Podcast: Honoring Cultural Identity and Native American Heritage with Dr. Artley Skenandore in WI on Teachers in America

Welcome back to Teachers in America, where we celebrate teachers and their lasting impact on students' learning journeys and lives.

Today we are joined by Dr. Artley Skenandore, a high school principal and cultural leader at Oneida Nation High School. In this episode, Dr. Skenandore will share how he encourages students to stay connected to their Oneida history, culture, and language, organizing powerful field trips to their homeland and incorporating their clan system into their student council. Plus he will provide strategies on how to honor Native American heritage in the month of November and all year long.

A full transcript of the episode appears below; it has been edited for clarity.

You can follow Teachers in America wherever you listen to podcasts. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or iHeartRadio.

Please consider rating, reviewing, and sharing Teachers in America with your network. We value our listeners' support and feedback. Email us at shaped@hmhco.com.

The views expressed in this podcast are those of the guest and do not necessarily represent those of HMH.

Noelle Morris: Welcome to Teachers in America, a production of HMH, where we celebrate teachers and recognize their triumphs, challenges, sacrifices, and dedication to students.

I am the Senior Director of Community Engagement, Noelle Morris. Each episode, I meet a new teacher friend to learn about the latest lessons and innovations from the classroom.

In today’s episode, I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Artley Skenandore. He is the principal and cultural leader at Oneida Nation High School, a Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) school located in Wisconsin.

As principal, Dr. Skenandore has set three core goals for his school. First, he strives to make his students proud of their Oneida heritage. Second is to build an environment that supports students in their quest to learn how to learn. Both goals combine to create the third: ensuring students learn “to do,” whether it’s going to college or learning a trade.

Today, Dr. Skenandore will share how he encourages his students to stay connected to their history and culture. He will also give strategies on how to honor Native American heritage in the month of November and all year long. Now, let’s get to the episode!

Noelle Morris: I want to welcome Artley Skenandore as our special guest today. We’re so excited to have you. The first question I have, what is your why behind why you came into education?

Dr. Artley Skenandore: My why for coming into education really was driven by my family—having a young family and wanting to be involved in their learning and at the same time also making sure that their learning involved the balance of academic as well as cultural identity. So, that was my driving force to get my license to teach. And from a license to teach came administration and [I’ve] been in education for over 30 years.

Noelle: Where did you start your teaching career?

Dr. Skenandore: My teaching career started in teaching Oneida language and culture. Although my formal training was in social studies and business, being a part of the community and the opportunity to teach our language and culture was my first offering. [I] did that for a number of years.

And then [had] the opportunity to move up and be more involved. Our school started in 1978 as an elementary facility. And with that start of that school, it provided the opportunity to be a part of really the beginning and the founding of the school system. So, I moved up into administration, then from administration, been a part of that, went from vice principal to principal in the elementary system. And, later on, I was able to also then achieve what I considered my bucket list, which was to be in secondary or high school as a high school administrator.

Noelle: I’d love for you to share a little bit about the Oneida language and then the everyday culture of your school and your community.

Dr. Skenandore: Well, one of the founding principles of our school system at the elementary level was a number of community members wanted to make sure that our language and our culture was sustained and continued and revitalized. And so that was really the founding principle of our school system back in 1978. From that going forward, it started, as I said, with an elementary. And then later on, we looked at always wanting to add grades to where we’d eventually end up with a high school. I was involved in the administrative side, and then, later on, I was involved in this on the policy side as a school board member as well.

But those are some of the driving forces. The uniqueness of our school is we have a responsibility as a nation, as a tribal nation, to make sure that we make a contribution to the future—we call it the seven generations—from the perspective of what that represents for the future of our nation. So, it was really our elders in our community that said, “We have to make sure that our language continues, the uniqueness of our identity, because that’s really culturally, that’s who we are.” And the platform of that identity then builds all of our academics, the integration of academics all come from that motivation to make sure that we make that contribution to—as we look at it in our lenses—the world family.

