Here is a selection of short video clips in which Native Americans are interviewed. They relate to a number of important topics that can be covered when working with indigenous peoples in Northern America.

Misconceptions about Native American People

Discuss

What can we learn about attitudes towards Native American peoples from this video? What can we learn about how Native Americans feel about these attitudes?

Life on Reservations

Here are two short videos about life on Reservations. In the first video, Native Americans share their immediate thoughts and reactions to Reservations. The second video is a short documentary (15 mins) about the Cheyenne River Reservation, one of the poorest communities in the US.

Discuss

That impressions do you get of Reservations from the first video? What attitudes do the Native Americans show towards them?

Discuss

1. What issues are there in the Cheyenne River community?
2. In which ways do the people of Cheyenne River Reservation keep their culture alive?
3. What impression to you get of the Reservation at the start of the video? Does this impression change as the documentary progresses? Why?
4. How do you see the future for the people of the Cheyenne River community? What challenges do you think they may face in the future?
5. What role can society at large play in helping the people of the Cheyenne River Reservation out of poverty?

More insight into life on Reservations

The novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” (Sherman Alexie) is about a Native American boy who leaves Spokane Indian Reservation to go to an all-white high school.

Thanksgiving

Is Thanksgiving just a day for celebration in the US? This video gives an insight into how Native Americans view the holiday.

Further work

The National Museum of the American Indian has created some excellent resources for teaching about Native Americans in schools. Their resources are well-researched and use Indigenous-made source materials.

Below are some pages that I think are especially useful. I also strongly recommend taking a look at the other resources they have available on their website.

Essential Understandings

This webpage introduces 10 essential areas that pupils should cover to get a good understanding of Native Americans. For each area, there is a list of key concepts:

Possible task

Pupils get one area each, and read and present the key concepts to the others in class.

These key concepts can be revisited later to make sure that all areas are covered. This should help ensure that learning about Native Americans is balanced, rather than focusing on one or two aspects (as I find is common in textbooks).

American Indian Removal

"This online lesson provides perspectives from Native American community members, documents, maps, images, and activities to help students and teachers understand an important and difficult chapter in the history both of Native Nations and the United States" (from the website).

The lesson starts with an introductory video about the removal of Native Americans, before presenting general information, different perspectives and then the example of the Muscogee people, including interviews with descendants. There is a teacher's guide and a student workbook to go with the lesson (these can be found at the start of the lesson).

I think this is an excellent online lesson, as it brings an important part of Native American history to life and encourages a deeper understanding. I like the variety in source materials used - could these be used in teaching pupils how to bring different sources together in an essay/presentation?

How Do Native People and Nations Experience Belonging?

"This online lesson provides perspectives from Native American community members, images, objects, and other sources to help students and teachers think about the significance that homelands, kinship systems, and nationhood hold for Native Peoples of the Northern Plains" (from the website).
 
After a general introduction, the lesson answers these key questions for four different tribal groups; Crow, Northern Cheyenne, Oceti Sakowin and Affiliated Tribes:

• What Gives Native Nations a Sense of Belonging to the Land?
• How do Kinship Systems Work to Create a Feeling of Belonging?
• What are the Rights and Responsibilities of Belonging to a Native Nation?

Possible task

After looking at the introduction together, pupils can work in groups of four with one tribal group each. Then they can share their knowledge with each other, and work on the final interactive task together.