colonists first came to New England in the 17th century, the Narragansett people had been living in the region for some 30,000 years — making the vast majority of North American history, chronologically speaking, Indigenous history. In the following centuries, Native people have continued to live in the region.

“There is no United States history, there is no Rhode Island history, without Indigenous history,” the West Warwick mother told ����Ӱ��.

Across the country, fights over critical race theory have elevated conversations over social studies curricula to the central stage in many . CRT is not an ideology, but rather a scholarly framework that views racism and inequality as ingrained in law and society. Still, in Oklahoma, a bill to restrict its teaching led to the removal of classic books such as To Kill a Mockingbird and Raisin in the Sun from reading lists, according to a recent ACLU lawsuit. In Texas, the crackdown prompted a school administrator to . 

The Ocean State has emerged as a hotbed for the controversy. Over the summer, a South Kingstown mother made national headlines for filing more than investigating if the district taught terms like “systemic racism,” “white privilege” or the “1619 Project.” Education writer Erika Sanzi, a former Rhode Island teacher and school board member, has become and other curricular changes her group, Parents Defending Education, see as divisive.

And although Rhode Island was not one of the to enact laws restricting teaching on race and gender, a bill to do so was introduced by state legislators in spring 2021, though it failed to pass.

Its author, Rep. Patricia Morgan, did not respond to questions from ����Ӱ�� asking whether topics such as the , which took place just miles outside the Chariho school system’s present day boundaries, would be among the “” that the bill sought to ban. In the event, 1,000 English colonial soldiers, joined by about 150 Pequot and Mohegan soldiers, attacked and burned a Narragansett stronghold, killing hundreds, including women and children. In late October, the Rhode Island Historical Society transferred the 5-acre South Kingstown site back to the Narragansett Indian Tribe, nearly three and half centuries after the deadly event.

In Chariho schools, where more than 9 in 10 students are white, alumni of the district who are Indigenous and graduated in recent decades have recounted experiences of being by their counselors. In nearby Narragansett Regional School District, Cullen-Fry had to spend a post-grad year doing unnecessary pre-college work, she said, because her counselor did not send in her paperwork, assuming she couldn’t afford higher education. The experience, she learned later at a high school reunion, was shared by numerous peers of color.

Chariho Assistant Superintendent Michael Comella said he was not aware of Indigenous students having had issues with the district’s college counselors in the past, but mentioned that the school system is working with local Narragansett leaders to improve school policy and providing professional development sessions on equity and inclusion for teachers. He said teachers typically cover the Great Swamp Massacre in fifth grade during lessons on King Philip’s War. 

“The district remains committed to ensur[ing] that we account for all important information and history as it relates to our tribal community,” he wrote in an email to ����Ӱ��.

Though there is much more work to do, the elder Baker appreciates that the Chariho district has made some efforts to better serve its Native students. The high school has a on staff and, recently, has begun engaging in conversations with Indigenous parents about further improvements.

“This isn’t about bashing the Chariho school district,” she said. “This is about recognizing that there are issues that have affected past and present generations of Indigenous students who have attended this school system and they need to be addressed on behalf of present and future generations.”

Chariho has formed an that has been meeting since the fall of 2020 in pursuit of more equitable school policies, practices and curricula. Some residents, such as the Bakers, say that the changes are sorely needed, but others staunchly oppose them.

“I do not support, at this point, the anti-racism task force,” audience member Jim Sullivan said during public comment at a Nov. 9 . “I am concerned about their bringing racism into the Chariho system.”

“We are not domestic terrorists,” he added, referencing escalating tensions nationwide at board meetings that recently prompted the National School Boards Association to send a letter to the White House requesting increased support and security.

The pushback does not phase endawnis Spears, who recently joined the Chariho School Committee after a member’s resignation. Spears, who does not capitalize her first name, is a member of the Navajo Nation, with ties also to the Chocktaw, Chickasaw and Ojibwe people. Diverse perspectives, she believes, are necessary to the development of all children.

“I want to ensure that teachers have everything they need to prepare their students — all of their students — to be able to navigate citizenship in the United States,” she told ����Ӱ��. “That includes Indigenous histories.”

“The lack of nuance around Indigenous histories also is a form of erasure,” she added. “It continues the process of erasing Native people from this landscape.”

Statewide, Lorén Spears, executive director of the Tomaquag Museum for Indigenous history, culture and arts in Exeter, Rhode Island and related to endawnis Spears by marriage, believes officials must work to better represent the state’s Native students.

“I think it’s been very teacher-by-teacher, the improvement, rather than the system of education improving,” she said on a of the Boston Globe’s Rhode Island Report podcast. “I would like to see, you know, the Department of Education really take an active role in ensuring that the history is inclusive and includes Native people.”

State social studies standards do not stipulate that schools teach specific aspects of Native history or culture, said the Rhode Island Department of Education, instead leaving those decisions up to districts.

“If materials [that districts] use presently from a publisher do not adequately address Indigenous representation, [the state education department] would strongly encourage school leaders to develop materials they can use to meet the standards,” Communications Director Victor Morente wrote in an email to ����Ӱ��.

Accurately representing Native Rhode Islanders means addressing certain truths that may be difficult, said the younger Baker. But covering those facts in schools, rather than mythologized narratives of harmony between colonists and Native people, doesn’t mean placing blame on any students, she said.

“The establishment of this country was pretty much the murder of a lot of Indigenous people, including my ancestors,” she said. “I don’t think that [white] kids should feel ashamed because it’s not really them. It’s their ancestors.”

It’s only shameful when students shy away from those histories, she believes. “If they refuse to acknowledge that that happened, then you kind of become complicit in not recognizing the struggles that [Indigenous] people went through.”

