Native American Education Essay

Since there was always a strong bond between children, parents, and other members of the tribe, the “loss of the children to school was… like a death in the family and community” (Devens 288). Because this bond was severed at a young age, children had to grow up without the love and guidance of their tribe and instead with the harsh punishments that teachers gave out when the children did not follow instructions. Not only were children torn apart from their tribal community, but when they graduated from their respective boarding schools and returned home, there was a language barrier between their tribe and themselves, leaving children unable to communicate with their families. Since boarding schools were taught in English, there would be punishment if any teacher found a student speaking their native language. There was an emphasis of not speaking their native language at school and instead learning English, American Indian children pushed their native language to the back of their mind and eventually they were unable to speak it at all. These dramatic effects of boarding schools impacted the American Indian community greatly, much more than the land allotments, as family and tribe values and the education of their children were more important to them than the land allotments. American Indian children

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.

Taking away Native American children’s language caused many challenges at home. Many children were confused, homesick, as well as resentful. Many of the children attending these boarding schools did not understand why their parents sent them to boarding school. For many it was because family members were, “sick then. He don’t want to take care of a little one so he pushed me to school” (Burich 5). Many children would not understand why they were being sent to these schools, especially since the schools were changing their worlds

Boarding schools were an issue that plagued both Native Americans and Inupiats. As conveyed by the writings of Mary Crow Dog and other Native American figures, we see how the effects of such schools were devastating to the native population. Boarding schools wiped Natives of their language and culture, teaching young children to be ashamed of what makes them unique. Pupils would return from their long stays at boarding schools, unable to speak to their own family, resulting in an isolation between themselves and their community. Over the years, generations would eventually lose most of what makes them native and, for the most part, their culture slowly faded away. It seems that the Inupiat people faced a similar fate. Inupiat children were forced to learn by Western standards, eventually forgetting their crucial survival skills, language, religion and other unique aspects of their culture. However, we are exposed to a more positive outlook towards boarding schools in the book, Fifty Miles from Tomorrow, where William Hensley says he enjoyed his boarding school

The act also funded boarding schools that designed to replace Native American culture with American culture within the school system. Family and cultural ties almost diminished because of the boarding schools. Children were even punished for speaking their native tongue or practicing anything dealing with Native American rituals

Each boarding school had a set of tight rules designed to assimilate the children in such a way that they forgot or rejected their native culture. The children were forced to leave behind their original religion and properly observe the Sabbath every Sunday (“Rules” 53). They were strictly forbidden in speaking in their native dialect and were not allowed to keep their native dress but had to adopt a uniform style of clothing (Stone). Also the children were taught to enjoy the games of the young white children rather than being able to play the games of their childhood (“Rules” 54). These policies assimilated the children of the First Nations by giving them a new Americanized way of thought based on a Christian Anglo-Saxon view of the world and bestowing upon them an Americanized outward appearance by teaching them to play, act, and dress like white American children.

The forced assimilation of the Native American children gave way for the Indian School to be historical significant. In the Phoenix Indian School, the Native American children changed dramatically. Originally, the Native American children were taught a culture that had been described of being extremely undomesticated. For example, the children of Native Americans were taught to hunt at a certain age and were dressed with tremendous about of skin visible to those around them. The children of Native Americans went from being barbarous to

The Indian Civilization Fund Act of 1819 was the policy that sparked the idea of a Native American boarding school in the mind of General Pratt in 1875. These boarding schools had negative effects and positive

The Native American Indian Boarding School was an institution designed by missionaries to "assimilate" the Native American children to adopt American culture. Assimilation was intended to strip young children of everything they knew of their own culture and replace it with what the white man saw fit ultimately because they were threatened by the native people they had suppressed. As far as being successful, the schools did separate the children from their parents and tribe therefore weakening the tribes legacy for the future. The objective was to enfeeble the natives into submission. Concurrently, the public was told the children were being properly educated. Studies in English, business economics and etiquette was the publicized curriculum.

Indian boarding schools were established in the late 1800s as a way to assimilate Native Americans into the dominate society. The idea is that if an American Indian can farm, communicate with English, and rid themselves of their traditional ways then they can seek the America dream. A great deal of policies have been passed to gear Native Americans towards non-Native ways, but the practice that had a profound effect was the focus on Native American children. Indian boarding schools were develop by the federal government and religious organizations to assimilate the Native American children into the dominate culture (Brave Heart, Yellow Horse, & DeBruyn,

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, my grandmother, like thousands of other Native children, was forced into boarding school. Those boarding schools were established in the United States as a way to educate Native children according to Euro-American standards (CITATION). It is without a doubt that the assimilation of Native American children led to the loss of their culture and tradition, as they were required to change their appearance, forbidden to speak their native tongue, and forced to replace their traditional names with European-American names (CITATION).

For over one hundred years, the United States and Canadian Governments forced indigenous peoples of their land to abusive boarding schools, where children as young as the age of two, were ripped away from their families, in an attempt to terminate indigenous cultures from their land. These schools were the government's way of “killing the Indian, and save the man.” The governments of the United States and Canada similarly believed they could end the different cultural habits of the Indians, and help themselves by teaching them blue-collar, low paying jobs that were undesirable by white people. America should grant reparations to the survivors of their Indian Boarding Schools to

The Native Americans also lost their old cultures throughout time. In 1860, Americans created the first boarding school for Indians. The government forced many families to put their kids into the school. At the school it was mandatory to learn english, American ways of living, religious training for Christianity, change names to American names, and wear proper clothing. Americans thought if they were taught the religious beliefs of Americans everyday, they would soon believe in Christianity and forget about their old culture. Their end goal was to completely demolish the Indian culture. One boarding school then turned to sixty schools for 6,200 Indian students all learning the same things. In order to change the kids from Indian to American,

In order to make this assimilation possible, federal boarding schools were established outside the reservations, and were quite far from the reservations. The phrase chosen encapsulate this federal policy was expressed by “the Father of the US Boarding School Movement,” Richard Henry Pratt, in 1890 as follows: “Kill the Native American and save the man” (Hirschfelder 129) meaning destroy the identity of the Native Americans and then build them into the dominant White society. To achieve this goal, federal boarding schools deprived children of “all outward and inward signs of […] identification with tribal life, at the same time instructing them in the values and behaviors of White culture” (128). “Children caught speaking their Native language or performing religious rituals” (129) were severely punished. The Native American children were denied their right to use their own mother tongue, and without the words of their tribal language, over time they became unable to create their own identity because not only were the Words missing but also the traditions and the spiritual power located in it. Consequently, the emergence of identity crisis

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