The Seven Virtues with Scott Davis

No that’s a good one because and that goes back to you how important this is such an understanding is not just for students but for teachers I’ve used this curriculum in my work with law enforcement on cultural competency as they call it or you know I mean there’s a lot of words for teaching culture to another group of people right and so I’ve used this in my in my in my sessions and you know nuances behaviors history protocols you know so when you’re working with tribal people in any in business and you know law enforcement health care and we worked with hospitals you know on just the basics of how of how some of the nuances and history and thinking and so forth of and then the difference is that and the similar similarities of we as Native American people but so again this is much bigger than that but what’s contemporary I think is is much needed I mean and maybe it took a pipeline and I’m in a movement to re-energize treaties and rights and so forth but that energy needs to continue you know not only back home but here and across America but it has to be done in a very proactive way you know I think there’s always a time and place for a protest and a march and so forth but if you’re not talking to the powers-that-be who have the power to change legislation to enact legislation or to fund something then really what were your efforts going or if you’re just using technology and social media just to blog about it to write about it to Facebook about it and everything’s up in a cloud it’s like you know great that’s great that you have a lot of phones and people are liking it liking it but are you but are you winning you know are you are you sitting down the tables and talking about a curriculum you know and that’s and that’s and that’s why this is such a big thing because it took time to convince people like what do you mean when we’re gonna do what rewrite history we’re gonna teach what you know yeah but we did it in a good way because I always think about think about what you’re what you’re what you’re trying to change here to me it’s a sacred you know when you talk about our history our treaties you know sometimes our customs you know those are really sacred things and when you talk about them you have to talk about it them in a good way because if you don’t you know nine out of ten times it’s it’s it’s it’s not going to happen and that’s a night that was topping my father you know and to do these things in a good way and it takes so you know it takes those seven virtues you know that we taught you know you know you gotta have patience you gotta have courage you know you gotta have fortitude you gotta bravery you got a prayer you gotta have forgiveness you gotta have love to make these things work and when you do that you know chances are you really succeed you know here’s an here’s example of that but when you have an emotion behind that and you’re mad about something and probably the bigger one of the west side from this probably one of the biggest policies that we change here locally was wearing the eagle feather and plume you know if you look at that picture you know this picture right here that’s a big deal to me I mean maybe just some people it was like yeah you know well whatever but every year during graduation families would call the office and call Lucy’s office and say hey how come the school doesn’t allow my child to wear their eagle feather or their plume for the women for the girls and you know and I got it I said yeah well let’s talk about that so we sat down and brought elders in and brought people veterans in who have the right - to keep eagle feathers and to have the right to give eagle feathers out they have that right I don’t have that right never given that right and we educated the principals of superintendents about here’s here’s here’s what this means to us and that was a first step we didn’t talk about you know you need to you know you know just you know we didn’t we didn’t report you why because think about what we’re talking about here we’re talking about a you go feather here something that’s very sacred to us you know for me we’re in my you go further I don’t wear it every day obviously I will I’ve only worn my eagle feather twice when I got married and when I graduated from college the only time and that’s that’s that’s the way I was taught you know so when somebody in their family does a great deed of graduation and maybe some of these kids were first-time graduates in their family that’s a big deal and that custom has been you know passed down for thousands of years you know of you know your injury go feather now you’re injured plume you know and now you graduate from high school where you go feather your plume with pride you know be proud of what you did you earned it to me that’s that’s the true sovereignty of our people is when you’d really earn something and in your education especially so this policy has always been a big deal to me it took time but what we did was we took the emotion away out of it and and I and I can remember when the superintendent and the leaders the powers-that-be said oh I understand oh okay well school board went to the school board uimous now Grand Forks did the same thing but every May September and when graduation starts coming around you’ll see it you know somebody’s boycotting somebody’s in court you know somebody’s you know doing something they’re mad not up here you know and these are good examples of how you can do things you know and making passing legislation in the betterment for our kids so I’m proud of that