Powhatan High teacher Jane Brown developed Exploring the Powhatans: Past and Present as a project that integrates a wide range of subjects to explore the history, culture and contemporary lives of the Mattaponi Powhatan. Made possible by a 2010 Partners in the Arts’ Engaging Creative Thinkers (ECT) Award, this interdisciplinary project engaged students at all grade levels in Powhatan County Public Schools.
Engaging All Levels
For example, Kindergarten students learned about Virginia First Americans’ dance and music in their physical education classes. Early Childhood Education students from Powhatan High will work with the Kindergartners and their teachers, and then develop lesson plans for their internships. Middle school students will learn about Mattaponi tool-making and food preparation as part of their Social Studies classes, and art students will work with a First American artist to create, literally from the ground up, pottery using the county’s red clay and the historic techniques and designs of the Powhatan. Students will also build a long house and create a dug-out canoe. All of these activities will convey the traditions, values and experiences of Virginia’s indigenous peoples.
Sharing a Piece of History
At a presentation at Powhatan High, Dr. Lin “Little Bear” Custalow opened the presentation to 400 students by explaining why the term First American is preferred. Indians are people who live in another part of the world, and he asked the students to take the responsibility not only of using the correct term but encouraging others to do so as well. Dr. Custalow has a great responsibility himself: as the son of Mattaponi Chief Daniel Webster “Little Eagle” Custalow, Dr. Custalow was charged at a young age with learning and maintaining the oral history of the Mattaponi.
Dr. Custalow and anthropologist Angela L. Daniel, who was given the honorary name “Silver Star” by Dr. Custalow’s father, wrote the book, The True Story of Pocahontas. Ms. Daniel presented an overview of “The Powhatan Perspective of History” and then she and Dr. Custalow took questions from the audience.
The young audience was incredibly polite, well-spoken, and respectful. As Ms. Brown said at the end of the presentation, the students had just had “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hear oral history” passed down to them. There is no doubt that the students of Powhatan County Public Schools understood and appreciated the significance of this experience.
Partners in the Arts (PIA) awarded Engaging Creative Thinkers (ECT) grants to teachers from 1994 to 2021. These grants made possible over 200 innovative, interdisciplinary projects in Richmond area schools. Since then, the PIA consortium has supported both educator professional development and in-school project implementation through the Joan Oates Institute for Integrated Learning.
The ECT Awards provided opportunities for teachers to reach all students across content areas, while developing critical thinking, creative thinking, collaboration, communication, and citizenship, preparing students to be “life ready.” ECT projects engaged a class, grade-level or whole school to connecting teachers, students, families, and the community.
