Official JAG competency wording: Apply critical thinking skills
Category: Life Survival
Source themes: problem-solving, reasoning, analysis
Source: JAG Competencies Descriptions.docx.
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Reviewed OSEU and Wolakota interview connections
G41 — Apply critical thinking skills
Explore G41 · Who Gets to Tell the Story - Joseph Marshall III - OSEU 5 · OSEU 5
Reviewed teaching connection (Supporting): Joseph Marshall III describes comparing oral accounts with archaeological evidence. This offers a source-grounded context for reasoning, checking claims, and evaluating conclusions; the historical account remains attributed to him.
Updated for Proposed August 9, 2024: Comparing oral histories with outsiders’ written histories directly supports revised 5.3. Original JAG–interview approval retained.
And it gets back to who's in control. It's that simple. Who gets to write the books, who gets to tell the stories now, that's called our history. And I think a good example is something that happened at the Little Bighorn Battlefield in 1983, 1984. Up to that point, the white historians had a tendency, a strong tendency, to go along with or discount some of the oral stories that our side told about how the battle progressed and how it came, you know, how it ended. The famous last stand where Custer and the 7th Cavalry went out with a blaze of glory, both guns blazing as it were. In 83 and 84, there were grass fires that went through that area. And officially, there's only two sites that are designated, one on the far south and one on the north side where the visitor center is and then there's a site on the bluffs above the river. And if you've ever been there, the river just meanders and it's flat river bottom on one side and big hills on the other side. But the grass fire went through there. And what it did was uncover a lot of metal artifacts, belt buckles, boot buckles, shell casings, round lead balls, all kinds of things. And archaeologists went in there and cataloged every one of those things. And there were hundreds of them, maybe even thousands. And they located, they carefully recorded what each one was, where it was, and they spent a lot of time doing that. And then they identified what each of those artifacts were. An incoming round ball was usually an Indian, from an Indian weapon, because the cavalry was using a specific kind of weapon that could be easily identifiable. So they could tell what might have been an outgoing fire and incoming fire at any given area. And as they did their research and as they correlated all that information and then compared it to the military version of the battle and the Lakota Cheyenne version of the battle, they found out that the artifact distribution coincided more, much more, with the Lakota Cheyenne version of the battle. And it really gave that oral story, that oral sense of our way we're keeping our stories and our history much more credibility in our eyes. It's still an uphill struggle, but it's, you know, no system is infallible. But it was still, it still worked, because we, you know, that discovery of the artifacts just affirmed what our ancestors have been telling us all these years. So oral history is important. I mean, it should still be an important part of the process, and now it should be, start with the family, saying, okay, this is who we are as your parents, and this is who your grandparents are on both sides. Doesn't matter how you feel about them or whatever, this is who we are. This is where we came from. This is what they did for a living. They were in the Army, they were in the Navy, whatever they did, they were school teachers, whatever. Go back as far as you can, because that's the easiest way to give that child that sense of identity and that footing so that you can walk with that knowledge all the time. And that's where oral history can really, really serve a purpose. It's not just for the collective, it's more for the individual, or should be.
Learn About: What evidence does Joseph Marshall III describe, and how was it compared with different accounts?
Learn From: When accounts disagree, what evidence would you want before making a conclusion?
05 Wolakota Project Video Transcripts and URLs.docx · WP-0143; video x_DEYcLoxuY; passage containing: they carefully recorded what each one was, where it was. Teaching interpretation is separate from official wording and the interviewee’s account.
G41 — Apply critical thinking skills
Explore G41 · Stewardship of Mother Earth - Dr. Sherry Johnson & Dr. Nadine Eastman - OSEU #1 · OSEU 1
Reviewed teaching connection (Supporting): The speakers distinguish stewardship from ownership and connect care for land with future generations. This offers a shared-responsibility case for thoughtful choices. Scientific claims in the interview remain attributed statements, not newly verified findings.
Updated for Proposed August 9, 2024: Communal stewardship moved from former 1.2 to revised 1.3; treaty impacts are now 1.2. Original JAG–interview approval retained.
