Native teachings through harmony

Most teachers hope that the lesson plans they come up with will be sufficient to educate the students in their classroom.

For Natasha Verhulst, her plans are going to educate students nationally and internationally.

Verhulst, music teacher at Keshena Primary School, will help students learn about Native American music through the Native Education for All project being executed by the National Indian Education Association and Illuminative, a nonprofit initiative that seeks to increase the visibility of tribes. Native Education for All is dedicated to developing lesson plans that are based in Native American teachings and developed by Native American educators for all teachers to use.

“In the last year and a half, I’ve really been diving into creating lesson plans that include Native American music because it was something that sparked my interest in my master’s classes,” Verhulst said. “When I saw that they had put a call out for lesson plans, I had already made some and presented them at a state conference in 2019.”

Verhulst submitted her plans just to see what NIEA officials thought, and she didn’t think they considered her plans to be any good when she didn’t hear back from them for a while. However, one day she received an email saying that NIEA was revamping its lesson repository, and that her lesson plans would be an excellent fit.

Verhulst noted that her plans are particularly relevant now in a time when the coronavirus pandemic has many schools, including hers, providing virtual education some or all of the time.

The lesson plans encourage music teachers to do things like round dances, according to Verhulst. They include examples of Native drumming and take a look at the different ways that Native music is set up, she said.

“I think a lot of teachers are afraid to incorporate Native music because they’re afraid they’ll do it wrong or inappropriately,” Verhulst said. “There are parts that we can’t use in our lesson plans because they’re ceremonial, or they’re sacred, but that doesn’t mean we should eliminate it completely from the curriculum.”

By not incorporating the cultural music of indigenous tribes, teachers are helping to perpetuate the stereotype that Native Americans no longer exist, in Verhulst’s view.

“It’s considered old and historical,” Verhulst said. “If we don’t include that, it feeds the stereotypes or mentalities of those issues.”

For Verhulst, an enrolled member of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa and a first-degree descendant of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, making sure that all students have an understanding of Native American music is personal. She was raised off-reservation in Kiel, and she experienced the stereotypes firsthand.

“A lot of places you go, Native American culture and history is kind of glazed over and not included as much as it could be in curriculums,” Verhulst said. “It made me uncomfortable growing up. My mom and one of my aunties came in and would present in the fourth grade. Everyone knew I was Native American, but it was one of those things where they were like, ‘Well, you’re not a real Native American, because you don’t live on a reservation or you don’t exist anymore.’”

Verhulst lost her Menominee grandparents at an early age, which left it up to her mother, aunts and uncles to teach what they knew about the culture. She plays a Native American flute and was first interested in playing the instrument from regular visits to the reservation.

“I really wanted one, so my parents gifted me one when I was in sixth grade,” Verhulst said. “I just kind of self-taught myself and listened to other people online and made my own stuff.”

Verhulst also gained knowledge about the flute growing up by attending classes taught by Menominee musician Wade Fernandez. Verhulst has also written lesson plans in the last month for Fernandez to use in future classes.

Verhulst has taught music for six years, although this is her first year at Keshena Primary. Having the chance to educate countless children about Native American music through her lessons plan, she said, is “humbling.”

“I originally had felt, growing up off the reservation, like I didn’t really belong anywhere,” Verhulst said. “I was growing up in a non-Native society, but knowing I was Native, I didn’t think I fit there. I didn’t feel like I grew up with the culture and stuff, and it was very hard to feel like I belonged to either (society). Now, doing this work, it has helped me to feel reconnected here.”

Verhulst will be presenting on Native American music at the Feierabend Association for Music Association biennial conference in July 2021.

Wendell Waukau, superintendent for the Menominee Indian School District, expressed pride in what Verhulst is doing at both the local and national levels. He said it highlights the district’s work and that Verhulst serves as “an outstanding example of how our teachers are willing to go the extra mile to connect with and educate our students, while sharing their best practices with others.”

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com