ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a Native American unit taught in a 5th grade classroom. While the survivance story focuses on the curriculum and teaching of two teachers in particular, the structure of the curriculum is broader in scope. At this particular school, a public pedagogical component of this unit in which 5th grade students present their findings to the rest of the kindergarten through fourth grade student body, elevates the scope of curriculum. Further, while this survivance story describes curriculum at one particular school, the Native American unit discussed reflects a more pervasive pattern of positioning Indigenous people as objects of study. This survivance story questions not only the ways these units objectify and commodify Indigenous peoples and cultures, but also the emboldened and colonial ways of knowing these units cultivate in the rest of the student body. Moreover, this survivance story problematizes how cultivating Eurocentric subjectivities imbued with the power to know and define Native people as Other is legitimated through the discourse of multiculturalism. Ultimately, this chapter calls on educators to ground curriculum in a recognition and respect for Native nations by shifting the curricular focus from culture to citizenship and making familiar ways of knowing Indigenous peoples appear strange.
