K-12 Education Initiative

Activities and events implemented during the biennium include:

• Learning from Place: Bdote immersions: participants spend the day visiting local sites of significance to Dakota people and learning about them from Dakota perspectives.
• Teaching Bdote workshop, in partnership with St. Paul Public Schools, invites educators who have attended or plan to attend a Bdote trip to share and discuss resources and strategies for sharing Dakota content with students. Educators leave with new resources and content, deeper understanding, and the beginnings of an action plan to bring students on a Bdote trip or to bring the experience into the classroom.
• Increase Engagement through Absent Narratives workshops, wherein participants learn and practice strategies through personal storytelling and guided reflection to help them engage others with respect and empathy in their community or classroom.
• Resource sharing and development including an educator guide for the newly published Somali youth anthology Crossroads: An Anthology of Resilience and Hope by Young Somali Writers, virtual opportunities for educators to learn and incorporate the Absent Narrative Resource Collection – an online searchable database of over 1,000 ready-to-use videos, teacher guides, and readings that help educators increase classroom engagement – into their practice through presentations and conference workshops.
• Cultural Education Forums: Realizing Wakanda, From Mountains to Lakes: Hmong Educational Forum: Through cultural lenses, educator communities and practitioners participate in facilitated conversations and interactive learning sessions about cultural histories, current experiences, educational resources, and impact and opportunities in the classroom.
• Educator and Story Circle Institutes: The 2021 Educator Institute and 2021 Story Circle Institute provided educators an opportunity to delve into topics and ideas with teams of educators from across the state to share knowledge and experiences and build communities of practice. Using the humanities to bridge gaps in relationships between educators and their colleagues, students, and families through the power of story, uplifting narratives that have been erased or marginalized and amplifying community solutions, these institutes serve as the spark to catalyze change at all levels – personal, classroom, building, and district.

No 2020-2021 biennium funds have been spent as of October 31, 2019.