And so, with that being said, our high school is designed and built around cultural identity. We recognize that the uniqueness of our students going out into the world is that they should never lose their identity and that they should make sure that that’s the foundational platform that they use or their lens to look at how they manage professionally. So, there’s three real clear components that we’ve always looked at from the beginning of elementary all the way through high school. One of the first and most important platforms is learning to be, that identity of learning to be who we are. The second systemic platform is really learning to learn, and that’s where we integrate all the academic standards, the performance from kindergarten through 12th grade, and we look to make sure that they’re prepared to take their place, so to speak, into making a contribution to their community and to their nation.

And then the last one is really on the systemic side, where we look at the high school pieces to make sure that we’re providing the information for good decision making around learning to do that professional development, that preparation to look at how they will make that contribution as citizens of their nation. So those are the fundamental platforms that drive us Oneida as a nation.

Noelle: November is Native American Heritage Month, and I’m sure at your school you’re celebrating, and this is your every day. But to [give] advice to teachers across the country, how do you approach Native American Heritage Month? What would you want a teacher who, maybe this is their first year in the classroom and they need to learn about Native American Heritage Month, what advice would you have?

Dr. Skenandore: Well, I think Native American Heritage Month, you have to look at it in the context of there once wasn’t a Native American Heritage Month. So, you look at the growth that we’ve all contributed towards. When you look at a new teacher coming into the classroom, my advice to them is to make sure that they look at all their resources that are available to draw from regionally. Because when you look at Native American Heritage Month, each region has their uniqueness and the Indigenous expression of their area. So, it’s really to make sure you’re aware of where you are. Because when you look at Indigenous nations, they all have Indigenous expressions from where they live. And to look towards that and to identify the resources of that area, that would be my encouragement to a new teacher.

How we participate, one specific activity that we’re having next week is called Rock the Moc. And it’s one that our elementary school and our high school participate in, and it’s moccasin day. It’s where everybody wears their moccasins and they’re all beautifully designed with a lot of individual beadwork that people put on them. And we have what we call a stomp dance, and that stomp dance is really a song. It’s a line dance that our high school kids go over and help in elementary and they gather up everyone and we end up in the center of the school. We end up that particular ceremony with a stomp dance and we end up in a circle. And the last part of it is a real large celebrative yell and that is to say we say, Akahlunyawhahiste. That’s to pierce the sky so that the sky world and the land itself knows that we’re celebrating our identity. And then we come over to the high school and we do the same thing in the afternoon.

The prelude to that is we have what we call a family feast where all of our staff serve our parents. We had over 800 last week for a meal that we serve, and again, it’s just to say, “thank you. “We started this many years ago. We had to take it off for pandemic, of course, and this was the first one back. And it’s really about celebrating our foods. Because we have a story of Ashnatekutahnutele which is the three sisters: the corn, the beans, and the squash. Those are staples of our diet, our Indigenous diet. And so, we cook those meals for our families. We bring them in, and it’s just a celebration of being together. This one, this past week, was most fitting because we haven’t been able to do that, of course, for the last few years. So, it was real special, but those are some of the things that we do, just around the celebration of Native American Heritage Month.

Noelle: Artley, is your school dealing with any of the same hardships that we’re hearing across the country, teacher shortage? Do you have a need to promote and recruit teachers to your school? And what’s the requirement or the qualities you’re looking for in your teachers?

Dr. Skenandore: Well, I’m glad that you’re asking that question because we do experience the same type of challenges in education that other communities do, from the standpoint of teacher shortages. I think in terms of education overall, we’re all still navigating through the impact of the pandemic. A lot of people say we’re past it, but as an administrator, I see we’re in the midst of climbing out of that academic abyss that that was created through isolation. And at the same time, looking at the shortage of teachers today, the kind of attributes that we look for in a teacher is for their openness to enjoy a cultural experience beyond their own upbringing and to have that openness from a culturally responsive perspective that they can make those contributions.

And one of the taglines that we use, and we’ve used for since the beginning of the school system, is that we’re a learning family and we’re a family of learners. With that context, that’s one of the things that we speak very specific to. And when we do our interviews for teachers, we want to make sure we structure our questions in such a way that we want to know who they are because we want to invest in them as well, and make them part of our learning community. So those are some of the things that we look for, from an attribute standpoint. And of course, we’re competing today as a small school system with very large school systems around us. So, the uniqueness of our tribal nation, and our learning, and our philosophy, it actually brings people to us because they’re intrigued with wanting to have that experience. And so, over the years where we have a real solid base of teachers today.

