And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
(c) 1998 Cate Montana Today staff
http://www.indiancountry.com/NW25.html
Talking circle works to instill tradition in
juvenile offenders
By Cate Montana
Today staff
Northwest Bureau
CHEHALIS, Wash. - They sit in a circle that isn't a circle. Sometimes they
talk, sometimes they don't. With a video camera recording the meeting and a
reporter for distraction there are plenty of excuses for being uncomfortable.
But the seven participants in the weekly Native American talking circle at
Green Hill School, a maximum security juvenile corrections facility, are
after all, young men.
The simple relief of being out of the confines of their rooms, plus
"outside" food - chips,
bologna, Italian bread, berry pies and soft drinks - loosens things up.
They eat and cut up a bit. Their laughter and the sage and sweetgrass
burning in the clay bowl at the end of the table bring life to an otherwise
sterile room with beige tile walls and locked doors.
About an hour after the first stilted introductions, the circle slowly jells.
"When we come together this way," prompts facilitator Marlene Davis, "We're
practicing the
laws of the land. Not the laws of this government. But the laws of the
land. This is the European substitution for your laws ... In order to stay
out of our four square you have to able to go out into the open circle and
make yourself strong again."
Pausing for a moment, she picks up the eagle feather and wafts smoke
skyward. "If you weren't here, would you be listening to something like
this now?"
The boys are quiet for a moment. Then Justin, the new leader of the group,
sums up the group's answer. "Naw," he says with a shake of his head. "I'd
probably be out drunk somewhere."
Some laugh in agreement. Some nod. That has been the way for all of them in
the past. Now, breaking the cycle of that past is why they're here. It's
what the talking circle is all about.
Started in 1995 by Davis, a state worker, volunteer and member of the Gros
Ventre,
Assiniboine, and Arapaho tribes, the circle came to Green Hill when a young
man Davis
worked with in another facility was released. Placed in Green Hill after
further problems, he
asked his mother to contact Davis to start a program there. After receiving
an enthusiastic
go-ahead from Superintendent Art Schmidt, she started the group called,
appropriately enough, "Coming Together."
With the help of a native staff person, the young men built a sweat lodge.
Wood was donated and hauled by a local tribesman. A Nisqually volunteer
brought huckleberry pies and salmon from the Nisqually River so the young
men could have their own kind of food. Slowly, bonds were formed. Real
changes, subtle changes, started to take place.
"I've seen these kids do so good and it's like their thinking has changed,"
Davis says proudly ...
"They're different. They're young men. They're not children, just going out
and getting in trouble anymore. They don't talk like that anymore. They
talk as if they're young men preparing themselves to take a life in a good
way."
"The right support changes thinking," agrees Schmidt, who says he tries to
make things as
"normal" as possible for students in an otherwise completely unnatural
situation. "That's one of the programs you can do that with - especially
with the young guys."
Unfortunately the talking circle, the prayers, the smudging, the sweats and
the nurturing concern aren't necessarily "normal" for the Native American
students at Green Hill. If they were, points out Davis, they would have had
a better chance of staying out of trouble in the first place.
"It's so new to them," she says. "They've never had support like this -
somebody sitting with
them, caring about them, talking with them, having regular meetings with
them all the time ...
Most start around seventh grade getting in trouble and then they keep
following that path and they give up.
"These children are (mostly) third generation urbanite reservation Indians
who moved off the
reservation and who do not practice their tradition and culture ... If they
were getting this they probably wouldn't be incarcerated. They would be
living a different kind of life - a normal life."
Learning traditional ways in a correctional environment is not easy. The
sweat lodge itself is
subject to being moved when necessary, and now, with a $35 million facility
renovation
underway, has had to be taken down completely until next spring.
The second smallest population in the school, after Asian students, the
young men say they are often verbally harassed about the sweats and other
activities by fellow students. And, no matter how much in favor of the
program it might be, a concerned administration trying to instill social
cohesion among a widely diverse group of offenders can't afford to overtly
promote activities for a single ethnic minority.
But most difficult of all, maintains Davis, is sustaining programs like
this with a lack of native
volunteers. When the native Green Hill staffer left and Marlene got sick,
the program faded into obscurity until her return. A similar program run by
a non-native Native American volunteer at Maple Lane, another juvenile
facility, just doesn't draw the youth.
Another thing that makes getting volunteers difficult is the diverse tribal
enrollment at Green Hill.
Most of the native juvenile offenders come from tribes and towns located
all over the state.
Few, if any, are from tribes immediate to the I-5 corridor between Seattle
and Portland, Ore.,
where the school is located. With rare exception, she says, few volunteers
seem willing to
support those who are not their own.
Barrie Maxey, assistant superintendent and another proponent of the
program, concurs. "In my personal experience they don't show up," he said.
"The majority (of students) come from a spread-out area and that's a hard
draw for the local base. How do you go and knock on the
Tullalip or the Lummi's door and say, ‘come?'"
But the measure of the success of the program isn't how easy it is to
maintain or develop: It is the impact it has on the young men who
participate.
Though some are quiet and withdrawn, some boisterous and given to mild
horseplay, the group is generally well mannered. There is none of the usual
one-up, cocky, gang-style hierarchy dynamics going on.
"We have our little rules of respect - respecting each other and talking in
a good way in our
meetings," says Davis. "No cussing allowed, no disrespectful words, only
good words. No put downs, no gang talk, no challenging."
Sonny, an Apache youth who has been at Green Hill for three years, agrees
that the group is a world apart from the usual goings on at the
correctional facility.
"We respect each other a lot in here," he says, looking around at the other
group members.
"We do hands-on things. We have to cut the wood keep the lodge in good
condition. We keep each other in line and it gives us responsibility. No
other group has meetings like this.
"Here we can speak and laugh and have fun. We're just really into our
traditions now, whereas before we didn't know who we really are. Now I
understand and I'm proud to be in this group."
<<END EXCERPT (c) 1998 Indian Country Today
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
distributed without profit or payment
...http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
`"` `"` `"` `"` `"` `"`
