Making Assessment Practices Valid for Indigenous American Students

When did the test writers realize the assessments written by outsiders are not valid for Indigenous people? I remember taking the CAT test when I was in third grade. I vividly remember filling in any answer to questions I wasn’t familiar with. One of the questions was on where papers came from, and I didn’t know the answer, and it was culturally biased. I don’t remember my teachers teaching this concept. The judgment of the test writers was not valid to the funds of knowledge I grew up with, so was the socioculture. This test was aimed for students who grew up in the Lower 48. This assessment did not agree with the curriculum and the instruction I received growing up. The assessment did not take into consideration of my language proficiency of English. This is the same case for the high stakes tests students currently take.

It is true that many of us Indigenous people grew up by observing before we performed our knowledge. It may take years to be confident to perform what we know, and it reminds me of Walkie’s “Only when their ready.” (It would be great to have him do a presentation on it.) This is unlike the school culture where teachers decide when their ready, probably mainly because of NCLB. Despite the legislation, we continue to educate our students of our culture mainly in the primary grades. Each day Ayaprun Elitnaurvik recites Yuuyaraq, although the students do not understand exactly what it means. We hope that as their lives go on, they'll begin to understand the meaning when they meet it. Like, only when their ready. We continue to feel the pressure to make AYP every year. Ever since this law was passed, our school has been more focused on reading, writing, and math. Before this law was passed, the Kindergartner’s were mainly taught the Yugtun oral language. This is unfortunate their more focused on SBA's now.

The current assessments that I do are not culturally relevant, even though they try to include cultural relevant pictures. These assessments were translated into Yugtun using the English SBA assessments, although some of the assessments are not par to the GLE’s.

As schools of Indigenous students, we need to become multimodal teachers, and assess them by implementing their funds of knowledge. Implementing Demmert’s finding, as well as the researchers on culture-based curriculum could do this. When I read this part, it was complicated for me to picture this in the classroom. I have become so intoned to how assessments are done in school.

After reading this article, I am curious to view a rubric that the Navajo Indians used. Where can I find it?