Noelle: As a school system, as a school, you have an entering ninth grader. You ask them, “What’s their future? What’s their next chapter?” Do you all have a plan in action of how you individualize, not just an academic program, but how you help each student recognize their full potential?

Dr. Skenandore: Most certainly. One of the steadfast processes that we have is we’re very diligent about that goal orientation. We look at it from a career standpoint. We look at it from academic preparation. But we do it in such a way that [it is on] an individualized basis. One of the fundamentals of our culture, one of our core values, is a word called Kahletsyalusla. Kahletsyalusla is a word that says it’s the heartfelt encouragement. And so, we work with each individual student to have that vision of where they see themselves today and where they’ll see themselves in the future. And we’re very diligent about making sure that we are individualized in terms of that academic growth as well as their social-emotional growth. And so, if somebody doesn’t have a goal when they come in as a ninth grader, we keep asking that question about, “What’s your interest? Where do you see yourself as a part of a fit to the nation?” So, our uniqueness is twofold, because we not only look at them as an individual, but we look at them also as a citizen of their own nation. They have a dual role of citizenry that we’re very proud to share.

When we look at a student coming in ninth grade, maybe they don’t have a goal to start with. But we work with them individually. We are very proud of our support system, socially-emotionally for our students to make sure and ensure that as they grow. There’s a little magic that happens from ninth to twelfth grade with every student, and that magic, I’ve seen it so many times, is where they end up looking at where they want to be. One of the things that I’m very proud of, contributions that our nation makes, is we make a contribution to each one’s education so that wherever they want to go, if they want to go to a trade school or they want to go to a four-year college, our nation supports them. And so that’s one of the pieces that we feel very proud, that our school system, for example, from 1978 to today, the majority of our tribal nation government comes out of our own learning system.

Noelle: Wow.

Dr. Skenandore: And so, when I look at that, the recipe for leadership comes from our core values. The recipe for social-emotional concern for the growth of our families comes from our own. I guess you could say from our reciprocity of what we look towards to make that difference. So, those are some of the things that when somebody comes to us as a teacher and want to make a contribution as a teacher in our system, those are some of the things that they experience.

Noelle: My producer was sharing with me about your student council. And she was describing it to me, and I was like, “Wait, wait, wait, I want to hear this from Artley.” I want our listeners to hear it. I want to understand it. I understand there’s something with clans.

Dr. Skenandore: Okay, I’ll start with the clan system. First of all, our clan system comes out of our cultural stories of our relationship to creation. The first message that we received as a people was that creation, Kanuhelatuksla. And then the next one was as people came into, and we share this story, if you were to come here, you would also see one of our unique designs of our elementary system is our school is designed in the shape of a turtle. And that shape of the turtle represents our cosmology. Because in our cosmology, it says that there was a sky world and there was a water world. And when that sky world came into interaction with the water world, it was the animals of the water that found the land that held up the water.

And so, the sky woman that came from that sky world, she came and she asked if they would help her, which they did. And so, she took the ground from underneath, that held up the water. She placed it on the bottom of her feet, and she began to walk. And as she walked in a circle, she walked, and we say that’s what the earth grew from. She sat on the back of a turtle while she asked these questions of the animals. And so that’s where, when we look at the turtle school, we have that relationship to where we began as a people. And so, the clans come into being as the world grew, the population grew of our nations. If you were to look at the back of a turtle’s shell, you’ll see around the edges, there’s 28 small squares, which represents the path of the moon, the grandmother moon. In the middle, you’ll see 13 large squares of the turtle’s back. That represents the moons and the amount of time that it took for her to grow the earth. When that came into being, then that’s where the clan system came from. For us, it’s the Turtle, Bears, and Wolf. And if you go to any other Indigenous nation across this country, they’ll all have clans, because that’s one of the ways that we had to create that family relationship.

