Social Networking & The Mama Bear

Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, pease porridge in the pot, nine days old.

Some like it hot, some like it cold, some like it in the pot, nine days old.

I like my porridge hot.

And why wait 9 days to tell this story?

After a long 3 days, I woke to discover that my 10-year-old had a facebook account.

I can tell you right now, that I have counted to 10, then 30, and one hundred. Rest easy, I’ve deleted her account – including the hideous picture of mom, fast asleep, titled “Always Sleeping.” My little sister, the only one having any sense to comment: “She’s going to be mad at you. ;P”

Half sleeping, half eavesdropping on breakfast conversation, I was seething.

I blog, facebook, tweet, and text but when my parental rights are sidestepped by a pair of uncles, Mama Bear comes out to play.

Social networking has its place (with purpose or not) in the lives of  many, including the comfortable palms, thumbs, ear canals, and pupils of my household. So whilst I confront the culprits with a mere question, DENIAL is not a river in Egypt, Denial is the muse for this post. As a mother and educator, I want this to be a teachable moment for anyone who’s interested, or the victim of brothers without children (sounds a lot like, wars without borders).

Crushing dreams.

My daughter is crushed that I’ve single-handedly erased her mini-facebook adventure. As I deleted her posts, pictures, and information, I was equally devastated. Mostly because she probably had more friends in 24 hours than I had in a week. So why should I feel guilt over being her parent and protector? I believe that social networking takes some immense responsibility and sometimes, that comes with learned lessons. I’d like to spare her some heart-ache & embarrassment. My teenage sons have illegal accounts and on more than one occasion, I’ve had them delete their accounts, only to see them merely re-activated or to have opened a new account.

What’s a mom to do?

Create a partnership with freedom to explore.

As a single-parent, trying to maintain the head-of-household status, sometimes it’s a compromise. They have facebook accounts created under the guidance of cousins, friends, and uncles. They also get to friend mom – not a choice, a privilege. With inappropriate posts or comments, they know they may suffer the consequence of a comment or intimate conversation with their lifetime stalker – you got it, mom. A price they willingly pay as it comes with being connected to friends so they might tell each other when…

they’ve had the worst cafeteria lunch,

how cute or swagged they look in a cheesy bathroom photo.

update a relationship status every other week,

or to have mom butt in on a 27 comment conversation to say…

“Go to bed or I will deactivate your phone. Love you.”

(I personally, love that one.)

Link in. Unplug.

I once walked into Safeway as a passerby stared at my son, then commented – “Nowadays, they’re coming out born like that.”

I didn’t quite catch her drift until she laughed and clarified that my son was plugged in to technology by his thumbs, eyes, and ears. Sure I took offense (not to her, but my lack of parenting), but it also had me stopping in my tracks to have him “unplug” so we could have a conversation while we shopped for our groceries. Most times when I am irrational, it takes some agitation before I gather my wits and think about how to creatively approach a situation.

With social networking, it involves ensuring that you have developed a relationship and alternate ways to communicate with your children or any member you connect with. Today, I sat with my daughter and asked her how she got her account. Lucky for me, we have built trust without fear. She did not hesitate to explain every detail, while I listened. I’d already scolded my brothers, indicating my permission was not given and they should know better. It took me all of 10 minutes to deactivate her account and tell her what I was willing to do. With a smile on her face and pep in her thumbs (ipod), she took to searching for “family social networks” and “social networking for kids.” We came across this link to acceptable sites for kids. While I don’t vouch for any of them, I gave some responsibility back to my daughter to explore them and see which she might like to try.

She has picked imbee, yoursphere, and scuttlepad as potential kid-friendly social networks. It’s actually exciting! We sat together and set up user accounts, with parental access. imbee requires a $1 verification fee, I was glad to pay because we are doing this to encourage safe risk-taking and exploring of technology as a resource. Many of these sites will allow her to blog, create small networks of friends, and be expressive. All great attributes I encourage her to develop and refine. She is creative, an amazing artist-musician, conversationist, and loves to laugh! She’s shy. Yea, I know, how does my description of her equal shy? It takes her time to be comfortable and nurture her spirit to be her total self around people. She’s like every other young, adolescent, coming into her own.

Choose.

I want my daughter and sons to know that they have choices. With their choices, comes added responsibility. But I also have a role to nurture their curiosities, inspire them to explore their opportunities, and guide them as they seek my advice or live to learn that as a parent, I will always be involved – to an extent. I choose today, to embrace technology as a resource and build an understanding with my daughter, that she too, has a choice. For now, it just doesn’t include facebook. 😉

To each his own.

Pease porridge hot.

Developing Intentional Partnerships for Indian Education

Have you ever wondered about the opportunities that lie in waiting for you and why they took so long to present themselves?

I’ve been exploring the power of giving life to my passions by putting them out into the world to be delivered to a person, place, or idea where I can be an asset. Much like the germination process where pollen is released, carried by the wind or clinging to the wings of a hummingbird, without much intent, invoking the process of life. Sounds simple right? I’m learning that it can be. The power lies in embracing your journeys and being able to inspire others to do the same.