Dr. Sherry Johnson: In this day and age of our oceans… with their increase in their temperatures… the strange behaviors of our sharks in the ocean… because of that… as a result of that, we need to take that kind of stewardship of our Mother Earth more important now. And that's a basis of all of our teaching. It should be a basis of all of our teaching… because this is we're taking care of what are going to last for our future is what our children are going to have to look at… have to work with. Dr. Nadine Eastman: And I think if this is taught in across the state of South Dakota, there would be a bigger understanding of why some native people and native students feel so connected to Mother Earth, and why taking care of it is important. And really why historically, we weren't land grabbers… and we had an opportunity where a lot of natives could have ended up with a lot more land. But they didn't… because it wasn't about ownership. It was about stewardship, and it was about taking care of it together. And it belonged to everybody, and it belonged to no one, you know. And so, they could learn about that historical perspective.
Learn About: How do Dr. Sherry Johnson and Dr. Nadine Eastman distinguish stewardship from ownership?
Learn From: What effects on other people or future users would you consider before changing a shared resource?
05 Wolakota Project Video Transcripts and URLs.docx · WP-0085; video mDpJfPoIosA; passage containing: It was about stewardship, and it was about taking care of it together.. Teaching interpretation is separate from official wording and the interviewee’s account.
G41 — Apply critical thinking skills
Explore G41 · Appreciating Multiple Versions of Stories - Jace DeCory - OSEU 5 · OSEU 5
Reviewed teaching connection (Supporting): Students can compare the source, purpose, and context of different accounts. DeCory’s explanation encourages inquiry; it does not remove the need to evaluate evidence for historical claims.
Updated for Proposed August 9, 2024: The revised standard retains the meaning supported by the cited interview passage. Original JAG–interview approval retained.
It's another way of looking at whatever that is. And so I say, don't be confused, because this is the teachings of this person. This is my teaching. And they're both right.
Learn About: How does DeCory explain different versions of teachings?
Learn From: How could you listen to a different account without immediately dismissing it?
05 Wolakota Project Video Transcripts and URLs.docx · WP-0178 · video ID 8SDk31URrwU · cited transcript passage. Teaching interpretation is separate from official wording and the interviewee’s account.
G41 — Apply critical thinking skills
Explore G41 · What is Your Chapter Going to Say - Duane Hollow Horn Bear - Storytelling · OSEU 5
Reviewed teaching connection (Supporting): Hollow Horn Bear describes learning step by step and his grandmother asking him to understand how the curtains were assembled before taking them down. This supports G41 by inviting students to examine how a task works before acting.
Updated for Proposed August 9, 2024: New connection to the overall current understanding. No specific OSEU standard alignment is claimed. Original JAG–interview approval retained.
To encourage. My relatives. Into homeland. After Homeland and even those that perhaps are incarcerated because of the lack of knowledge of their own history. History. That's the starting point. That's the starting point is to go back to the basics first and realize why I was born in this culture? Who am I? Begin with knowing your history first and taking it step by step by step. Learning. I believe you don't want to try to grab everything all at once and say, okay, I got it down. No, you got to begin to live it. You gotta start to practice it. Knowing your history. From the beginning. Where did Native people come from? The creation story. The creation story. The social system. The spiritual system. Slowly take these a little bit at a time. I think that's a starting point.
Learn About: What details in this passage support the speaker’s account of reflective learning? What would you need to hear in the full interview before interpreting it?
Learn From: How could you examine how a task works before acting? Use a fictional or classroom example if you prefer, and explain which part of the speaker’s account informed your approach.
05 Wolakota Project Video Transcripts and URLs.docx · WP-0002; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZzQwShp20A; opening passage. Teaching interpretation is separate from official wording and the interviewee’s account.
G41 — Apply critical thinking skills
Explore G41 · Oral Tradition- Victor Douville - OSEU #5 · OSEU 5
Reviewed teaching connection (Supporting): Victor Douville describes revising his approach to balance oral tradition and written learning and attending to language meanings. This supports G41 by inviting students to compare how different sources convey knowledge.
Updated for Proposed August 9, 2024: New connection to the overall current understanding. No specific OSEU standard alignment is claimed. Original JAG–interview approval retained.
