^ The fWay O ?Sec Ot
^ by Dr. Dean Chavers, Albuquerque, New Mexico j
Ihe ( uhure oj Int/iun h'ducation
( opyrighl 2001
The culture of Indian school* needs changing ATone of the seminar* I did
recentl\. this topic came up with a vengeance Indian people are upset at what
the culture of the schools in This is what these teachers, counselors, and
principals said
First of all. the teachers have too-low expectations This is almost a clich
in Indian education but it is true Teachers with new or progressive ideas either
change their ideas and lower their expectations or leave. Some of them leave
on their first Christmas break and never return Most leave within one to two
years. creating a huge lack of stability and continuity in Indian schools
The expectations are so low that teachers really do not try hard enough I
realize it takes superhuman effort to buck a social trend, but we need to do that
Teachers do not give homework because students do not do it The only
teaching that happens is that which takes place in the classroom
Indian students do not read books In data I have collected at eight schools,
students read less than one book per year each outside of the classroom They
need to be reading a book a week The real education of anyone occurs outside
the classroom Most Indian students read no books at all outside the classroom
This is their way of passively resisting the colonial occupation that Indian
schools have historically represented.
The only problem is that the schools now are the only salvation of Indian
people Every one recognizes this fact, but few have capitalized on it. Ask any
group of Indian parents, as I have done a dozen and a half times in the past 15
sear', and they will tell you they want their kiJ> to linivh high school. enroll
in college, and finish college
Thus the culture of the schools is out of line with the expectations of Indian
parents Indian high schools need to he preparing every student to enroll in
college I realize that thisis a shocking controversial statement Bullet ts look
at the facts
According to the best data I have seen, only I-*"# of Indian high school
graduates enroll in college But for the I k j> a whole. 0"?% of high school
graduates enroll in eollege This is a huge *0% gap between the I S and Indian
Country It needs to be closed
Second, parents have the wrong attitude I mean that in a positive way. not
in a negative and accusatory vvav as some school people s<iy it I don l.t blame
parents for this attitude I blame the schools
The attitude I am talking about is the one that -aw dl don it have anything
to do w ith my children Ts education M> lob is to put them on the bus You
teachers take it from there d
This is the w rong attitude because parents are the first educators of children
Parents can not delegate this responsibility to any one else, despite what HI A and
school people have been try ing to push for 125 years The schools now have
all kinds of mechanisms in place to prevent parents from participating in school
activities All these barriers need to come down (See my column about this
is Sept. IW6 )
Parents are not going to beat the doors down at the school to become
involved, in my opinion If the hands-off attitude of parents is going to change,
the initiative will have to come from the teachers I would like to see every
Indian parent in contact with the teachers of their children. This is one of the
most important things we can do to improve Indian education But almost no
one is doing it.
So the students continue to get away with murder If the teacher assigns
homework, the kids know the parents will not know what is going on because
they never talk to the teachers So if the kid is lucky and Mom asks about
his homework, all he has to say is dl don.tt have any.d and that is the end
of it.
When the leather ask* about the homework [he ne\l Jay. the student
simply >a\s 61 diunLt do n.6 and the teacher has no alternative The
homework is simply neglected
Ihird. superintendents and principals too willingly accept the status quo
The) need to set priorities Two of them that need addressing are daily
attendance and high school completion
No one expects Indian students to attend school on a daily basis. So we
hase schools that havedailv attendance of 65'? to 75?o This is was too low
It needs to he 92? o or higher for high schools, and 65% or so for elementary
schools 61 ime on taskfi is one of the most important factors in educational
success It is being violated on a wide scale in Indian Country
Several schools have already proved that daily attendance can be tixed
immediately All the principal or the superintendent has to do is assign the
responsibility for truancy to someone If a students is not present tor school
in the morning, the truancy officer simply goes to the student.+ s house and
brings him to school, provided the student is not sick
Supt Reid Riedlinger did this at Wellpinit in I960 The person
responsible. Tern Wvnecoop. raised daily attendance from 65uo to 95?o in
less than 30 days I hey have maintained it at this level tor ten years now
Many other improvements have happened at the school since, all made
possible by the adequate daily attendance.
Wellpinit has improved test scores from below the 20th percentile to
above the 40th for all subjects in all areas The dropout rate is near zero
College attendance is above 60" o e\ei^ vfur A handful of other exemplary
schools have done the same types ot things
fourth, the schools do not prepare students for the reality ot the world In
my lifetime, the culture of the US has changed radically. W hen I started
farming in 1952. 15? o of the population were farmers Now only l.5??ofthe
population are farmers Many blue collar occupations are not growing, are
stagnant, or are actually losing jobs u plumbing, welding, carpentry. and many
others.
What do people do in the US now? I call it KIT. which is short for
Knowledge. Information, and Technology. People produce new knowledge,
they pass it along, and they do so with high-tech machines. The Bl A or public
school on a reservation that is training its students for blue collar occupations
is cheating the students in a serious way.
That is not reality. The reality is that 60-80?o of jobs today involve
information processing.