In school, the only time she remembers a lesson on Indigenous people was a brief mention in fifth grade around Thanksgiving. She doesn’t recall any lessons on the Great Swamp Massacre. Additionally, in high school, outside of class, she had a teacher who held a reading group focused on Native sciences, which discussed a book written by a member of the Potawatomi Nation. She enjoyed the experience, and wishes there could be official courses devoted to such topics. 

“Even having a class just on the history of Indigenous peoples, like how they have classes on ancient Greek and Roman things, that would be really cool,” said the college freshman, who is studying marine biology. She receives free tuition at URI thanks to her status as a member of the Narragansett Indian Tribe.

Teachers can cater Indigenous history and culture to learners of any age, said Cullen-Fry, who works as an educator at the Tomaquag Museum. For example, many classes visit the museum in November, Native American Heritage Month. She corrects the youngsters’ misconceptions about Thanksgiving, teaching them that it’s traditional in many Indigenous cultures to celebrate 13 Thanksgivings, one for each of the year’s moon cycles.

States such as Oregon have moved in recent years to require that schools teach , and to bring tribal educators .

But until such shifts, large and small, are incorporated into Rhode Island schools, the Baker family will celebrate progress on a more personal level.

When Nittaunis walked across the graduation stage in May 2021, she was adorned with tribal jewelry and ornamentation, passed down from her ancestors. Her mother, after so many of her own personal experiences of feeling that her Indigenous identity was erased by the world around her, wanted people to know: Another Indigenous child just graduated from Chariho High School.

The proud message was simple.

“Society doesn’t think that we’re here,” the elder Baker said. “We are here.”

Seattle Public Schools announced that its 52,000 students would have due to large shares of staff making Veterans Day into a four-day weekend. And in Montgomery County, Maryland, the Board of Education voted this week to make a scheduled half-day before Thanksgiving a vacation day for the district’s 165,000 students because there are to fill in for the large number of educators taking time off before the break.

In an even more extreme case, in West Michigan made a last-minute call to shutter their doors from Nov. 9 to Nov. 15 due to high shares of staff out for COVID-19, other illnesses or for personal reasons, the district announced Monday.

“We are unable to sufficiently staff our buildings to meet the needs of our students. Sub shortages are not unique to NPS, and this is a challenge we, as well as many other districts are facing,” the district wrote in a Nov. 9 unsigned to families.

In Seattle, requested substitute teachers for the day after Veterans Day, the district said.

“We are aware of a larger than normal number of [Seattle Public School] staff taking leave on Friday, and do not believe we have adequate personnel to open schools,” the district explained in an email sent to parents on Tuesday, just three days before the shutdown. 

In Montgomery County, the sudden change to the Thanksgiving holiday prompted outrage from some parents.

“To give families 13 days of notice … have you no consideration for parents in health care, parents who are essential workers, parents who basically count on the school schedule that you publish?” parent Dr. Jennifer Reesman told . “You basically told us all that you don’t care about us.”

The closures further compound the disruptions that schools have weathered over the past 20 months of the pandemic — exacerbating academic, social and emotional challenges for many students.

“Now is the time to double down and hopefully get students even more access to even more great instruction, not less,” Tequilla Brownie, executive vice president of The New Teacher Project, told ����Ӱ��.

With dwindling substitute teacher reserves in many school systems nationwide, Daniel Domenech, executive director of the School Superintendents Association, said there’s little district leaders can do when educators request leave around the holidays.

“These are days that teachers can take,” he told ����Ӱ��, explaining that the right to use paid time off, known as PTO, is stipulated in many educator contracts. “Ordinarily, school districts would rely on substitutes to cover for teachers. The problem is, you can’t find substitutes.”

Closures are “not what superintendents want,” the AASA leader continued. “They want to get the kids back to school … They’re doing everything that they can with the resources that they have to mitigate the situation.” 

The pandemic, however, has shown that school systems can get creative, Brownie pointed out. Some districts tapped central office staff to help out with remote learning. She wonders whether it could have been possible to replicate those solutions to avoid school closures this time around.

“The most dismal option is to shutter the doors,” said the education equity expert.

In Montgomery County, the scheduling change comes on the heels of weeks of educator frustration and burnout. Two weeks ago, teachers held a to protest staffing shortages that, they said, were exhausting and stressing out employees. Signs taped in vehicle windows lamented “skeleton crews” and educators “drowning” in their workload, The Washington Post reported.

During a press conference Tuesday, union President Jennifer Martin warned of a “great resignation” in Maryland’s largest district if Montgomery County does not improve conditions for its teachers. The school system currently has , including 161 teaching positions, according to local reporting.

“We hope you are able to take some time to rest and recharge during the extended Thanksgiving Break,” said a Nov. 9 to families and teachers signed Montgomery County Public Schools.

Many school systems across the country have tried to preempt such situations by scheduling extra time for staff and students to recharge. Over a dozen districts — including and — recently announced days off or shortened schedules to fight burnout and provide mental health breaks for educators, according to a recent from Burbio, a data service that has tracked school calendars through the pandemic. 

District announcements generally did not mention substitute teacher shortages, though it’s possible the desire to avoid needing more coverage for teachers than they could supply also played into the calculus for some school administrators.

Policy varies on whether the days off will have to be made up later in the school year. Most states require that schools be in session 180 days a year. A local that Montgomery County’s 2021-22 school calendar had 182 days built in so the additional day off would not affect it. The Newaygo Public Schools used up five of its snow days in the current closure, .

The disruptions, planned and unplanned, are yet another byproduct of the pandemic, said Domenech. He’s hopeful that newly authorized vaccines for younger children will help make the situation more normal by the spring. 

But in the meantime, he acknowledged that the scheduling changes may frustrate many families.

“Working parents very much are dependent on [having their children in school],” he said.