Native American Schooling Essay

I took the Native American IAT and the Age IAT tests. I thought my results would be that I would have some association with Native Americans because I have Native American in my ancestry. My results were that I had little or no association between Native American and American with Foreign and American. I am not sure if I agree with them or not and that maybe from family history. I have no ideal if this method is truly effective and I would try to make sure that I am being considerate about other people's culture when teaching students and interacting with their families. I took away from this test that I learned new things about my thought process.

Colonization was detrimental to not only the physical bodies of the Native Americans, but to their minds as well. The shift in indigenous education was a destructive one; Western education completely overtook the indigenous education that had thrived for generations. Instead of allowing education to benefit both indigenous and European peoples, it was used as a tool to destroy indigenous culture. When the settlers from Europe and Spain first came to the Americas, “indigenous men and women articulated their petitions for more educational spaces” (Díaz 60). The attempt to share educational spaces was continuously rejected by the settlers in an attempt to spur assimilation instead of cooperation.

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.

With waves of the American population moving westward, government attempted to assimilate, or integrate, Native Americans into American society. Their goal was for Native Americans to live and behave like white Americans, and for them “to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community” (Doc 9). Children were sent to boarding schools where they were given new clothes and haircuts, and taught English, Christianity, and American ways of life (Doc 13). While many Americans believed this would be good for the Native Americans, it effectively destroyed their culture and identity. By forcing them to learn English, they were unable to communicate the concepts, beliefs, and ideas their languages were based on. Americans did not consider the fact that English could not substitute for Native languages, because they are based on different realities, histories, and cultures (Doc 3). Assimilation turned the lives of Native Americans upside-down, forcing them to give up ideas and beliefs they had been practicing their whole lives, without any say. Slowly, Native American culture and lifestyle faded until it was nearly

The boarding schools “educators suppressed tribal languages and cultural practices and sought to replace them with English, Christianity, athletic activities, and a ritual calendar intended to further patriotic citizenship” (Davis 20). Not only had the boarding schools taken away Native American culture, they were forcing the Native Americans into a different culture. The language was quite challenging to learn, especially to the older students. Learning a new language is much harder at an older age, and while being bilingual is vey helpful, these Native Americans were not allowed to speak their Native language. A Native American girl stated she, “remembers another little girl making a mistake in her use of English and being ridiculed for it. ... The English language was difficult to learn” (Vizenor 102). These Native Americans were learning a brand new language, being stripped from theirs, and they would be picked on if they did not have perfect English right away. Many chose to keep quite so they would not make mistakes.

To Entering and adjusting to college is often stressful on any student but for Native Americans it is often more stressful. The number of under-graduate students enrolled in college in the U.S. in fall of 2012, was17.7 million, Native Americans account for approximately .9% of the total population of college students. (U.S. Department of Education, 2015)On average, 57.5% of students who entered a four-yearinstitution of higher education in the United States in the year 2000 graduated within six years.Only 40.2% of Native American students who entered four-year institutions in that same year graduated within six years.(Crosby, 2011) Areas that can highly affect a Native Americans success at college are family support, structured social support,

Popular culture has shaped our understanding and perception of Native American culture. From Disney to literature has given the picture of the “blood thirsty savage” of the beginning colonialism in the new world to the “Noble Savage,” a trait painted by non-native the West (Landsman and Lewis 184) and this has influenced many non native perceptions. What many outsiders do not see is the struggle Native American have on day to day bases. Each generation of Native American is on a struggle to keep their traditions alive, but to function in school and ultimately graduate.

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.

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 Native American children were educated at Carlisle in order to make a “better” transition into society for post-bellum America. Carlisle was located in Pennsylvania and was a reform school for Native American children. “Carlisle fills young Indians with the spirit of loyalty to the stars and stripes, and moves them out into your communities to show by their conduct and ability that the Indian is no different from the white or colored, that he has the inalienable right to liberty and opportunity that the white and the negro have (Paul Prucha 68).” The Native Americans didn’t have the liberty to live on their land as they were before the whites arrived; “By 1979, my people were no longer free, but were confined on reservations under the rule of agents (Standing Bear 69-71).” The Native American children such as Luther Standing Bear were taken from their families, land, and tradition to be reformed into a civilized American. Luther Standing Bear recalls his time at Carlisle; “The task before us was not only that of accepting new ideas and adopting new manners, but physical changes and discomfort had to be borne un complainingly until the body adjusted itself to new tastes and habits (Standing Bear 69-71).” The Native American children’s names, attire, religion, and diet were changed to that of the white Americans. “…the change in clothing, housing, food, and confinement combined with lonesomeness was too much, and in three years nearly one half of the children from the Plains were dead… (Standing Bear

People have been living in the Americas for thousands of years. Only fairly recently, the past few hundred years, have foreigners begun to arrive and drastically disrupt the way of life of the aboriginal population. The situation has become so severe that a population that was one believed to be numbered in the millions, was at one point reduced to as few as 220,000 in 1910, and entire tribes have been either irretrievably warped or have disappeared altogether. While Native American Indians have almost completely recovered population-wise, they will never catch up to the rest of the world, and their culture can never fully recuperate. At the time the United States was settled by Europeans, it was abundantly populated by dozens of

The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) was formed in 2006. This government agency, previously known as the Office of Indian Education Programs, controls the direction and curriculum for all Indian schools as well as managing the funding. Three legislative acts developed the roles of the BIE. The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 and The Education Amendments Act of 1978. The only more recent legislation was The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. It is the mission of the BIE to provide quality education to all Native Americans by focusing on the spiritual, mental, physical, and cultural aspects of the individual within his or her family and tribal or village context (U.S. Dept.

Through the years minority groups have long endured repression, poverty, and discrimination. A prime example of such a group is the Native Americans. They had their own land and fundamental way of life stripped from them almost unceasingly for decades. Although they were the real “natives” of the land, they were driven off by the government and coerced to assimilate to the white man’s way. Unfortunately, the persecution of the Natives was primarily based on the prevalent greed for money and power. This past impeded the Native American’s preservation of their culture as many were obviated of the right to speak the native language and dress in traditional clothing. Because of this cultural expulsion, among other

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.