Walking Through Native America At Middle Gate

By Jeff White

The haunting din of flutes, whistles and drums that resonated through Middle Gate School’s hallways last Thursday served as an introduction for the numerous parents, teachers and students who gathered to walk through five different Native American regions.

The presentations served as the culmination of the fifth grade’s Native American unit, which has been ongoing over the past month. For their final project, students were divided into groups and assigned to make a complete representation of a native tribe, focusing on their culture, customs, environment, history, housing and how the tribe lives today.

Each of the five fifth grade classrooms represented a different region, with students in each of the classrooms focusing on the tribes from that region. In all, tribes from the Eastern Woodlands, Far North, Great Plains, Southwest and Pacific Northwest were represented

“I got a lot out of it by learning about the cultures,” explained fifth grader Sam Pribesh, who along with her group of four constructed a model of a typical Pacific Northwest tribe. “A lot of people think Columbus discovered America, but the Indians did. I don’t think that they get enough credit for discovering our nation.”

Each group’s presentation hinged on an organizer, a three-dimensional visual aid, and a map. The organizer was comprised of the major facts about a group’s particular Native American tribe, and served as an easy way for onlookers and browsers to obtain the main ideas of the presentation. The map grafted a particular Native American region – the Eastern Woodlands, for instance – onto the larger picture of North America, giving perspective to where various tribes lived in relation to one another.

The visual aid required the greatest amount of work for the fifth graders, who had to artistically depict Native American life past and present. On large, often colored poster boards, authentic looking long houses covered in genuine birch bark or pueblos made from cardboard gave way to rolling hills or arctic ice flows, depending on the particular classroom’s region.

Frankie Veach’s group, which focused on the tribes of the Eastern Woodlands, such as the Cherokee and Iroquois, assembled different hunting weapons that would have been used by the tribes, each shaped from sticks found outside. In addition to armaments, the group displayed replicas of several ceremonial artifacts, from a rain stick to tools used during festivals and dances.

Sam Pribesh’s group constructed a totem pole as a means of showing a common cultural icon prevalent in the tribes of the Pacific Northwest.

The research and work behind these presentations stretched well outside each student’s classroom, according to fifth grade teacher Chris Bryant. Important support was given by Middle Gate’s media specialist Donna McGough, who made pertinent books and research resources available to the students. Many of the visual aids were created in art classes, so students could make the most out of various paints and materials.

The presentations were professional, and they were meant to sound that way, explained another fifth grade teacher. Student groups were practicing for the formal presentation they are slated to give next week to their teachers, who will give them their final grade for the project.

The presentations proved a fun and educational diversion for other Middle Gate students, many of whom were led to file in and out of the five classrooms by their teachers. These students had only to compete for viewing space with an assembly of parents who had all received official invitations to the event.

“It’s important to us because we understand more about cultures and different things about Indians that we might need to know in the future,” said Caitlin Norcross of the project’s value.

“It gave me a lot of information on how they lived back then,” added Alf McKay.

“Some of the most powerful learning is hands-on,” concluded teacher Chris Bryant as he watched his students go over their various Native American landscapes.

For the elementary school’s fifth grade, this year’s Native American unit illuminated the glory of past cultures and provoked a lucid awareness of the place indigenous people occupy in a contemporary American patchwork.

“We learned that Native Americans have very different cultures now than they used to,” explained fifth grader Katie Rose McNulty.