When we talk about family of learners, it’s rooted right in our clan system, that we take care of our families through those clans. When I came to be the high school principal, and as we were meeting with the students about what our student government should look like, some of them said, “Why aren’t we using our clan system?” We looked back, and we did the research, and said, “We should be using our clan system.” So, our student government is based off the clan system of the Turtle, Bear, and Wolf. And when we look at it, we don’t break down and say a freshman to a senior, but rather we go by the clans. For example, this particular year, we have two of the clans that are led by, one is a freshman and one is a sophomore, and then the other two are our seniors, in the other clan. They share that role together. So, it’s really about clan responsibility, and not necessarily the seniority of classes, so to speak.We’ve been operating with that system since 2011, and we see it growing. We’re involved in a cultural revitalization within our nation to look towards all of the institutional symbols that we have as a community. We’re revitalizing them. We’re using them and making them part of our utility and part of our learning. So, for example, the back of the turtle, and it’s a school that we designed as a turtle, our wampum belts that we have are on the outside of that turtle. So, the turtle school. So, if anybody comes to visit us, when you come, that particular school, the elementary, which is kindergarten through eighth grade, is really a history class in itself because we have that creation story on the inner circle. Our language classrooms are located in the middle of the turtle and right at the very top is also a skylight. And when people say “Well, why did you put a skylight there?” That represents the sky world. And so symbolically, all of that cultural context is what our foundation of learning sits on.

And the last thing I’ve mentioned about it is that the design of our school came from our school board and from our young people who actually designed. I guess you could say the context of what we should have as a new school. The school boards took the picture of one of our students, gave it to one of the architects and said, “We want you to design this.” From that point forward, there’s been other buildings since that time, I refer to them as our sovereign assets because they represent the cornerstone of identities. When you come to our community, you’ll see the turtle. I was just at a gathering earlier this week of some of the folks that are part of the Green Bay Packers organization, and I asked them, “How many of you have seen a turtle?” And, of course, they fly in and out of Green Bay. And they all raised their hand. They’ve experienced our cultural contribution to the landscape with our turtle. And if you go online, for the viewers, you’ll see that picture of that turtle as well.

Noelle: And I also understand that there is a trip to Oneida original land in New York. And so, I would love you to explain it, tell the story behind it. Are you a part of that each year? Is that something that started in 2011 or was that something you added to your student council?

Dr. Skenandore: We added that to our student experience for seniors. We’re just having the discussion right now about how to come back for the first time after the pandemic and do it again. But it’s really important. When you look at the experience of students and allowing them to realize that their homeland, that they have two homelands, the place where they grew up, but also the place where their history began. When we look at our homeland being in New York as a part of the Haudenosaunee Iroquois communities, we want to make sure that that’s an enrichment of their identity. The last trip we took before the pandemic, one of the things that was encouraged by one of the elder clan mothers was they told the kids when they went there and visited, they said, “Make sure you take your shoes off and stand on your homeland so you can feel the power of how old you are.” And when I think and feel about that, that’s legacy. That’s responsibility. That’s respect. That’s really resilience. And that, most importantly, is renewal. And one of the things in our culture, we’re all about renewal. Our ceremonies that we have throughout the calendar year of ceremonies, they all speak to renewing our relationship to this creation. We feel very strongly about that’s one of our contributions to the World Family, is that we have to keep renewing those good words, that good mind, and if we do so, we can’t help but do something good for each other, right?

Noelle: Because of the investment you have on each of your students, what do you notice [about] their path post high school, whether it’s trade or four-year? I’m a big believer in trade and vocational schools. What are you seeing? Are you seeing because you’re close to Green Bay and you have opportunities that the majority of your students are staying in their Oneida community?

Dr. Skenandore: I think we strike a pretty good balance between technical college as well as four-year college, because in our local area here, we have the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, of which, I’m very proud of.

I was one of the first doctoral students that came out of that learning system. Most recently, we have St. Norbert College, which I’m also an undergraduate of, which is just down the road. And we also have the College of Menominee Nation, which actually sits right on the edge of our reservation, with their college, as well as the Northeastern Wisconsin Technical College.

So, we strike a good balance in terms of academic preparation for our students. We also from an employment standpoint as a nation, we’ve been very diligent about the kind of enterprises that we’ve created for our community and the contribution we make. We prided ourselves on being a partner.

