DHS students learn Oklahoma and native history in new history class
By Trey Owens, Davis High School Principal
Davis High School is constantly looking for ways to improve our educational options and do what is best for the growth of our students. This year, DHS offered a new Social Studies option for our students. The class consists of one semester of local history and one semester of Native American History. The local history class was during the first semester was very interesting for students to research various people, places or stories in and around Davis. This is a very engaging curriculum because of the flexibility we can have and the fact that we can go see and experience the places and talk to the people involved in our local history or traditions.
For the Native American History portion of the class, we reached out to the educational leaders within the Chickasaw Nation. They were very helpful in taking the lead in contacting the 39 tribes across the state of Oklahoma in order to facilitate conversations with them about this project.
This was a large task and with their efforts we were able to get 11 tribes to commit as well as the First Americans Museum in OKC. This is a pilot program in which Davis High School is the first to implement and we anticipate this becoming something that the entire state of Oklahoma and the nation could eventually be a part of.
The idea for this class was to be a very engaging, hands-on type curriculum with the information coming directly from the tribes themselves or their representatives in order to properly articulate their culture and history. The lessons are taught to the students by either information sent from the tribes, a zoom meeting with the presenter or with in person guests on our campus from the tribe. The two week units are broken down to Creation Stories, Tribal History, Tribal Gatherings, Food, Language Reclamation and Tribal Government. We are very excited about this class for our students and look forward to the endless possibilities in which we can take it. 
