The U’s American West Center is teaming up with the Utah Division of Indian Affairs in hopes that the introduction of a new curriculum will mean success in its fight for advances in Utah American Indian history education.
At the beginning of Fall Semester, the institute launched its Utah Indian Curriculum Guide, which is a program placed in all of Utah’s public and private secondary schools, aimed at teaching American Indian history in a completely different way.
“This program has been a great effort in recovering the history of the native Utah tribes,” said Matthew Basso, director of the institute. “So far, we have been getting great feedback from the state’s K-12 educators.”
The program provides a handbook filled with more than 40 years of research and interpretations provided by the institute’s more comprehensive research, including oral histories with tribe elders, photos and maps not previously available. The information has also been digitized and made available on its website, www.utahindians.org.
The curriculum guide was a collaboration between not only faculty and leaders of the institute, but also a group of U graduate and undergraduate students composed of both American Indian and white students. Basso said the program has also received help and cooperation from the multiple tribes throughout Utah.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 40,445 American Indians in Utah as of 2000, the most recent year the census was taken. American Indians make up nearly 2 percent of the total Utah population, but constitute a large piece of the state’s history.
There are high hopes that this program will be a model for other types of educational guides to follow.
“I think this program has the potential to revolutionize the way social studies is taught in the state of Utah,” Basso said.