The second class was second year, students who are not yet as academically sophisticated as the third year students, but neither are they freshmen. I had a different discussion with them, one about culture and customs and how these things play into a national and personal identity. So many of these students, it is obvious, have never thought of who they are or their identity. They know they are Danish and that is about it. They have never thought of what that truly means, which is not unusual for students of this age no matter their national identity. This was a very interesting session. The teacher had told me before hand that this was one of her more unfocused classes; by that she meant they tended to wander off topic a bit more easily. That actually is what gave me the idea of identity and finding one’s own person. After showing some clips of several NSU students who went with me to Kansas earlier this year to do an exhibition powwow and cultural dialogue session, I told these Danish students of how identity plays such an important role in American Indian cultures.
I then mentioned a little sound clip my own daughter, Lexi, recorded on one of the handheld digital recorders that the Cherokee Language program uses for materials acquisition. I showed her how to use it one day and let her mess around with it for a while; she thought it was so cool that she could record herself and listen to it instantly. In this recording, Lexi says the following: “Hi. My name is Lexi, and I am an Indian. A Cherokee Indian. And I am going to tell you what that means.” She then proceeds to tell a bit about stickball and how the girls have no rules, but boys do. She tells about dancing. She says that she is learning the language and then she counts up to seven in Cherokee. She also tells about her Mema, my mother: Georgia Kent, and how spending time with Mema is important. She also talks about how important family is; she mentions her cousins, her uncles and aunts, and she tells how she likes to spend time with them. All of this from a six-year old who was playing with one of her daddy’s gadgets. I saved it because I thought it was cute and I could someday embarrass her when she brought a boy home; maybe I could run him off. Little did I know I would be using it in a lesson plan in Denmark a mere seven months after she recorded it.
I mention that not necessarily because of what Lexi says in it, but because of how she says it. In this audio clip of slightly over two minutes, Lexi is so confident in her words. (Chief Wilma Mankiller always commented about how self-assured Lexi is; Wilma and Lexi were buddies.) Lexi speaks with such a conviction of what her understanding of Cherokeeness is. This child is fully aware of who she is – not what she is. She is Cherokee, and she is proud of that. Cherokee is not a what, but a who, and Lexi holds nothing back when she speaks of being Indian.
I closed this session by encouraging these students to think of who they are, who they will become. “Ask yourselves,” I said, “Why am I in school? What will I do with this education? And how will I take what I am being given and make Denmark a better place for Danes?” As I readied to leave this room at the close of the session, I got an ovation here as well. So, it was a good day to teach.
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