Context & Framework

People often ask, “Why tribal colleges?” Well, TCUs are one beneficiary along this continuum. We hope these young ones will find their way into a tribal college to become another leader to replicate a highly positive experience for the young children…. We’re thinking lifelong.

— Tarajean Yazzie-Mintz, Vice President, Program Initiatives, American Indian College Fund

The American Indian College Fund, in collaboration with tribal colleges and universities, engages in early childhood education initiatives that draw upon child development knowledge from within Native communities, melded with the best practices identified in the field of early childhood education. The College Fund and TCUs have been in partnership since 1989, a collaboration initiated and created by the TCUs (TCUs, from within tribal communities, established the College Fund) that has raised funds, implemented programs, and brought resources and knowledge into Native communities, all in the service of empowering tribal communities to address societal, educational, environmental, economic, cultural, and linguistic challenges. The College Fund’s TCU ECE Initiatives are built on several philosophical and strategic principles. Philosophically, the initiatives are guided by a framework focused on five domains of work: Family Engagement, Teacher Quality, Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skill Development, Strengthening of Pre-K to K-3 Transitions, and Incorporation of Native Culture and Language in Teaching, Learning, and Assessment. Strategically, these initiatives incorporate purposes and processes that are focused on the achievement of both immediate, short-term, demonstrable goals, and long-term, sustainable, ongoing outcomes. These purposes and processes include: u Creating a collective strategy for educational transformation u Designing and implementing systems and structures of care and learning u Working from a theory of change that prioritizes strengthening family, teachers, and community engagement u Focusing on critical and foundational areas such as health and wellness, economic security, and culturally-based education, with the purpose of strengthening birth-to-career pathways that ultimately lead to educated children and racial equity u Accessing and building partnerships with both local and national individuals and organizations who can assist communities in achieving their goals for early childhood education

Our family is a part of a community. Our community helps other parents in their successes and support groups in the goodness for each other. Our children have also become friends beyond the classrooms because of our dedication to the initiative….It is always good to share and incorporate children in processes of what lies in their future, it gives them an understanding of what they will do when it comes time for them to be parents. They would be a part of their future children’s lives.

— Parent, Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute

All of this work is built on the principle that Native communities are the best educators of their earliest learners. All of the College Fund’s ECE initiatives provide support, resources, technical assistance, and professional development for Native communities to grow their own early childhood education teachers, centers, curricula, and TCU programs of study. The outcome is that, across different TCU sites in different Native communities, the specific early learning curricula and activities will be unique to each community, based in the community’s language, culture, heritage, traditions, and modes of communication and inquiry.