Lakota Stories in the Classroom is Here!

Oh by the way....   Niche audience of ed policy nerds whom I've totally been neglecting as of late so that I could tend to my mistress, she's finally launched:

http://lakotastories.edublogs.org!

Lakota Stories in the Classroom has been in the works for fifteen months.  By no means did I work on it continuously during that time, but when I did work on it, it was pretty intense.  So, it's been extremely gratifying not only to receive emails from teachers I've never met who are excited about using the resource, but also, to see that the website (which has an even smaller niche audience than edskeptic.com) received over 150 hits on the day of its launch, and on average about 50 hits per day each day since.

I still, however, have the same self-criticisms that I've always had about the project.  In an ideal world, I would want a curriculum that does justice to both the pluralist and the cosmopolitan multicultural ideals, never mind that they're mutually exclusive, as I wrote about in August.  But, looking over the resource, I realize that maybe I haven't given Lakota Stories in the Classroom enough credit...  I do mention other cultures besides the Lakota, however superficially.  Not only does one 3-5 social studies unit mention other tribes besides the Lakota, in the very same unit, there's also a geography exercise that uses a map of South America!

In short, I don't think that Lakota Stories in the Classroom is perfect in terms of the American Indian educational ideal in general.  I still don't know quite what that ideal is. But, the videos are way cool, and I hope that the website will help a little bit in terms of keeping the Lakota language (well, truthfully, a select list of 264 important vocabulary words) alive.