Teacher Tara Osborn stood in front of her students Wednesday and asked them a seemingly simple question: What is Thanksgiving about?

Turkey. Pilgrims. Indians. The Mayflower. Her eighth-graders' answers weren't surprising.

But after learning more, their answers changed. They learned the Wampanoags were decimated by an epidemic shortly before the pilgrims arrived. They learned the Wampanoags were wary of Europeans from past experiences, but the two groups joined together to survive and stand strong against other tribes. They learned the peace didn't last long.

"All we think about is just being thankful for what we have now when we should be thankful for what they did," said Madyson Holbrook, 13.

It's a lesson being taught for the first time this year in classrooms throughout Utah as part of the new We Shall Remain curriculum about American Indians.

And it's a curriculum that addresses far more than just the real story behind Thanksgiving. It includes lessons about the unique cultures of each of Utah's American Indian Nations and their successes and challenges now and in the past. Many hope the curriculum will give all students a better sense of the state's history and future and help American Indian students feel proud of their heritage.

"These kids are living in Utah, and they need to know the whole story," said Elizabeth Player, curriculum coordinator for the Utah Indian Curriculum Project at the American West Center at the University of Utah. "If we miss out on the first people in our state and their current status, we're missing a huge piece of that puzzle as to who we are as Utahns."

Some say it's a lesson that has been absent from Utah classrooms for far too long.

"Too often, museums and other institutions portray Indians as they do the dinosaurs, like we're dead and gone," said Forrest Cuch, director of the state Division of Indian Affairs. "But we're not. We wanted this curriculum to show Indian people are alive and though we're not as well as we should be, we're at least alive and striving."

Doing history justice

For years, Utah's social studies curriculum has asked educators to teach students about American Indians. But it was often difficult for teachers to find information.

"I've spent hours and hours trying to research it on my own, and you can't find it," said Tracy Hansen, a seventh-grade Utah studies teacher at Churchill Junior High in Salt Lake City.

Utah is home to five American Indian tribes, but many Utahns know surprisingly little about them. Hansen said her students have even asked her if American Indians still exist.

"There's more information on eastern Indians or plains Indians, but for Utah, you can't find anything," she said.

American Indian groups and educators were thrilled when earlier this year PBS created a documentary series about American Indians called "We Shall Remain." But to the disappointment of Utahns, the series didn't include information about American Indians in Utah.

So with the help of state money, KUED-TV, Utah's American Indian tribes and the state Division of Indian Affairs created their own five-part documentary, also called "We Shall Remain," about Utah's Indian nations. Then the tribes, the American West Center and the Utah State Office of Education created a curriculum to go with the documentary.

This year, every school in the state received binders full of lessons for fourth-graders, seventh-graders and high school students about American Indians' unique contributions to Utah. And the American West Center has been training teachers how to teach the topics using videos, oral histories, photographs, interactive maps and tribal documents.

Fourth-graders will learn about how the Goshutes communicate cultural values through Coyote stories. Seventh-graders will learn about how the Miss Navajo Pageant helps Navajos transmit their culture to younger generations. High school students will learn about the Southern Paiutes' struggle for tribal sovereignty.

"I feel like I can finally do it justice," said Quinn Rollins, a seventh-grade teacher at Bennion Junior High in Taylorsville.

American history

Davina Spotted Elk, an associate producer of the "We Shall Remain" film about Navajos, said she's hoping the lessons inspire American Indian students as well.

For years, American Indian students, as a group, have trailed some other groups when it comes to graduation rates and test scores. Some say it's because of poverty. Others say it's because of a historically rough relationship between education and American Indians. And others say it might be because students feel culturally disconnected.

"If they know who they are, they can be proud of that," Spotted Elk said. "I think it's going to help in so many ways."

Tiana Tollestrup, an eighth-grader at Crescent View Middle School in Sandy, said she's eager to learn more about her own heritage and American Indian historical figures.

"We learn about other backgrounds and a lot about how they lived and their history," Tollestrup said. "I think it would be great if we learned about ours."

Damon Pitts, a senior at Jordan High in Sandy, said he thinks it might give American Indian students a reason to do better in school. He said what he's learned as part of his school's Standing Tall program, which mentors American Indian students, has already helped him.

"It gave me a boost to do better, to know that someone cares," Pitts said.

Many are hoping the new curriculum will teach more Utahns why they should care about their American Indian neighbors' past and present-day cultures, successes and struggles.

Osborn's students said before Wednesday they didn't know much about American Indians' involvement in Thanksgiving. They didn't know the name of the tribe that ate with the pilgrims, the name of their chief or that American Indians had a tradition of giving thanks for what the earth provided for years before the pilgrims arrived.

"If you're American," Osborn said, "this is your history."