Native educators current and retired needed

To the editor:
    Teachers in the state of Maine are responding to LD291: The Teaching of Maine Native American History and Culture by creating and implementing a wide variety of lessons and curriculum units in their classrooms.  While many teachers are developing their own lessons, more and more are being able to run them through a process involving Native educators, a process which is lending a high level of authenticity to what is being shared with our students. The growth in appropriate and accurate material has been enormous since the law’s passage in 2001 and more is being created through workshops, grants, week-long institutes, and individual dedication to the process.
    One of the difficulties that educators have faced is having a contact person to whom to turn when questions arise about materials or their appropriateness for use in the classroom. There are several around the State who work gratis to help their colleagues find resources and to answer questions they might have about those resources. The current process of reorganizing the State’s school districts has hampered the search for more such resource contact people because it is unknown at this time how many fewer districts there will be by the end of this year.
    With this constraint in mind, I am asking for any current (or retired) educator who would like to become a Wabanaki Connections Resource Contact person to contact me so that I can begin to compile a list of such persons across the state. There is no compensation available for this work so whomever becomes involved in this work should do it because it is the right thing to do. You would be expected to become knowledgeable, and be able to answer questions, about LD291 and the Wabanaki of Maine, and be willing to work with classroom teachers to implement this mandate. There are already a large number of resources available so the learning curve is not so steep as to be overwhelming.
    Please contact me at charnj@portlandschools.org if you are interested or if you have any questions about this work. I appreciate your support and am proud of the educators who have embraced the essence of LD291 in their classrooms.
Joseph E. Charnley, Native Studies Committee co-facilitator
Portland Schools District LD291 co-facilitator