Sherman Alexie Indian Education

Throughout the story, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Junior goes through many ups and downs. This story is about how Junior, an indian from the Spokane reservation, decides to go to Rearden, the school for non-indians because of how run-down his school is and has trouble fitting in. Some of the ways Junior dealt with those downs include his uncanny sense of humor, his love for his friends, and the want to fit in and prove he’s just as good as everyone else at his new school.

Sherman Alexie, in “Indian Education” tells his experiences in school on the reservation. Some of his teachers did not treat him very good and did not try to understand him. In his ninth grade year he collapsed. A teacher assumed that he had been drinking just because he was Native American. The teacher said, “What’s that boy been drinking? I know all about these Indian kids. They start drinking real young.” Sherman Alexie didn’t listen to the negatives in school. He persevered and became valedictorian of his school.

Adjusting to another culture is a difficult concept, especially for children in their school classrooms. In Sherman Alexie’s, “Indian Education,” he discusses the different stages of a Native Americans childhood compared to his white counterparts. He is describing the schooling of a child, Victor, in an American Indian reservation, grade by grade. He uses a few different examples of satire and irony, in which could be viewed in completely different ways, expressing different feelings to the reader. Racism and bullying are both present throughout this essay between Indians and Americans. The Indian Americans have the stereotype of being unsuccessful and always being those that are left behind. Through Alexie’s negativity and humor in his

Authors write for many reasons; most often because they want to tell a story. This is definitely the case with Sherman Alexie, “a poet, fiction writer, and filmmaker known for witty and frank explorations of the lives of contemporary Native Americans.” He grew up on the Spokane and Coeur D’Alene Indian Reservations, and has devoted much of his adult life to telling stories of his life there. Alexie expertly uses language and rhetorical devices to convey the intensity and value of his experiences.

Education —an institution for success, opportunity, and progress — is itself steeped in racism. In Sherman Alexie’s short story “Indian Education” from his book The Longer Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is set in two places, the Spokane Indian Reservation and a farm town nearby the reservation. The story is written in a list of formative events chronologize Victor’s youth by depicting the most potent moment from each year he is in school. Alexie addresses the issue of racism in education by examining examples of injustice and discrimination over twelve years in a boy’s life. Victor faces his initial injustice in first grade when he is bullied by bigger kids, but his understanding of injustice becomes much more complex in grades two through twelve as he experiences discrimination against his American Indian identity. Familial experiences of a Native woman, Alexie’s style and humor, and Victor’s awareness of discrimination from grade one to twelve all reveal the grim reality of growing up and being schooled on an American Indian reservation.

In the short story “Indian Education” by Sherman Alexie the theme that is represented in each grade is racism. Throughout Alexie’s life he experiences more and more accounts of racism in school. Also, Alexie experiences levels of hardship as he gets older. Thus, the story’s theme statement could be summarized that racism enables hardship in one's life.

Shanice Britton is a young Native American writer who grew up inside the Round Valley Indian Reservation in a small town where she knew everyone. Britton grew up learning about Native American traditions and customs. She was taught from a young age that she should always respect adults, support that tribal leaders, and have pride in her culture by keeping alive the traditions of her ancestors. Therefore, it was a little bit of a shock when she moved to Davis, California to attend the University of California. In an article that Britton wrote for Scholastic Choices, Britton recounts a comical and illustrative incident shortly after she moved there: “I was eating in a cafeteria with some other high school students, and this one girl asks me: ‘Do you live in a teepee?’” (Britton & Bianchi 2015). This anecdote is a perfect representation of some of the misconceptions or, simply, widespread lack of knowledge of the Native American population when it comes to people who are not part of that community. There are many aspects of Native American life that are not understood correctly by the general

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a book about a young boy just entering high school who leaves his best friend and family to go to school mostly occupied by white people. This whole book follows him through his first year in this school where he tries to get a better education than he can get on the Rez, in the hopes that he will one day get off that reservation and out of his soul crushing poverty. “The Absolutely True diary of a Part-Time Indian” ATD, Sherman Alexie uses unfortunate events, social class and conversations to show that not everyone gets the support they need to follow their dreams.

