America 's Education System Of Linear Habits

Education has been a topic of controversy for many years now, and will continue to be for years to come. The modern American society is best defined by its education. A good part of the average person’s life is spent at school, going to school, and paying for school. However, even though education is so obviously very important, there are many groups in America that are getting shorted. The Native Americans are a key group that has struggled the most. The largest obstacle they face is lack of proper education. The standard educational practices being used for the instruction of Native American peoples are not effective. There are many pieces to this road-block, and many solutions. This can be rectified by having more culturally

In the late 1800s, Captain Richard Henry Pratt set out to “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”(A Plea to “Citizenize” Indians). The goal to erase Indian cultures and replace it with white American culture was sought to be achieved through boarding schools. Pratt was the creator of the first Indian boarding school: Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. These government-funded boarding schools would take children from their homes on reservation, often for them to not see their family again until they are grown(lecture). Pratt’s goal was to eliminate the Indian culture and incorporate the Indian people into the more “civilized”(Marr) American culture. This meant forcing the Indian students to speak only English and to give up all cultural traditions, religions, names and take up Christianity and American sounding names. Students were put into these boarding schools with little or no contact with their families for “eight to nine months of the year” (Marr). These schools operated with minimal funds, so the education was very insufficient. It was clear from the beginning; the actual goal was not to give quality education for the Native American children but to get rid of the Indian culture.

The modern American society is best defined by its education. The “American dream” is founded on going to school, getting a good job, and becoming successful. Ironically, the actual native peoples of this country are actually the least likely to attain this dream. The largest obstacle they face is lack of proper education. The standard educational practices being used for the instruction of Native American peoples is not effective. There are many pieces to this road-block, and many solutions. This can be rectified by having more culturally aware teachers and parents, and by teaching the general population more about the Native American cultures.

In order for teachers to create a learning environment that is culturally responsive to each individual student, a teacher must learn the student’s funds of knowledge. The importance of learning the funds of knowledge of your students is crucial. A teacher can approach learning more about a student’s prior knowledge and culture in a variety of ways, including, instructing personal interviews with questions about their personal life such as what are the most important things in your life. Another way to discover your student’s funds of knowledge is by placing yourself in their shoes and doing a school and community walk through. You can also be provided with more insight into your student’s lives by conducting an adult interview from someone that also lives in the same community. In order for me to create lessons and classroom practices that are culturally responsive is by discovering my student’s funds of knowledge. I am at Blackwell Elementary School, which is located in Marietta and is apart of the Cobb County District. After having the students create heart maps and interviewing them, doing a school and community walkthrough, and talking with an adult, I was greatly impacted by all the new information and perspectives I learned. Without going through this process to obtain the information, I would have no knowledge on my students or the community surrounding Blackwell besides what meets the eye. This experience impacted my own thinking about the school I am working in for

Indian Boarding Schools, which began in the late 1870’s, were started to transition Native Americans from their traditional cultures and transform them into American citizens. By the 1900’s, there were 147 day schools on and off reservations in the Great Plains. Day schools were first built before the government decided that the children needed to be removed from their Indian lifestyle in order for total assimilation to occur. The first off-reservation boarding schools appeared around 1884 in the Great Plains. By 1890, 25 federal off-reservation and 43 on-reservation boarding schools were operating nationally. Many Indian families chose to send their children to boarding schools because there were no other schools available. After $45 million had been spent and 20,000 Indian children had been put into schools, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs William Jones put emphasis on the importance of utilizing existing boarding and day schools more effectively. Jones declared that the Indian children had shown little evidence of assimilation and introduced the idea for a hierarchy of schools in order to “provide the greatest opportunity for assimilating the best students with the greatest potential for surviving in the white world” (Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, par.8).

The Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, PA became the first boarding school for Native American children in 1879. Here deculturalization methods were employed. From this methodology and perspective, the patronizing term cultural deprivation has come to imply that a group is without culture altogether (Nieto and Bode, 2008, p. 176). One of the perceived deficiencies of Native Americans was their propensity to share which caused the European Americans to label them as socialists which was anathema to the dominant group’s philosophy. Richard Pratt, the founder of the Carlisle School, sought to instill individualism and self responsibility in order to break Indians from a socialist style of sharing.