With that, I want to share the product that’s developing out of a thought being nurtured. I’ve just returned from presenting at Native Education Alliance’s (NEA) Gathering of Educators (GOE) in Sells, Arizona where I had many revelations about what I have to offer and the opportunities that are spurred by sharing information. If you know me, I make it a point to share as many experiences as I can for the benefit of bringing perspective, creating new meaning or understanding, and hoping to inspire people to enact change. The GOE is an event that is organized by Native Education Alliance, a small cooperative group of inspired educators from Tucson, Arizona and supported generously by committed indivudals who submit voluntary presentation proposals. Selections are conducted by a committee of NEA with the clear and distinct purpose of providing culturally relevant best practices to interested stakeholders and educators. Its inception is both ingenious and much needed in a time where Native or Indian Education moves towards innovation and establishing deep-rooted connections to the students we serve in all sectors of education.

The two presentations titled Creating Meaningful Partnerships; Engaging Families & Community in Support of Student Achievement along with Exploring Opportunities for Tribal Partnerships in Education were meant to engage practitioners in reflective thinking, evaluating current structures and resources in order to begin planning to engage in partnership development (both I am willing to share and make readily available to you via email). With hour presentation slots and 10 of those minutes set aside for evaluations, the opportunity to expand and take this into strategic planning for partnerships fell short. However, I’m excited to work towards that and will share what takes shape as it develops.

There were so many rich experiences that developed out of the 2012 GOE and I’ll take you through the realizations I’ve come to in the hopes that you are able to nurture, restore, guide & inspire 1 action to develop partnerships for your link to education or community. Here we go!

Gathering of Educators attracts the spectrum of educational practitioners and most times, the hosting organization requires their faculty to partake in the opportunity to increase their knowledge base for serving Native populations. A small twist of the arm, nonetheless, it’s a Saturday and we all know educators are unpaid, time and a half employees. In anticipation of this, I embedded opportunities to engage my audience. Indian Oasis Baboquivari School District of the Tohono O’Odham Nation, a true oasis in the desert, is rich with scenic views, an amphitheater style auditorium, and my favorite part – technology. It started out feeling like it was going to be a tough crowd to engage, but it quickly turned around as we got into inserting relevant stories to bridge content into context. While I don’t consider myself a cultural expert, I also know I tend to undersell my assets. I know this about myself and I still do it regularly. Go figure.

As we maneuvered through age-old topics with links to historical implications and building understanding for broken partnerships throughout Indian education, stories told from the perspective of our cultural elders furrowed brows and painted compassion. It actually made a whole lot of sense to me that we have to work harder to make these connections in order to break down barriers, even in adult education. Too often, as we progress (not really), we forget that across Indian country, there aren’t many exemplary stories (know any?) of attempts to restore the partnership between tribal communities. Historical impacts live on in the daunting tales and hollowing experiences of imposing a formalized educational system on indigenous communities across our nation, as well as globally. There is still hurt and anguish over the stark realities housed in museums, books, and now webspace, memorializing the pain.

Recognizing this allowed me to dig deep and change the direction of my presentation to encapsulate knowledge from the heart so that the relationships I was creating could be given some clout for the work ahead. If we are ever to move forward in education for indigenous populations, we have to make change relevant and purposeful.

As we moved through the recognition, then comparison of education structures of public education and the skeletal postulations of tribal education, it occurred to me that what I was attempting to do was monumental and not going to be covered in 50 minutes. In these moments, you have little time to restructure an entire presentation, but you have opportunity to leave an imprint.

Ask yourself these FUNDAMENTAL questions:

What are your educational aspirations for children?

What do STUDENTS want from an education?

How do we see education impacting our communities?

Where will students be able to apply their skills to come home?

*Think outside the frame of what is here for them vs. what they will bring back.

Whenever we come of age and choose to leave the reservation, we hardly think twice about when we’re coming back. You hear and read about the remote lands, equipped with little to no resources, poor housing structures under systems that do little to support their people, much less education. Grim? Desperate.

I’m here to tell you and remind those of you who may have forgot, WE are not a reflection of the print in newspapers or the statistics in databases that leave our schools with labels and our children facing their success one assessment at a time.

You need evidence? More Than That, a YouTube video in response to ABC’s 2020 documentary titled Hidden America: Children of the Plains (full video is now difficult to find, then again, it could just be me or Aliens). The filming of  2020’s Hidden America: Children of the Plains takes place on an Indian reservation and offers a small glimpse into the lives of 3 children who face difficult challenges in their life through family dynamics and personal choice. If you’ve watched it and your reaction is that it painted a pretty good picture, I can assure you that this documentary is a mere corridor into the soul of a child facing struggles such as those reflected. Surface.

I watched this video with my 10 year-old daughter, whom I consider fortunate, alongside her two older brothers. Heartwrenching, yes. Real? More than you could ever know. However, it’s the stories like this that get pushed to the forefront in order to justify poverty, poor conditions, and lack of progress for Indian country. Stories like this leave politicians with their foot in their mouths over statements that there’s no need to worry, then assuring the American people that there is a system in place for the poor and disadvantaged. From where I sit, ineffective systems that have been handed to us without the input from the communities they are supposed to support are a poor standard of accountability.

