Racial Equity and Justice Initiative
There are more than 460,000 Cherokee Nation citizens in the world, but only about 2,000 are fluent Cherokee speakers — and most are over 70 years old.
“Our language is very ancient, but it holds the keys to the future and where we want to go,” says Deputy Principal Chief Bryan Warner of the Cherokee Nation. “If you get to that last fluent language speaker and that person passes, you can hear a way of life ending. That is something we do not want to see here.”
To help keep the Cherokee language alive, the Cherokee Immersion Charter School opened in 2002. The Oklahoma school teaches math, music, and other subjects to kindergarten through eighth-grade students in their ancestral language. Though many students have parents and grandparents who were precluded from speaking Cherokee because of assimilation policies, at the Cherokee school, students speak their native language freely and proudly.
Many of these same students become fluent Cherokee speakers and continue their studies at Sequoyah High School, where they focus on science, technology, research, engineering, arts, and math (STREAM). They are also encouraged to tell stories about their culture. Dana Cochran, a science teacher at Sequoyah High School, says, “Storytelling is an important part of our culture. It helps create context. And culturally, as Indigenous people, so much of our knowledge is passed down from generation to generation.”
Another way Sequoyah students are preserving and sharing their language is through podcasting. In after-school classes, they learn how to use GarageBand to produce stories about their culture, interests, and other topics.
We love to see different cultures and to learn about them — it’s also important for people to have the opportunity to learn about ours, and for students to be understood,” says Melissa Fourkiller, a STREAM teacher at Sequoyah High School.
To support both schools, Apple donates iPad and Mac devices. And Apple’s Community Education Initiative team hosts onsite trainings to share the powerful creative capabilities of these devices, so educators can empower and inspire students to share their culture in new and innovative ways. “If we don’t tell our stories, they will be lost forever and our culture will be forgotten,” says River Koch, a senior at Sequoyah High School. “But with these technologies, we can share our Nation’s story with the world and keep our Nation going.”
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