Oral tradition is one of the things I grew up with. My intention was to learn as much oral tradition as I could. And I found that also once I learned about that, then I'll go to the next step, which is to look at the other side, which is the written side, which is reading books to be able to balance those. The first mistake I made was to rely on written sources. When I was going to school, I read when I came to teach at the university in 1970. And by 1980, I began to realize that I'm going about it the wrong way. I should be able to set the oral source as the foremost. I've been doing the other one, written sources. I couldn't find any written sources back then, so I switched the other way and found that oral sources also lead to interpreting words, semantics and etymology, which is looking at the root words. And there you can find the true meaning of it.
Learn About: What details in this passage support the speaker’s account of oral and written knowledge? What would you need to hear in the full interview before interpreting it?
Learn From: How could you compare how different sources convey knowledge? Use a fictional or classroom example if you prefer, and explain which part of the speaker’s account informed your approach.
05 Wolakota Project Video Transcripts and URLs.docx · WP-0028; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vuk8Lzojaj0; opening passage. Teaching interpretation is separate from official wording and the interviewee’s account.
G41 — Apply critical thinking skills
Explore G41 · More Valuable than Money - Victor Douville - OSEU #6 · OSEU 6
Reviewed teaching connection (Supporting): Victor Douville contrasts tribal and government perspectives on treaties and describes education in relation to land exchange. This supports G41 by inviting students to compare perspectives before drawing conclusions.
Updated for Proposed August 9, 2024: New connection to the overall current understanding. No specific OSEU standard alignment is claimed. Original JAG–interview approval retained.
The student must know the content, as we understood them, not as the government understood them. Because when the treaties were first made, that's what the government said. The court said they have to understand the meaning from the tribal's perspective, not from the government. They reneged on that. So now we have to know the contents of them and find out how we're funded. Because we had to give up about 100 million acres, but we brought them to court, our initial lawyer that handled Black Hills case, and then the 40 acres of unceded Indian country, that they gave away 40 million acres in order to get us on DACA for 60 million. So we have to understand that, how those treaties progressed, and what do we get from them? We get education. We get a lump sum for that. And for every 100 people, we should get a doctor. And then for every 40 students, we should get a classroom.
Learn About: What details in this passage support the speaker’s account of treaty perspectives? What would you need to hear in the full interview before interpreting it?
Learn From: How could you compare perspectives before drawing conclusions? Use a fictional or classroom example if you prefer, and explain which part of the speaker’s account informed your approach.
05 Wolakota Project Video Transcripts and URLs.docx · WP-0032; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KNlQKQtR8A; opening passage. Teaching interpretation is separate from official wording and the interviewee’s account.
G41 — Apply critical thinking skills
Explore G41 · Modern Conveniences - Irene Eagle Thunder-Skunk - OSEU 7 · OSEU 2
Reviewed teaching connection (Supporting): Irene Eagle Thunder Skunk compares remembered everyday life with newer transportation, payment, and household conveniences. This supports G41 by inviting students to distinguish personal recollection from broad claims.
Updated for Proposed August 9, 2024: New connection to the overall current understanding. No specific OSEU standard alignment is claimed. Original JAG–interview approval retained.
But when we were, you know, when we were kids, now people, I've been saying that when my kids come back from college, I was telling them, my grandkids, I said, now when people want to go someplace, they have a brand new car and they have cash cards and everything, they jump in there and they go wherever they want to go. Back in the days, we have to travel from our nation to Lord Blue. In the wintertime, in that wagon, our mom and dad and grandma and grandpa and us kids, and I said, we didn't, back in the days, there was no, everything was home cooked at home. We had cows and chickens and like that, you know, so we have our own milk and stuff. And our mom, my grandma, bakes bread and then we always have oatmeal and cornmeal, no such a thing as eggs or toast. We didn't have a refrigerator, we didn't have any lights, but we used the lantern.
Learn About: What details in this passage support the speaker’s account of change across generations? What would you need to hear in the full interview before interpreting it?
Learn From: How could you distinguish personal recollection from broad claims? Use a fictional or classroom example if you prefer, and explain which part of the speaker’s account informed your approach.
