Cultural Learning Classes, helping future generations

OKMULGEE, Okla.-  The Native Youth Community Project (NYCP) has been having cultural learning classes supported by grant funding. The class focuses on current and future Mvskoke Cultural Educators. The first rounds of the curriculum featured apron making, prepping and cooking wild onions, blackberry picking, learning and playing language games and a nature walk. The limited space classes bridged culturally relevant learning with seasonal activities for spring, summer, fall and winter. 

MCN NYCP Curriculum Specialist works along with Cassandra Thompson (Mvskoke) of the Cultural Education Resource Council (CERC) spoke about these seasonal activities and their potential to cultivate future Mvskoke educators and provide resources for any Mvskoke citizens that are wanting to learn.

Thompson emphasized the value of the curriculum and how it will help future educators. 

“We want to help them find their way to get certification, like teacher certification or if it’s somewhere that they want to maybe work in tribal education like for our area (MCN),”Thompson said. “We want to help them get to where they want to get in their career or their field, whatever that may be.” 

There have been meetings to help create the cultural learning classes but in Thompson’s point of view they refer to it as “cultural development,” this is for sharpening their cultural skills, cultural teaching, tools and making it better in the future. She hopes the classes implemented will help with sovereignty or help  future programs pass cultural knowledge to the future generations.

Thompson enjoys hosting and teaching classes relating to art because it spreads the knowledge of the cultural ways and lets the citizens understand why things are the way that they are. She has been capturing footage during these classes to help  build programs.

“Having us doing these things so that way we can use our curriculum and to show what it looks like…to show that we are still doing it because one of the things with any curriculum that’s been shared throughout the years, it always puts us in a past tense. We want to show that we are living now and we are still here, that we are still practicing our ways, that’s what this cultural learning class is about.”

Thompson has been teaching in this way for a long time. Her past boss has taught Thompson how important culture is and how it’s important to implement that into the program. 

Thomspons believes having hands-on classes can help the citizens to connect and be able to be involved whether it’s within the language or doing cultural activities and building community. 

Thompson said often the adults enjoying these types of activities, remember doing them as a child or learning things they have never known before. “If we can get our communities to start doing more community things like this, it would be even stronger,” Thompson said.

“Wanting to continue to learn will help with each generation to stay strong in that knowledge and the Mvskoke culture,” Thompson said. “Because they always say ‘what are we going to do when we don’t have our language. If we are not doing our cultural things then what does that make us?”

“I think these classes help us carry it on and maybe it’ll bring some things back that we didn’t know we were missing,” Thompson said.

For any questions about these classes you can contact Cassandra Thomspon at 918-549-2769.