Teacher Training Guides in Support of Land Based Curriculum Released

The Tribal Education Departments National Assembly (TEDNA) and the Indian Land Tenure Foundation (ILTF) are pleased to announce the ILTF's land base curriculum, Lessons of Our Land and the supporting teacher implementation guides recently developed by TEDNA and Reinhardt & Associates. Grants are available from ILTF to implement the curriculum in your community, school or organization.

The ILTF curriculum, Lessons of Our Land was developed to offer quality Indian land tenure educational opportunities for Head Start, K-12, college, adult and community education, tribal leaders and Indian landowners. While this curriculum positions Native American tribal issues and values at the forefront, the curriculum framework places emphasis on the fundamental relationship between land and people in general, not just Native Americans. Whether you teach on an Indian reservation or in an urban school with students from many ethnic backgrounds, you will find lessons that are both timely and adaptable for each and every one of these students.

However, the primary goal of this curriculum is for all Indian students to become intellectually reconnected to the land and to internalize its significance to their past, present and future as sovereign and land based peoples. Through this curriculum, Indian allottees, their children and other family members who will inherit their land, and landless tribal members will acquire the knowledge necessary to achieve self-determination through informed and responsible decision making concerning land assets. The ILTF and TEDNA believe that successful implementation of this curriculum is one of the best ways to strengthen Native communities and prevent further loss of Indian lands.

With the assistance of Reinhardt & Associates, TEDNA has developed teacher implementation guides to support the ILTF curriculum in Head Start, K-12, college, adult and community education programs. Grant money is available to communities interested in utilizing the curriculum. For more information simply, send an email to info@tedna.org indicating your interest in learning more about the curriculum. TEDNA will send you the curriculum and the teacher training guides free of charge!

TEDNA is a nonprofit organization that supports Tribal Education Departments; it strives to increase tribal sovereignty over education by improving law and policy and sharing information with our membership. For more information about TEDNA, see www.tedna.org. The ILTF strives to return land within original reservation boundaries or of cultural significance back to tribal ownership. For more information about ILTF, see www.indianlandtenure.org.

Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs (trust lands - Hawaii) was decided on 3/31/09

* U.S. Supreme Court Bulletin - find it at: http://www.narf.org/nill/bulletins/sct/2008-2009update.htm

Wolfchild v. United States featured in U.S. Courts of Appeals Bulletin

This week, we feature a case relating to the Interior Department and trust responsibility to Dakota descendants who were promised land in the late 1800s. U.S. Courts of Appeals Bulletin - find case summaries and links to source documents at: http://www.narf.org/nill/bulletins/cta/currentcta.htm

Wolfchild v. United States (Fiduciary accountability)

*Synopsis: Lineal descendants of Mdewakanton Sioux who were loyal to United States during 1862 Sioux Outbreak in Minnesota brought suit against United States for breach of fiduciary duty and contract in management of property originally provided for benefit of loyal Mdewakanton. The United States Court of Federal Claims, Charles F. Lettow, J., 62 Fed.Cl. 521, ruled that government had breached its fiduciary duties, and government filed interlocutory appeal.

New content posted in the following NILL Indian Law Bulletins

U.S. Supreme Court Bulletin - find it at: http://www.narf.org/nill/bulletins/sct/2008-2009update.htm . Petitions for writ of certiorari were filed in two cases relating to possession of eagle feathers: Friday v. United States and Rodriguez-Martinez v. United States.

U.S. Trial Courts Bulletin - find it at: http://www.narf.org/nill/bulletins/dct/currentdct.htm . This week we feature the Alaska v. Federal Subsistence Board case granting residents of a rural community in Southeast Alaska a customary and traditional use determination (C & T determination) for moose.

News Bulletin - find it at: http://www.narf.org/nill/bulletins/news/currentnews.htm . Check out news stories relating to the federal government turning over federal land to the Pechanga Tribe in California for use as a wildlife preserve.