Tracy Canard '96 will travel to Utah to teach Native American students and Carmen Schmitt '97 will teach Native Americans in New Mexico as part of the teaching fellowships they recently received from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Each year, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund awards minority students up to $18,100 over a period of about four years to pursue teaching.
Schmitt said while she would have gone into education without the award, the fellowship gives her a "better incentive ... by providing money for further education."
In addition to providing funding, "it's making me commit to public education specifically... that's what the fellowship is for," she said.
Minority students interested in teaching may apply for the fellowship during their junior year, and are required to participate in a teaching project, for which they receive stipends, that summer.
The fellows receive up to $12,000 for education-related graduate school work. They are required to teach for three years in the public school system, and during this time the fund will repay up to $1,200 per year for any remaining education loans.
Canard will partake in her summer project in Salt Lake City as an intern teaching at the Title IX Indian Education Summer Youth Project. She will then return to Dartmouth for a fifth year before going to graduate school.
A Muscogee Oneida Native American, Canard's interest in education grew from seeing the work of her aunt and uncle in a small elementary school on the Hopi reservation.
This Bureau of Indian Affairs school teaches math and science through the Hopi philosophy as opposed to traditional Western philosophy, Canard said.
"I think it's important to have Native Americans teaching other Native Americans for role model purposes," Canard said.
Canard said her interest in education grew when she took Education 20 with Education Professor Robert Binswanger.
She said her experience as the assistant director for the Hanover After School Program, a program that teaches students after school, has further affirmed her desire to go into education.
With the recent uncertainty about the future of the education department, Canard said she was not sure she would be able to get her teacher's certification from the College.
With the fellowship, "now I can get certification elsewhere," Canard said.
During her program in Utah, Canard said she wants to teach Native American students the correct presentation of their history and "to empower them to get an education and come back to teach themselves."
She said historically the American education system has forced Native Americans to abandon their language, dress and their culture.
For this reason, Canard explained, Native American adults today often place little value on American education.
Canard said she plans to teach for a few years at the elementary level, and then hopes to pursue education from the administration angle to work on policy and curriculum development.
Canard said she would like to integrate tribal culture and native language into the public school system of her home in Oklahoma.
She said she has also thought of starting a charter school for Native Americans in the arts because she feels American public education needs to focus more on creative aspects of learning.
Schmitt will also focus on Native American education.
She will go to the Albuquerque Academy for her summer project where she will teach urban Native American children, many of whom know little about their culture and ancestry, she said.
She hopes to introduce them to the various aspects of Native American culture, and to strengthen their confidence and identity.
After she graduates, Schmitt plans to work with the "Teach for America" program for a few years before going on to graduate school.
Schmitt said she also credits her interest in teaching largely to the education department here at Dartmouth.
In particular, Education "Professors Binswanger, [Randy-Michael] Testa and [Andrew] Garrod ... exemplified what good teaching is," she said.
Through her experience with these professors, she said she saw the power and commitment teachers can have to make students want to learn and to build relationships with students.
Schmitt said recent efforts to eliminate the education department "sends several messages about Dartmouth's commitment to education."
It "shows they don't want Dartmouth students to become teachers," she said.
Schmitt said she is eager to enter education because "it's an exciting field that's been incredibly underrated, especially in this nation."
A Navajo, Schmitt said she would eventually like to return to the Navajo reservation and teach there.
Schmitt said there are very few native people in higher positions of administration, especially on the reservation.
She said she would eventually like to take over a school on a reservation, and create a "curriculum suitable to that culture" and teach what students "need to learn in the mainstream world."
Schmitt said she feels it is equally important to teach non-Native American children a native person's interpretation of history, and to expose them to a different viewpoint.
Schmitt also said Western education tends to pull Native American children away from their culture.
Students who excel academically often leave home for further education, never to return because "the careers they want to pursue aren't on the reservation," she said.
Schmitt said she wants to give these students a strong understanding of their culture before they leave, so they will be able to contribute to it in the future.
"Native kids need a sense of culture to succeed in the world ... they need to understand what makes them strong as a person," she said.
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund began in 1991 with the selection of 25 liberal arts schools, including Dartmouth, which have shown a commitment to minority students and to the improvement of teaching in public schools.
It has chosen 25 students from these schools each year since 1992. Marian Aneses, a representative from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, said the fellowship is designed to encourage the students to stay in public education after the three required years, and eventually ascend to positions of leadership in the field.
The fund is directed toward minority students because there is a considerable shortage of minority teachers in public schools, Aneses said. She said particularly for Native American students in the Midwest, there is a lack of minority teachers who serve as role models for students.
"Many of the fellows have found they're the first of the minority teachers to be hired in that school," said Aneses.
