Shumla School Plays Host to Marion Russell Students

By Bill Sontag
bill.sontag@delrionewsherald.com
Staff Writer, Del Rio News-Herald

Reprinted with permission of the Del Rio News-Herald
Published May 8, 2004

Scientists have discovered that the people of the Lower Pecos did not have enough fat in their diet.  Deer marrow is an excellent source of fat.  Suppose the people were using marrow as the binder in paint.  What does this suggest about the importance of the paintings?
— Shumla School student guide

A cool, misty morning enveloped social studies teacher Ernest Martinez, eight more teachers and 115 sixth-grade students at the non-profit Shumla School, 45 miles north of Del Rio Friday morning.  "They’re learning more about what we studied at the first of the year, the society of early hunter/gatherers.  This is very educational," Martinez exclaimed.

He watched intently as a dozen of his Marion Middle School charges dyed lechuguilla fiber and wove it into braids.  Clusters of students concentrated at similar hands-on experiences at five additional instruction points scattered over the Chihuahuan desert above the bluffs shouldering the Pecos River.  The students moved from one station to the next, cleanly divided into "clans":  Deer, wolf, panther, hawk and bear.  The educational menu Friday included ancient rock art paint-making, prehistoric fire-starting, atlatl spear-throwing, arrow and spear point-knapping, Native American life ways, food and medicine foraging, and cooking in subterranean hearth ovens.

Dr. Carolyn Boyd, director of the Shumla School, knows how to galvanize support and help when an inquisitive, youthful audience plans a trip to the Shumla School she opened last year.  Eager volunteer teachers and group leaders came from near and far Friday.  A few examples include: Sharon Anderson, teacher at Kinkaid School, a private preparatory academy in Houston, came because of her attachment developed at Shumla School’s first workshop. Vanessa Sanchez, Del Rio Student Conservation Aid working at Amistad National Recreation Area, is working toward a degree in anthropology at University of Texas San Antonio. Patty Leslie Pasztor, is a consulting botanist from San Antonio who teaches ethnobotany at schools and workshops around Texas. Curt Harrell, San Antonio photographer, is producing a disc of digital images from the day’s events for illustration of future Shumla School educational and publicity materials. Ray Olachia, a Mescalero Apache from Lake Jackson, Texas, retired from Dow Chemical, teaches native life ways using materials collected from aboriginal cultures on this continent and around the world.

But everyone at the "Shumla Survivors" workshop declared that Marion Russell math teacher Briana Muraira was the driving force that pulled everything together.  Her planning, permissions and logistics created the conduit that moved 115 kids out of the classrooms and off the Marion Middle School campus, but she modestly credited Principal Jesse Guzman with paving the way.

Muraira’s connection with Shumla School derives from her duty as parent-chaperone when her nine-year-old daughter attended a workshop there last fall.  "I decided that this would be something good for all our kids," Muraira recalled.  She firmly believes in connectivity between teaching disciplines, as vigorously practiced in Shumla School curricular materials, such as queries in the booklet prepared for the students Friday: Nutritionists say that people must have at least 1,500 calories each day to remain healthy.  The average lechuguilla plant contains 250 calories.  Assuming you had no other food available to you, how many lechuguilla plants would you have to bake to feed a family of 5 for one week?

Muraira explained that, when her classes return to the campus, she will continue the lessons learned at Shumla School, integrating skills of estimation based on anthropologic studies of time periods, distances and measurements.  Martinez echoed Muraira’s commitment to after-action followup in the classroom: "We’ll revisit the lessons in their booklets, and see what they learned.  Their answers there are an indication of their learning."
In the midst of a throng of kids who were clearly enjoying the Shumla experience, Martinez strove to emphasize the serious business of the learning underway:  "This is definitely an educational trip, not a recreational trip!"  

Three yellow school buses parked along Shumla’s caliche roads stood out in stark contrast to the subtle colors and earth tones of the surrounding environment.  Muraira explained that the trip was made possible with support from San Felipe Del Rio Consolidated Independent School District administration, but also because of a fundraiser held last year to cover expenses of the school bus transportation.
"Most likely we’ll come back next year," Martinez said hopefully, adding,  "I would recommend that more schools bring their students out here.  This has been very well organized."