Native Education: Bitter Past, Hopeful Future
First Person: Slipping Through the Cracks
In the Language of Our Ancestors
Charter School Keeps Native Language Alive
Salmon Camp Spawns Career Options
William Demmert (Native Voices)
Spring 2004
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Boys in uniform pose at the gate to the Chemawa Indian School, in a photo contained in a 1915 report. (Photo courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society) |
You see, we have given you our children, not our servants, or our slaves, but our own. We have given you our hearts—our children are our hearts—but bring them back again before they become white men. We wish to see them once more Indians, and after that you can make them white men if you like. But let them not get sick or die. If they get sick, we get sick; if they die, we shall die. Take them; they are yours.
— Chief Illim-Spokanee, 1825, quoted in the Oregon Historical Quarterly, Fall 2000
he legacy of Native education in America is tinged with suffering, bitterness, and trauma. In 2000, the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Kevin Gover, likened BIA's past treatment of western tribes to "ethnic cleansing." He offered a formal apology on behalf of his agency for pursuing an historic goal of "destroying all things Indian." "Worst of all," he remarked, "(the BIA) committed these acts against the children entrusted to its boarding schools, brutalizing them emotionally, psychologically, physically, and spiritually." He promised it would never happen again.
At the close of the 19th century, thousands of Indian children were consigned to off-reservation boarding schools as part of the government's assimilation efforts. The youngsters were separated from their homes and families—often for years at a time—and forced to reject their traditional dress, language, and religion. The goal of these schools, as described by the founder of one such institution in Pennsylvania, was to "kill the Indian ... and save the man."
One of the first of these boarding schools was the Forest Grove Indian Industrial and Training School, established in Oregon in 1880. Today, almost 125 years later, it is still operating on 400 wooded acres in Salem as the Chemawa Indian School. Home to 410 teenagers from 21 states, it has the distinction of being the oldest continuously operating boarding school in the United States.
A stroll around the campus, just off Interstate 5, reveals just how far Native education has come: Gone are the uniforms, the focus on "the white man's ways," and vocational courses like blacksmithing and dairying. State-of-the-art computer labs prepare students for the 21st century; regalia-making and drumming connect teens to their past; and vibrant murals line the hallways, a source of pride and a way for young artists to leave their mark.
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"We're trying to give our students the opportunity to succeed from where they are when they come to us, and that's a different philosophy from most other schools that want students to fit their system." — Larry Byers, Superintendent, Chemawa Indian School |
Chemawa Superintendent Larry Byers, a member of the Cherokee Nation, has had a major hand in the transformation. "I came at a good time—1976—so I didn't experience a lot of what was happening to students before," he says. "We started valuing culture. My job was to move on, make sure students felt comfortable with being Native, and give them every opportunity to express who they were."
Byers speaks proudly of the 87 students in Chemawa's talented and gifted program, the 100 kids who made the honor roll last fall, and the monthly assemblies that celebrate student success. All, he believes, are the result of a system that's driven by students' needs and "doesn't penalize them for what they didn't know before they got here."
Still, some of the bleaker realities of American Indian/Alaska Native education stubbornly linger on: lower academic achievement, disciplinary issues, and alcohol and drug problems. Just this school year, Chemawa has struggled with the on-campus death of a popular 16-year-old girl by alcohol poisoning. "Whatever's happening on the reservation is happening here because those issues don't go away on a plane ride," Byers reflects. "We're going to work with whoever we get, and try to make the best of it."
The academic and social issues that continue to cast a shadow over boarding schools like Chemawa also present challenges to tribal schools and public schools that serve the overwhelming majority of Native students today.
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"They help you get into the classes you need ... it's all about education." — Pat Lane, Chemawa student |
In recent years, a number of researchers and theorists have suggested that minority students (including American Indians and Alaska Natives) achieve a lower degree of academic success because of "discontinuities" between these students' traditional culture and language and those of mainstream American society. As a research report by Washington state's Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction points out, "According to this theory, minority students come from backgrounds that equip them with linguistic, cognitive, and interactional styles that are not fully supported by typical public schools, which are instead usually structured to support those styles common to white, middle-class students. It is believed that these discontinuities often result in systematic and recurrent miscommunication in the classroom as well as a failure to acknowledge and build upon the knowledge and abilities that minority students bring with them to school."
Researchers such as John Ogbu believe that cultural difference theory alone doesn't explain why some minority groups succeed while others fail. Ogbu argues that a key factor is the difference between "immigrant minorities" and "involuntary minorities." Native Americans fit into the latter category of those "brought into their present society through slavery, conquest, or colonization." They tend to view the social, political, and economic barriers they face in America as permanent and institutionalized discrimination. Involuntary minorities also may believe that education won't help them get ahead and may in fact be detrimental to maintaining their cultural identity.
