Lakota Pearl Pochedley (Shishibéniyek Bodwéwadmik) is the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (THPO) for the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians (also known as the Gun Lake Tribe). She is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation located in Shawnee, Oklahoma. In 2013, Lakota graduated from Columbia University with a bachelor’s degree in sociocultural anthropology and ethnicity and race studies with a specialization in Native American studies. During this time, she had the opportunity to work with a pre-K literacy Program, AmeriCorps Jumpstart, as a corps member and
Public schools are an ideal and vital mechanism for achieving a thriving democracy. This is the first of three articles on public schools as a common good, which explore the possibilities and threats to public education.
Students learn about the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans from people who lived through it. This video depicts how students use metaphorical thinking to deepen their understanding using the thinking routine, Color-Symbol-Image.
“Padam and Purna were forced from their homeland in Bhutan and trapped in camps in Nepal for decades before being resettled in an alien land: Clarkston, Georgia. The refugees have found some stability, but still feel frustrated and uprooted, which leads to domestic violence and suicide in the refugee community. Padam and Purna realized that familiar food is the first step to feeling at home. They have opened a food store and other refugee-run businesses, which offer safe spaces and sources of mutual support for all the Asian refugees in Clarkston, who are united by their experience of trauma.”
“Zindy is a Mexican immigrant and domestic abuse survivor who lives with her five children at an isolated Atlanta-area trailer park. She notices that other park residents — immigrants from Mexico and Central America — struggle with the same issues she does, such as English fluency, reluctance to trust others, and limited access to education and other services. Zindy views their shared isolation as an opportunity and unites mothers in the community with similar cultural norms and practices — not to address shared problems, like domestic abuse, but to realize their common dreams for their children. This is the story of how they forged cultural ties and mutual trust, and the confidence to seek outside help in creating an escuelita (“little school”).”