In the Indigenous community, when the community is faced with a trauma, it takes seven generations for the community to heal (Trimble, 2015). People may underestimate how oppressed and how much suffering the Indigenous communities had to struggle with, and continue to struggle with these issues today. We may underestimate how severe the situation is because many of us were not taught much about the impact of colonization on the Indigenous communities in school. There are many myths people may have concerning Indigenous life experiences, particularly schooling. To address these myths, I would begin by giving a brief history of residential schools. I would then analyze how residential schools have impacted the indigenous community and how they continue to affect them today. I would also mention the current issues children on reserves are facing today regarding school. Lastly, I would mention some of the progress that has been made. I will use the work of Sefa Dei to demonstrate the importance of community in education regarding the Indigenous people.

Teachers must learn about their student’s cultures if they want to educate them to the best of their ability. Many of the students in culturally diverse classrooms will want to learn in different ways. Some will want to learn in pairs, groups, as a class, or just alone. If the teacher is educated in their culture then lessons can be adjusted to appeal to every student as much as possible instead of forcing some to forget about their culture and learn like others. Students from

In the article “Taking the Indian out of the Indian: U.S. Policies of Ethnocide through Education”, Donald Grinde informs us about how white European settlers and early Americans discriminated against Native Americans through the education system. I learned that the U.S built boarding schools specifically for Native Americans, tried to erase Native American history and traditions, and how they later on tried to “civilize” them by having them conform to their Eurocentric standards. A while back I had read on the internet that the U.S. had built many boarding schools specifically for Native American children. The things that I read seemed terrible and kind of surreal. Now that I have read Grinde’s article I can now confirm to myself that it was accurate.

In 1978, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) passed through Congress in response to “a crisis affecting American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) children, family and tribes (NICWA, 2017).” ICWA’s was enacted due to an exorbitant amount of Native American children being removed from their parents and stripped of their heritage as children were forced to assimilate to the dominant culture. Approximately 85% of the 25-35% of children were “placed outside of their families and communities (NICWA, 2017),” often in off-reservation federally funded boarding schools and/or foster placements where the values of christian, white, blue-collar were emphasized to “civilize” the children (Atwood, 2017). Native American children were often

Children were taken away from their homes and told everything they knew was wrong. They were sent to boarding schools to change their culture. These boarding schools were run by the United States government. The government's goal was to civilize Native Americans. They sent children to these schools against their will. Native American children were educated like Americans and they had to change their native ways to be more like whites (Cayton 266). Teachers abused their students and beat their native ways out of them. They were not allowed to see their families so they would try to escape, but their attempts were unsuccessful. The United States government’s Boarding Schools of the mid-late 1800s irreparably changed Native American culture.

According to the Wikipedia page, Native American boarding schools, “ they were established in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to educate and [simulate] Native American children and youths according to European standards”. So, the intended purpose of the Indian boarding schools was to educate and assimilate the children with the idea of the “living the American way”. The reformers wanted the children to understand and have practical knowledge of the American culture , and be kept away from their traditional Indian relatives. Probably, their Indian relatives were closed minded and did not want to expose the younger generation to different things. According to the website nativepartnership.org, “reformers assumed that it was necessary to “civilize” Indian people”(par. 2). The reformers wanted the children to understand the outside world, not have influences from their tribal life, be a self sufficient member of society, and not have anything, get in their way.

The United States government tried many attempts to assimilate Native American one of which is by creating boarding schools for those Indians. Children were taken away from their parents to be taught at these schools. They took the children because it was easy to erase their memory of anything their parents taught them, so it would be easy for educators to teach them about the American culture and they can easily adapt to it. Photographs were taken of students of how they looked upon entering the school and during their school session. Surely there was a change in the student’s appearance but there was also a change in their thinking and beliefs.

My thought on reasons for creating boarding schools for indigenous children. The imperial of the residential school system was to remove and isolate children from the power traditions culture, homes, and families, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture and having the fundamentals of the American academic education. These objectives based on the assumption on the native cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal. Therefore, the westerner is "killing the Indian in the child” (Pratt). Recognizing this policy of the assimilation was wrong, which as we know caused a great harm within the culture. As we are aware of it, destroying their identity. For instance, from the Zitkala-Sa, when the westerners were cutting the girls hair. As the

The purpose of education is to influence one in an intellectual manner, as well as support one’s chosen pursuit of happiness. The Indian boarding school movement, although attempting, ignored such values, as they encouraged the Native students that in order to live well, they must mimic the white man. When discussing the instruction given, Sun Elk, a former student at Carlisle, mentioned, “They told us that Indian ways were bad. They said we must get civilized. I remember that word too. It means ‘be like the white man’” (222). The Indian boarding schools did not support the purpose of education; when instructing the Natives, they informed them of the notion that whites are superior to Natives. This thus influenced the Native’s chosen pursuit