The American Indian and Alaska Native Early Learning Initiative

Growing and Learning with Native Young Children; Workshops for Teachers, Parents, and Community Leaders

Video An Historic Ingathering: The Rural Early Childhood Forum on American Indian and Alaska Native Early Learning View video (please allow a few moments for the movie to begin playing).

“No one has ever done this!” a leading Native American early childhood educator with forty years of experience exclaimed about Rural Early Childhood’s American Indian and Alaska Native Initiative. That is, no one has brought policy analysis and services research to bear on the needs of young children in America’s far-flung American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

As one of its initial program focuses, the National Center for Rural Early Childhood Learning Initiatives at Mississippi State University, known as Rural Early Childhood, is rectifying that oversight. Through several strategic projects, Rural Early Childhood is working to uncover gaps in services to Native young children and helping Native educators develop culturally appropriate early childhood curricula that will foster preservation of Native languages and culture.

As the first project of this initiative, Rural Early Childhood convened the nation’s leading experts in American Indian and Alaska Native early care and education to discuss the research agenda developed in response to White House Executive Order 13096 of 1998. Rural Early Childhood held the forum in collaboration with The Pennsylvania State University, July 28-29, 2005, at the William J. Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Ark.

For more information about this initiative, contact:
Nicole L. Thompson, Ph.D. (Menominee/Mohican), Assistant Professor and Coordinator
American Indian and Alaska Native Initiative
Rural Early Childhood
Mississippi State University
P.O. Box 6013
Mississippi State, MS  39762
Nt65@colled.msstate.edu

 

46 Blackjack Road / P.O. Box 6013 / Mississippi State, MS / 39762

Contact Rural Early Childhood with questions about the Rural Early Childhood site.
© 2004- Mississippi State University

The contents of this web site were developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.