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"Coming here lets you get away from family and friends and be different." — Tasha Havacone, Chemawa student |
In an attempt to counter the effects of these discontinuities, Native tribal communities and educators have long advocated programs steeped in Native culture and language. The seminal 1995 report, Indian Nations at Risk: An Educational Strategy for Action, concludes that "cultural context is absolutely essential" for Native students to succeed academically and build meaningful lives as adults. That belief is supported by the work of Jerome Bruner, a pioneer in the fields of cognitive development and educational psychology. Bruner states that "culture shapes mind... it provides us with the tool kit by which we construct not only our worlds but our very conceptions of our selves and our powers." He goes on to say, "Learning, remembering, talking, imagining: All of them are made possible by participating in a culture."
A national coalition of experts, led by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, is looking for scientific evidence to tie theories like Bruner's to Native American education and to affirm the belief that students thrive when instruction is congruent with their culture, connected to their history, and consistent with their community's worldview. With funding from the U.S. Department of Education, NWREL's John Towner and William Demmert of Western Washington University have just completed an exhaustive review of the research literature on culturally based education (CBE). In searching the research base, Demmert and Towner defined CBE as having six critical elements:
Demmert and Towner found that, with few exceptions, CBE research has been descriptive or narrative rather than anchored by scientific practices. "However," says Demmert, "from my observations and experiences as an educator for more than 30 years, I clearly see a tie between academic performance and culturally based education. I think that when the research is done, whether it's experimental or high-quality quasi-experimental, there will be a connection."
Demmert and others involved in NWREL's work are now looking at existing CBE projects that might lend themselves to rigorous scientific study, as well as determining the feasibility of experimental studies. Meanwhile, their research review presents the position that "knowing, understanding, and appreciating one's cultural base are necessary starting points for initiating a young child's formal education."
Understanding the child's cultural base is inextricably linked to involving the community in the child's formal education. A panel of American Indian and Alaska Native master educators, gathered by NWREL in 2001 to create a tool for improving schools for Native students, came to this conclusion: "All the scientifically rigorous research and well-validated tools will not improve school systems unless thoughtful and open dialogue is focused upon understanding, valuing, and committing to school improvement as a community." The resource that grew out of the panel's work—the Learn-Ed Nations Inventory—is a framework for gathering data and assessing how well a school is serving Native students. In presenting the inventory, the authors stress that every student, school, and community is unique, making local cultural context essential to school reform.
The role of community is also underscored in research on resilience, well-being, and school success for American Indian and Alaska Native students. In a review of studies, Joyce A. Strand and Thomas D. Peacock found that an adolescent's resilience—or "ability to bounce back from adversity"—is rooted in her connections to family and school and in personal characteristics. Strand and Peacock quote statistics from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health which indicate that:
Despite the differences among the 554 Native American tribes, Strand and Peacock point out that tribal families, schools, and communities all provide protective factors that "enable children to alter or reverse negative outcomes that might have been predicted for them." Though subjected to undue stress and adversity, youth who possess resiliency can withstand serious threats and do not give way to school failure, substance abuse, mental health problems, or juvenile delinquency.
Back at Chemawa, there are plenty of examples of students who are soaring above expectations. Students like Pat Lane: a 17-year-old member of the Lummi Nation with an engaging smile. He's president of Chemawa's student council this year, manager of the campus store, a standout in three sports, and founder of the school's peer mediation program. He modestly shrugs off the long list of accomplishments by saying, "It's good to stay busy" and talks about the importance of maintaining a positive attitude and taking advantage of any opportunity thrown your way. "Here they give you tests to see your capabilities, and place you where you need to be, even if it means sending you to Chemeketa (Community College) for courses not offered on campus," he observes. "Back home, if you were in eighth grade you were stuck in algebra and it didn't matter how good you were."
Tasha Havacone is another kid who's beating the odds, excelling at academics and leadership. She admits, "I didn't do so well before I came here (from the Hualapai Reservation in Arizona), but I got a 4.0 last semester." Fewer distractions, more structure have been the keys to Tasha's success. Vice president of the student council, manager of the boys' wrestling team, member of the volleyball squad... her list of responsibilities and achievements stretches on like Pat's. "On the reservation, you know everybody and everybody knows your business," she says. "Here you can be somebody different."
And valuing that difference is what Native education should be all about, in Larry Byers' opinion. "You have to find out what your students want for success," he advises, "and help them be successful with their values. That's the one thing we teach our teachers: Value these students for who they are, and where they're going. It may be going back home to the reservation—but they're going back as a giver, not a taker. If we can do that, we've contributed to the success of that person and their tribe. That's my goal." 
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