Kenwood Elementary Celebrates Seven Years of Innovative Native American Art Curriculum
Margaret Zimmerman-Swenson is known to be a fantastic art teacher but even she felt nervous about teaching Native American art.
In 2015, she decided to collaborate with Heid Erdrich and Angela Erdrich, Ojibwe tribal members whose children were her students. They had faith in her, that she could do justice to the subject matter. “Teachers are cautious about teaching Native American topics. They do not want to offend or be culturally inappropriate. I could see that when she accepted the challenge, she accepted it deep inside,” said Angela. “The school system is not set up to start something innovative. Margaret needed to develop the curriculum and study many artists and fit her ideas into rubrics that conformed to standards.”
The Erdrich sisters say that one change teachers can make is to speak about Native people using the present tense. Too many teachers keep Natives frozen in time but there is a way to change sentence structure to acknowledge the past in the context of today’s thriving traditions.
Ms. Zimmerman-Swenson brings contemporary Native artists into classroom for four of the six grades, which makes a huge impression on the students. Two classrooms learn by studying the techniques of artists of the past.
Each November, it’s impressive to view Zimmerman-Swenson’s method of displaying children’s grade level artwork side by side because with an identical assignment, students exhibit a delightful variety of ideas and interpretations.
Birchbark Books sponsors an annual award in recognition of Margaret Zimmerman-Swenson’s efforts. The award honors a member of the Kenwood community who successfully bridges the gap of cultural understanding.
Students will remember their feelings of curiosity, pride and accomplishment and connect those positive feelings to learning about Native American art and culture from great artist role models and their beloved teacher.
Kindergarten: Tree of Life drawings inspired by the artistic technique of the late Canadian artist, Norval Morrisseau.
First grade: Artist Gordon Coons shares his colorful Ojibwe style animal paintings and teaches students to draw and color their own whimsical animals.
Second grade: James Autio, Ojibwe artist and poet, shows the use of bold color as children paint Minnesota animals.
Third grade: drawings of Native corn. Angela Erdrich, Ojibwe, visits to show Native crafts, birchbark art and her watercolor illustrations.
Fourth grade: Marlena Myles, Dakota, challenges the children to create meaningful images in silhouette using sharpie marker on a tissue paper background, inspired by the example of Myles’ digital designs. Myles enjoys banter with the inquisitive Kenwood Elementary children whom she recognizes as well trained by their excellent art teacher.
Fifth grade: students study the exquisite technique of the late Red Lake Ojibwe artist Patrick DesJarlait and through watercolor, learn about Minnesota fish and contemporary Red Lake traditions.