I’ve learned that there is little we can do about stories that capture hearts and boost ratings, except to respond and act. And that’s exactly what the tribal students of this community did. We need to support our students being their own advocates and develop the 21st century skills that empower them to respond and ACT. The power of technology is evident in their response.

So where do we go from here?

YES, I am going to make that BIG leap from poverty to partnerships. We see it all the time. Social media feeds RT messages of support and sponsorship for struggling people and programs. So how do we get from there, into our own backyards?

Back to the fundamental questions and a quick look at blending two worlds (wink-wink… presentation). The societal structures of indigenous communities everywhere were so far advanced, they carried us into this world and have sustained our people & cultures for hundreds of years (if not more). From the dynamics of cultural roles & responsibilities, social calendars (yes, we were planners), onward to clan systems. We need to take more credit for the ingenuity that runs through our veins. Long before Marzano and Understanding by Design, our entire existence (including today) revolved on systemic values and process.

Reciprocity. The “Pay it Forward” model sustains Hopi society. From the day we are born, the process has been set in motion into the time and belief of the journey to leave this world.

What does reciprocity look like in an educational setting? Partnerships. We’ve got to apply self-evaluation to our own tribal and school-based education systems. Evaluate our practices as a people and embed those factors that contribute to success into educational systems of support. This includes establishing a purpose (fundamental questions) for education and reviewing policy and practice to determine if they support one another. Engaging in strategic planning to clarify goals, who will be responsible for what, and how we are going to measure our progress.

We can’t do this alone and we shouldn’t. Shooting back up to some of my initial statements of imposed systems, we’ve got to build understanding and gain consensus in order to solicit partners to support the vision. Knowing what we are aiming for will help us prioritize immediate and long term goals.

When you have a destination, you almost always know who you want to travel with. Get out and engage your parents and community, local businesses and organizations in efforts to share the journey. Be expected to know what you’re talking about because your partners will want to know how they can help, who they need to contact, where they can be an asset, and when they should show up. Create intentional partnerships by setting clear expectations and the level of engagement you desire from stakeholders. The investment may take time, but you will see your rewards as you continue to evaluate, refine and nurture your partnerships.

Be transparent. Share the purpose, how you came to establish that goal, and how you expect it to support the learning community to benefit students. Invite them in to see the opportunities they have created for children to be successful and celebrate your progress with your partners.

I have some insightful and creative ways I end my presentation, but I am going to leave you wondering. So send me an email to request the powerpoints. If you aren’t satisfied, I’d be happy to talk about potential partnerships to work with your organization or learning community to develop a deeper understanding of how to build effective partnerships.

Thank you for reading to the end.

nrgi1@yahoo.com

Women in Leadership; Inspiring Women Towards Leadership

What are your thoughts about Women in Leadership? Take the poll before you read this blog, watch the video then post your thoughts.

Inspiring Women Towards Leadership

Social Good for 2012

How many of our modern-day heroes are women?  Media and society project a male dominant hero, but that’s not to say that the qualities of great leadership have not presented themselves through and for women.

Leadership is a natural quality in so many women that has not been nurtured to its full potential.  The capacity for women in leadership is exemplified through accessible personalities like Hillary Clinton, Sheryl Sandberg and the likes of the financially influential members of society who advocate for great causes that include Angelina Jolie and Jenny McCarthy. All have a desire to utilize their knowledge, talents, and influences to create change and opportunity.

As my contribution to changing the world in 2012, I would like to assist in creating direct opportunities that assist women in nurturing their skills of leadership through avenues of advocacy, committee representation, engaging in government & politics, and organizing community efforts. This can be accomplished through the sharing of knowledge, collaborative efforts amongst women & men with specific talents under a shared responsibility to nurture, restore, guide and inspire women towards leadership.

Through this contribution to Social Good in 2012, my dream of starting an umbrella organization called NRGI-1 (Nurture, Restore, Guide & Inspire-1) will be rooted with women building capacity for leadership. I have long sat on the bench, dutifully filling roles of mother, community member, and contributor inside the invisible lines. I am committing to painting the world with shades of women whose collective talents, aspirations, and qualities will present opportunities to enhance and drive leadership to its greatest potential.

My goal is to engage in activities or reading, develop networks of people, plan events or provide presentations, and gather feedback that will provide opportunities for women to nurture their talents, restore confidence, and guide and inspire each potential leader to share their experiences with 1 other; individual, community, cause, or personal commitment. I welcome and challenge you to undertake this same commitment, however large or small, in your own networks and communities. Together, we can change the world.

Sahmie Sunshine Wytewa

nrgi1@yahoo.com

“Every society needs educated people, but the primary responsibility of educated people is to bring wisdom back into the community and make it available to others so that the lives they are leading make sense.”

from Red Earth, White Lies by Vine Deloria, Jr