Culture and Curriculum: The Story of Growing Ute Futures Part 1

Keynotes: Stories of Collective Impact

In 2020, at the direction of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Council, educators, and families, Keystone Policy Center began facilitating strategic planning to develop an innovative, culturally-based education system for students and their families on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation. A central pillar of this plan was integrating Ute arts, language, and culture into all levels of education, embedded within a curriculum that focused on science, technology, engineering, (Native) arts, and math. The project that eventually emerged became known as Growing Ute Futures, and it aims to provide an innovative, student-focused model of learning and support for all students of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. But to understand the monumental task this education-centered initiative would be, we first have to revisit the history of education for American Indian and Indigenous children in this country. In this first of a four-part series, we outline the grim realities faced by Indigenous children who were forcibly removed from their families and cultural environments to attend federally run boarding schools and how the culture of assimilation continued even when the boarding schools ended.

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