05 Wolakota Project Video Transcripts and URLs.docx · WP-0053; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4wA1bhyvcA; opening passage. Teaching interpretation is separate from official wording and the interviewee’s account.
G41 — Apply critical thinking skills
Explore G41 · Pick-Sloan Act & Loss of Honesty - Vernon Ashley - OSEU #6 · OSEU 6
Reviewed teaching connection (Supporting): Vernon Ashley describes land losses, tribal leadership, government formation, and seeking legal expertise. This supports G41 by inviting students to ask what evidence and expertise a public decision requires.
Updated for Proposed August 9, 2024: New connection to the overall current understanding. No specific OSEU standard alignment is claimed. Original JAG–interview approval retained.
While I was in the service from 1942 to 1946, in 1943, the Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Indian Affairs went to me before Congress to explain to him what the Pick's long plan was to do, to harness the Missouri and build these earthen dams and inundate thousands of acres of land. But the general of the Corps of Engineers was Pick, and he was a stubborn guy, and so he said, we don't have to contact the tribes, we'll take their land by condemnation. That all these things I faced when I came back from, that was in 1943, so I was discharged in 1946, and then went into tribal leadership role, and faced all these big problems. And the first thing, we had to form a government.
Learn About: What details in this passage support the speaker’s account of honesty and public responsibility? What would you need to hear in the full interview before interpreting it?
Learn From: How could you ask what evidence and expertise a public decision requires? Use a fictional or classroom example if you prefer, and explain which part of the speaker’s account informed your approach.
05 Wolakota Project Video Transcripts and URLs.docx · WP-0069; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOoTVjNEbf4; opening passage. Teaching interpretation is separate from official wording and the interviewee’s account.
G41 — Apply critical thinking skills
Explore G41 · Addressing Misconceptions - Dr. Sherry Johnson & Dr. Nadine Eastman - OSEU #7 · OSEU 2
Reviewed teaching connection (Supporting): Sherry Johnson and Nadine Eastman challenge assumptions about government checks and generalizations from a few tribes to all Native people. This supports G41 by inviting students to question assumptions before drawing conclusions.
Updated for Proposed August 9, 2024: New connection to the overall current understanding. No specific OSEU standard alignment is claimed. Original JAG–interview approval retained.
How we ended up all where we are at, how some of our initial tribal members ended up in Canada, how some people ended up in Pearl Creek, and just the push from the federal side, how all of that occurred. So that's our real history and where we ended up migrating and being pushed. And it also, I think if people in, all the students in the state had an understanding, a better understanding, they wouldn't think, first of all, that we get free money, because all of us went to school, and I'm telling you, some nonnative students would say, you get money every month from the government. Well, we all wished we got money every month. We wouldn't have been so poor, had we. But it wasn't true, and you couldn't even argue that away, because so many people believed it then, and so many people believe it now, still today, in this year.
Learn About: What details in this passage support the speaker’s account of challenging stereotypes? What would you need to hear in the full interview before interpreting it?
Learn From: How could you question assumptions before drawing conclusions? Use a fictional or classroom example if you prefer, and explain which part of the speaker’s account informed your approach.
05 Wolakota Project Video Transcripts and URLs.docx · WP-0082; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0CaFednqVk; opening passage. Teaching interpretation is separate from official wording and the interviewee’s account.
G41 — Apply critical thinking skills
Explore G41 · Why Isn’t This Taught? - Whitney Rencountre - OSEU #5 · OSEU 1
Reviewed teaching connection (Supporting): Whitney Rencountre recalls learning more history in college and his family’s relocation following flooding by the Big Bend Dam. This supports G41 by inviting students to ask what historical information has been omitted.
Updated for Proposed August 9, 2024: New connection to the overall current understanding. No specific OSEU standard alignment is claimed. Original JAG–interview approval retained.
Growing up on the reservation on Crow Creek, you know, I didn't learn a lot about the history of our ancestors. I didn't learn a lot of what took place of this, you know, the information that's in this curriculum that you're talking about. In fact, I didn't learn about that until I went to college. I mean, I learned, I learned the basic information from my grandparents and you can see and you can tell how our lives used to be long ago. You know, we used to live, you know, in Fort Thompson, we used to live by the river. You know, we used to use so much of that, but then when the Big Bend Dam came, it flooded us and so we had to move up to another place.