I guess I like to say [we] manifest partnership. If you manifest partnership, you create strong economies. And that’s a part of what we see, and we participate in as a nation, is not only our local economy, but also the tribal economies of the other tribal nations of Wisconsin. So, when we look at that, I see us having a good balance of our students [stay].

At one point in time, our students did have to leave as they finished high school. They did have to leave and go find employment in other places. But since 1978, that’s been one of the diligent methods that we’ve looked at in practices to create our own national economy and to make sure that those contributions are being made. If someone wants to be a plumber, we have a role for plumbers within our nation, electricians, carpenters. We participate in that particular apprenticeship process through our school system as well. We continue to develop that. Our commitment is to keep strengthening our citizenry.

And I guess we have those good indicators that say we’re following that seven generations pathway because, like I said, our government today, is led by our graduates of our learning system. I feel very encouraged what that looks like, but as some of my mentors have always said, “Don’t take a day off from making sure you make it better each day.”

Noelle: I have got to get up and go do something to do a contribution, to make it better. I mean, you’re so motivational. You’re so inspiring. I’m so grateful that I have gotten this opportunity to talk to you and our listeners have this opportunity to hear you and learn from you. So, here’s my question I ask everyone because I love having my playlist and I love having walk-up songs. And I think every educator needs to know their value, their worth. If we were in the same room and I was looking at your playlist on your phone, what would be one of the top songs I would see on there that is your hype song, your walk-up song?

Dr. Skenandore: Well, mine right now it’s actually a song that was composed by my daughter. I’m a singer of our traditional songs. I’m a master of ceremonies of many powwows across the country. And so, when I hear a drum, and when I hear somebody singing, I always know that it’s coming from their heart. And to me, that’s what every kind of genre is, always about touching the heart. It’s about raising the spirit. It’s about giving that sense of awareness of we’re alive today. We’re celebrating life. And so, one of the things that I do many mornings is, I do my Kanuhelatuksla, my thanksgiving for the morning. And I have her song and the words to that song says, kayeniyolewake. It’s that, that’s the four messengers, the four directions. And it says, Hahkwawhatsili, is that’s what we ask for is for our families, to be good today. And so that’s my song. I’m always wanting to make it good for our families. And she composed that, and she shared that with me. And I sing it just about every other day. It’s walking around with me as well. And then in our school, one of the things that I wanted to say about that song. . . our school, Norbert Hill Center, it’s as old as I am. It’s a 68-year-old building, and it has a lot of history to it. But when our singing class lights up with our social songs, our Ohuntsyatek is what we call them, and our government is on the second floor, then we know we’re really a family.

We’re alive as a family because we share this facility, and everybody loves to hear our kids sing. It’ll go through the hallways. It’s like, the best philharmonic orchestra you ever heard when they’re singing. Because it’s young people singing from the heart and our instructors. And, you come here, that’s the best medicine that you could ever experience.

Noelle: I bet I’m going to have to figure out how I’m going to come visit. But Artley, it has been fascinating. I cannot wait to hear the comments and hear what our listeners take away, but you have truly inspired me and I definitely every day will wake up to be, whether I’m working-working, or I’m working on myself, or I’m contributing to my household and getting it in order, I will say never take a day off to make it better. Thank you so much.

Dr. Skenandore: Thank you for the opportunity to share with you.

Noelle: If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on the Teachers in America podcast, please email us at shaped@hmhco.com. Be the first to hear new episodes of Teachers in America by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you enjoy today's show, please rate, review, and share it with your network. You can find the transcript of this episode on our Shaped blog by visiting hmhco.com/shaped. The link is in the show notes. Teachers in America is produced by HMH. Until next time, your friend, Noelle.

The Teachers in America podcast is a production of HMH. Executive producers are Christine Condon and Tim Lee. Editorial direction is by Christine Condon. It is creatively directed, and audio engineered by Tim Lee. Our producer and editor is Jennifer Corujo. Production designers are Mio Frye and Thomas Velazquez. Shaped blog post editors for the podcast are Christine Condon, Jennifer Corujo, and Alicia Ivory.  

Thanks again for listening!

***

Hear new episodes of Teachers in America on Shaped, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.