New program seeks to boost Native student success in languages

Students in grades 9-12 will be able to study the semester-long Montana Digital Academy language skills online, at their own pace, for free, in the presence of a certified language educator. Those seeking credit-recovery opportunities may also take the class at their own pace.

You can’t beat that winning combination, especially for a rural community situated in Northeast Montana, where the winds howl in the winter and the high temperatures and dust storms in the summer stir up other kinds of heated language.

After all, it is 512 miles one way from Fort Peck west to Missoula, where the Montana Digital Academy headquarters is housed at the University of Montana.

“Some of our objectives, first and foremost are to target the credit recovery students in high school that need a language course, but also to offer it to the public and anyone that’s interested in learning the language,” said Ramey Growing Thunder, Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux and 12-year Fort Peck Tribes Language and Culture Department director.

After finishing graduate school at the University of New Mexico in 2011, Growing Thunder moved back home and observed a need for language education.

“So I went before my tribal council and I asked them if I could create such a program. I was able to create it and from there they appointed me the director,” she added.

While the Montana Digital Academy zones in on the high school students, the tribe expands its learner base, as some learning courses are open to parents and others, as well.

The tribes’ Language and Culture Department mission, which touts the Tribal Immersion School, includes the following partial statement:

“This vision foretells our youth being embraced daily with our cultural ways of knowing, speaking our language, hearing our elder stories, hearing our creation stories, understanding and perpetuating our history, singing our traditional songs, sharing our ways of dance, living and perpetuating our seven rites of Pte San Win (White Buffalo Calf Woman) and Traditional rites.”

She leads two Montana-certified instructors on-site to oversee the progress of each student. The tribe and Montana Office of Public Instruction put them through rigorous evaluation to ensure their level of expertise.

Each educator must demonstrate language proficiency in either Dakota or Nakoda.

“They test before a committee of elders and those elders deem whether they’re proficient enough to teach our K through 12 students,” said Growing Thunder. “And once they pass, then the chairman signs off on it and then it goes to OPI (Montana Office of Public Instruction), and they get a certificate.”

Currently, there are also stand-alone instructional modules available through the tribe that Growing Thunder facilitates.

Anna East, Tribal Relations and Education fellow for the Montana Digital Academy, the state’s virtual school, taught for 22 years on the Flathead Reservation. For 15 years she has taught Native American Studies online. She is non-native but works closely with tribal educators.

Although in the midst of creating learning modules for the class, East said she defers to Growing Thunder and her two state-certified language teachers for their choices and expertise.

Last summer, East and a tech expert spent time on the reservation audio recording proficient Nakoda and Dakota speakers for the specific language pre-loaded course modules they are developing.

“So what that means for these courses is that we have to have recordings,” said East. “We have to have written work, written versions, if possible. We have to have lessons built around these audio and visual materials.

“And those kinds of things exist to different degrees within each tribe. So that’s the first hurdle – that we have to actually create these courses from the ground up.”

Such an educational platform differs greatly from Covid pandemic teaching, when students met on Zoom platforms to learn, ideally but not always realistically, in real time.

But work-when-you-want online digital learning may appeal more to teens who have regular classes and extracurricular activities.

East records instructional videos for students, who can record themselves repeating vocabulary on the course platform.

“Imagine an online version of words … like hair, nose, ear, shoulder, vocabulary, greetings, ‘Good morning’, ‘How are you?’ The teacher on the other side hears it and can (respond) in real-time,” East said. “Everything is done when people can do it and the teacher listens and then gives them feedback.”

The tribe owns all of the collaborative course materials, giving it autonomy over its own language education.

“Everything belongs to them,” said East. “If at any time they want us to take the class down, we will take it down. If at any time they want me to change something, I will change it. Language and culture belong to an Indigenous community. They don’t belong to a state agency like a school.”

Growing Thunder credits Montana Legislator Jonathan Windy Boy, Democrat from Box Elder, for championing the language preservation and revitalization program at the Montana Legislature.

Among its pro-academy actions, the Montana Legislature passed a 2023 law bolstering Montana Digital Academy laws, allowing space for expansion and maximizing access to high-quality remote access.

“Windy Boy is one of the biggest proponents behind this. Everyone that has contributed in language revitalization and for the eight tribes of Montana, you know, I’m really grateful for all of their efforts,’ said Growing Thunder.

“I thank them for believing in us,” she added.