Sherman J. Alexie, is a short story written in the first person focusing on two Native American Men who grew up together on a Reservation for Native Americans but have been estranged from each other since they were teenagers. Victor who is the narrator of this story is a young man who lost faith in his culture and its traditions, while Thomas our second main character is a deeply rooted traditional storyteller. In the beginning of the story Victor, our Native American narrator learns the death of his father. Jobless and penniless, his only wish is to go to Phoenix, Arizona and bring back his father’s ashes and belongings to the reservation in Spokane. The death of Victor’s father leads him and Thomas to a journey filled with childhood

This dance is when “Community members and ritual leaders perform the ceremony guided by various visions of spiritual elders and their stories, songs, traditions, and instructions that have been transmitted orally across the generations,” as stated by Hallowell in the “Time-Binding in the Lakota Sun Dance Oral Tradition and Generational Wisdom,” article (Hallowell, 87). These ceremonies have stories, songs, traditions and instructions that are transmitted orally. Since these are only transmitted orally makes us realize that if these tribes don’t push their young students to learn them, then these traditions will die out. Hallowell also gives us the purpose: “The deepest purpose of the ceremony is to facilitate communal, tribal, and individual renewal that preserves Lakota traditions and values… two essential elements are sacrifice and ethical behavior,” (Hallowell, 87). I see how Hallowell makes a good point on how the two essential points are sacrifice to keep traditions going, and ethical behavior to keep the traditions sacred. Incorporating the Native American culture will not only enhance the performance of native Americans, but will also contribute to the learning experience of the non-native American students (Gentry). For instance the non Native American students will become well educated on topics related to Native Americans. Learning about a different culture from the one that grew up in that culture is a breath of fresh air and you get to see things from a different perspective which helps you grow up

Native American families were frequently placed in little, ruined reservations, endorsed to give up their childhood to receive inadequate schooling, a constant threat of kidnapping, and even removing entire families off their land where they have called home for hundreds of years prior. Louise’s father and mother both worked at Indian boarding schools, giving the reader the sense that she really was passionate about her writing of this poem in more ways than one. She truly gives the underlying insight to the boarding schools and the treatment of her people’s way of life, which was a systematic and legal genocide

Internalized oppression is just one factor that contributes to the inescapability of intergenerational trauma. Alexie uses figurative language to demonstrate that the cycle of oppression is further perpetuated by the concept of racial inferiority, poverty, and failure to achieve an education in his short story “The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn’t Flash Red Anymore”. The main character, Victor, sits on the porch with his friend Adrian as they reminisce their past and hope for others futures. Victor claims that “Indians [could] easily survive the big stuff... It’s the small things that hurt the most. The white waitress who wouldn’t take an order, Tonto, the Washington Redskins” (49).

The Prominent theme from the absolutely true story of the part-time Indian is alcoholism because its an extremely big problem in the book. there are many parts of the book where the author Sherman Alexie comments about how there are drunk people and how it affects their lives and others. Juniors sister gets drunk and then dies and a trailer fire leaving Junior devastated and angry at the fact that his sister got drunk and the fact that she died. Junior's father gets drunk one Christmas and ran off on a drunken binge leaving junior and his mum. when Juniors dad comes back all he gave Junior was a wet scrunched up 5 dollar note as a Christmas present. Juniors best friend Rowdy's, dad is an abusive drunk that bets up on Rowdy. there are many men

Historical reference of American Indian education dates back to the start of 18th century. It starts from when after the independence, reformers started educating Indian in a bid to ‘civilize’ them. The motto used at that time was ‘Kill the Indian and save the man’.

Child’s grandmother attended the Flandreau Indian School in the 1920s. She took part in the outing program which meant that she was sent into a local white household to work as a domestic servant. Like most other students, she was not enthusiastic about the program and the servitude; however she did like the sewing classes and needlework that the school offered as part of the domestic training. She learned how to sew quilts and pillowcases for members of her own family. One of her grandmother’s fondest memories was of the other students at the school-many of them Sioux who spoke the Dakota language. Although the assimilationists were committed to the repression of trial languages and culture, the Indian students learned each other’s tribal languages as well as English. Child believes her grandmother was a fairly typical student of the era-her father was a widower and single parents often sent their children away for school because reservation life was often harsh and unpredictable for both children and adults. Her grandfather had been swindled out of his allotment at White Earth and then the state of Minnesota seized his property after claiming that he owed back taxes.