+ DO present Native peoples as appropriate role models with whom a Native child can identify.
+ DO look for books and materials written and illustrated by Native people.
+ DO avoid arts and crafts and activities that trivialize Native dress, dance, or ceremony.
+ DO make sure you know the history of Native peoples, past and present, before you attempt to teach it.
+ DO present Native peoples as separate from each other, with unique cultures, languages, spiritual beliefs, and dress.
+ DO teach Native history as a regular part of American history.
+ DO use materials which put history in perspective.
+ DO use materials which present Native heros who fought to defend their own people.
+ DO discuss the relationship between Native peoples and the colonists and what went wrong with it.
+ DO use materials which show respect for, and understanding of, the sophistication and complexities of Native societies.
+ DO use materials which show the continuity of Native societies, with traditional values and spiritual beliefs connected to the present.
+ DO use respectful language in teaching about Native peoples.
+ DO portray Native societies as coexisting with nature in a delicate balance.
+ DO use primary source material-speeches, songs, poems, writings-that show the linguistic skill of peoples who come from an oral tradition.
+ DO use materials which show Native women, Elders, and children as integral and important to Native societies.
+ DO talk about the lives of Native peoples in the present.
+ DO read and discuss good poetry, suitable for young people, by contemporary Native writers.
+ DO invite Native community members to the classroom.
+ DO offer them an honorarium. Treat them as teachers, not as entertainers.
+ DON'T single out Native children, ask them to describe their families' traditions, or their people's cultures.
+ DON'T assume that you have no Native children in your class.
+ DON'T do or say anything that would embarrass a Native child.
+ DON'T use counting books that count "Indians."
+ DON'T use story books with characters like "Indian Two Feet" or "Little Chief."
+ DON'T use books that show Native peoples as savages, primitive crafts people, or simple tribal people, now extinct.
+ DON'T have children dress up as "Indians," with paper-bag "costumes" or paper-feather "headdresses."
+ DON'T sing "Ten Little Indians."
+ DON'T let children do "war whoops."
+ DON'T let children play with artifacts borrowed from a library or museum.
+ DON'T have them make "Indian crafts" unless you know authentic methods and have authentic materials.
+ DON'T teach "Indians" only at Thanksgiving.
+ DON'T use materials which manipulate words like "victory," "conquest," or "massacre" to distort history.
+ DON'T use materials which present as heroes only those Native people who aided Europeans.
+ DON'T speak as though "the Indians" were here only for the benefit of the colonists.
+ DON'T make charts about "gifts the Indians gave us."
+ DON'T use materials that stress the superiority of European ways, and the inevitability of European conquest.
+ DON'T refer to Native spirituality as "supersition."
+ DON'T make up Indian "legends" or "ceremonies."
+ DON'T encourage children to do "Indian" dances.
+ DON'T use insulting terms such as "brave," "squaw," "papoose," "Indian givers," "wild Indians," "blanket Indians," or "wagon burners."
+ DON'T portray Native peoples as "the first ecologists."
+ DON'T use books in which "Indian" characters speak in either "early jawbreaker" or in the oratorical style of the "noble savage."
+ DON'T use books which portray Native women and Elders as subservient to warriors.
+ DON'T assume that every Native person knows everything there is to know about every Native Nation.