Learn About: What details in this passage support the speaker’s account of history and relocation? What would you need to hear in the full interview before interpreting it?
Learn From: How could you ask what historical information has been omitted? Use a fictional or classroom example if you prefer, and explain which part of the speaker’s account informed your approach.
05 Wolakota Project Video Transcripts and URLs.docx · WP-0094; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5eYs5lE5TQ; opening passage. Teaching interpretation is separate from official wording and the interviewee’s account.
G41 — Apply critical thinking skills
Explore G41 · Forces of Disintegration and Integration - Kevin Locke - OSEU #2 · OSEU 2
Reviewed teaching connection (Supporting): Kevin Locke describes resilience as a coping skill and reflects on rapid change and attention to disturbing news. This supports G41 by inviting students to examine how repeated information shapes attention.
Updated for Proposed August 9, 2024: New connection to the overall current understanding. No specific OSEU standard alignment is claimed. Original JAG–interview approval retained.
These little children…they’re very resilient. You can see how malleable they are. We’re all that way. But of course as we get older, we become less resilient. I think this is a wonderful quality that we can retain, this resiliency. It’s a coping skill that the native people demonstrated very well…as far as adapting to different changes. Of course, we need that now more than ever because…we are at the stage of the greatest change in the history of mankind. Everything is accelerating. We can see this parallel process happening in the world. We can see there are forces of disintegration which are escalating. And this is what our attention…our attention is continuously drawn to that. You turn on CNN…every twenty minutes it rehashes these conditions in the world. And it must have an effect on people, even children.
Learn About: What details in this passage support the speaker’s account of resilience and change? What would you need to hear in the full interview before interpreting it?
Learn From: How could you examine how repeated information shapes attention? Use a fictional or classroom example if you prefer, and explain which part of the speaker’s account informed your approach.
05 Wolakota Project Video Transcripts and URLs.docx · WP-0096; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eESpUnmv-Dw; opening passage. Teaching interpretation is separate from official wording and the interviewee’s account.
G41 — Apply critical thinking skills
Explore G41 · Storytelling & Oral Tradition - Delores Taken Alive - OSEU 5 · OSEU 5
Reviewed teaching connection (Supporting): Delores Taken Alive contrasts reading a story with discussing its meaning in oral storytelling and asks what listeners gained. This supports G41 by inviting students to support an interpretation with details.
Updated for Proposed August 9, 2024: New connection to the overall current understanding. No specific OSEU standard alignment is claimed. Original JAG–interview approval retained.
You know, that is very, like say, you read a story, the stories have values, the Lakota stories have values, there is something that you're going to, the moral of that story, but if you read it, it's not, it's just, you read it and it's gone. But if somebody comes to our classrooms and talks about the stories and the moral of that, what did you get out of it, what was so important? That's why I believe in oral storytelling, that's because I was always asked to do this at the Sundance Youth Camp, and I try to, you know, tell stories that there's morals to it, because that's the way these stories were a long, long time ago, how our stories have come. Even when you go out hunting, or even to make a hide, scrape a hide, or to beadwork and all that, there's always a moral to that story. And one that I like about that, he's no longer with us, Mr.
Learn About: What details in this passage support the speaker’s account of listening to story values? What would you need to hear in the full interview before interpreting it?
Learn From: How could you support an interpretation with details? Use a fictional or classroom example if you prefer, and explain which part of the speaker’s account informed your approach.
05 Wolakota Project Video Transcripts and URLs.docx · WP-0121; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCbv0bg3n-Q; opening passage. Teaching interpretation is separate from official wording and the interviewee’s account.
Human Shaped Learning connection
Chapter 9: Creating a Culture of Curiosity
Reviewed teaching connection: Reviewed connections: G41. Invite students to generate questions and choose one to investigate using the interview evidence.
Human Shaped Learning with Front Matter.docx · Ch. 9, actual manuscript pp. 71–77; Why Curiosity Matters
Plan with these recommendations and select more HSL chapters.