Our Crowdfunding Groups
ITEP stands for the Indigenous Teacher Education Project. Our goal is to prepare future Indigenous educators to fuse their knowledge, culture, language and aspects of their tribal identities with academic classroom teaching.
There are 22 federally recognized Tribal nations in the state of Arizona. Despite the presence of the many Tribal Nations, there are few Indigenous educators who serve Indigenous schools and communities. Before ITEP, the University of Arizona's Elementary Education program had less than 1% of teacher candidates who self-identified as Native American. Now, approximately 7% of teacher candidates in the Elementary Education program are from Indigenous backgrounds and the majority of those students are in ITEP. ITEP believes in the power of indigenizing education to sustain Indigenous cultures, knowledges, languages, and identities.
Our first cohort is graduating in May 2019 and our second cohort will begin in Fall 2019. The current funding for ITEP can only support 12 candidates but we have had over 100 inquiries from members from Indigenous communities. This demonstrates the need to increase the number of Indigenous teachers serving Indigenous schools and communities. Our goal is to raise $5,000 to establish the ITEP fund to support a greater number of future Indigenous educators and build a more sustainable program. If we can recruit 5 teacher candidates from each Tribal nation, imagine the possibilities.
Our first ITEP cohort had 14 students, all funded entirely through a federal grant.
$55 is the approximate cost of one book for one ITEP candidate.
$95 is the cost of the Elementary Education knowledge exam that ALL educators must take to become certified.
$214 is the approximate cost of participant travel during their practicum.
TLS 495 is the Indigenizing Pedagogies course which is a fundamental component to ITEP.