Teachers, fund raisers, engineers, social workers, business managers,
salesmen, computer people, secretaries, and a host of others are involved in
processing information.
More and more of these jobs require a college degree to get hired. In 1950
a high school education would get a person hired. In 1980 it took two years
of college in many areas of the country and in many professions to get hired.
Today it takes a college degree to get hired in many fields. The stakes have
really gone up.
So anyone who tells an Indian high school student not to go to college is
doing that student great harm. Yet I met with a group of high school seniors
last week who had been told by teachers, principals, and counselors not to
attendf-college. This is extremely bad advice, and should be ignored.
Unfortunately. Indian students who are isolated in reservation schools often
have little in their experience to counter such bad and ignorant advice.
The culture of our Indian schools needs to be changed, folks. That/Es all
there is to it. There are not other alternatives. Indian students need to be futly
prepared in high school for college study. They need to take all the math,
science, English, foreign languages, computer literacy, writing, history,
literature, and government classes they need to get into college.
They need to attend summer camps on college campuses to get them ready
to deal with the foreign world of
The college experience. They need to set career goals for themselves early
in their high school career, then set out to the meet these goals.
My organization. Catching the Dream, has helped 268 Indian students to
finish college. All of them are working. The demand for them is ten higher
than the supply.
Every college wants Indian students. Every major employ er wants these
graduates u Ford, General Motors, General Mills. General Foods, IBM.
Lockheed. Boeing, the FBI, the EPA, and hundreds of other businesses and
government agencies want them.
Let's transfer the culture of our schools to today/Es reality.
ftlona Hfie 2{p5eson TraiC
by Dr. Stan Knick, Director, UNCP Native American Resource Center
A while back we looked into what
has been called "the construction of
Indian identity." In that segment we
saw that ideas about who and what
constitutes an Indian have very often
been shaped by non-Indians. From
early in the history of the United States,
opposing views of "the Indian"
developed: one view described an
Indian as a "savage red man," while
the other view saw instead a
"viclimized-but-noble
environmentalist." It has been
argued that both images are either
completely incorrect or at best
incomplete, and that both are simply
constructs of the European worldview.
There can be litde doubt that how
we humans see each other (and
ourselves, for that matter) is
conditioned by how others see us, and
by how they see themselves. A child
who is raised being told that she is
smart and creative will usually
develop a positive image of herself.
Conversely, a child who is repeatedly
told that she is dumb and worthless is
likely to develop a more negative selfj
image. Thus any child's identity could,"
to a certain extent, bo. "constructed"
(influenced over lime) in different
ways. And so it is with whole groups
of people.
Even the names we use for
ourselves and others can be the
products of someone else's world view.
Takethe"Eskimo"forexample. When
French fur traders contacted Micmac
and Abnaki Indians in eastern Canada,
the fur traders were looking for the
best furs to take back to Europe. They
learned that there were other Native
people living farther north who had
fine animal pelts to trade. When the
French asked the Micmac and Abnaki
who those other people were, they
were given the Algonkian word
eskimanlsic (which means "they eat
raw meat"). This word passed through
French as esquimaux and into English
as Eskimo. What was intended as a
derogatory term became the word most
often used to speak of Arctic
indigenous people. Even some of their
own descendants use the word Eskimo
to describe themselves today (though
most prefer tribal/national names, i.e.,
Inuit, Aleut, Netsilik, etc.). Other
groups are called by names which are
not of their own making, and which
are often someone else's word for
"strange;" or "enemy" (i.e.. Apache,
Sioux, etc.).
So it goes with the construction of
Indian identity. An idea starts ?
based in truth or not ? and then
spreads, eventually becoming widely
accepted as truth. Such was the case
with the mistaken notion about the
word "Lumbee" ? the idea that it was
invented in the 1950s. Someone started
the idea, simply lacking knowledge of
the nineteenth century references
which show the word as an ancient
name for the river (and probably, for
the people indigenous to this area),
and the notion spread. Before long
this erroneous idea had become widely
accepted among both Indians and nonIndians.
A part of Lumbee identity
had been "constructed," but it had been
based on incorrect information.
The United States government has
contributed in its own way (and
continues to do so) to the
"construction of Indian identity."
TBe Bureau of Indian Affairs insists
that federally-unrecognized trjbes
document their connection to
"historically known tribes" in order to
gain recognized status. On (he
surface, this seems benign ? Indian
people every where find oulabouteach
other by asking questions such as:
"Who are your people?" When Native
people themselves are allowed to
define their own identity, as long as it
is done with historical accuracy, there
doesn't seem to be a problem.
But when the government gets to
decide who is an Indian and who is not,
on the basis of pitifully inadequate
historical records describing the
Native people of the 1700s (as is the
case with eastern North Carolina), then
the government's construction of
Indian identity is suspect. It can cause
Indian tribes and nations to try to trace
their ancestry to one of the known
tribes, when perhaps we should all
admit that many of the tribes that were
originally here remain unknown
because of the nature of the historical
contact This is especially true given
that epidemic decimation and
subsequent coalescence of tribes,
occurred long befonf-sustained, faceto-face,
European contact could have
happened (Lawson estimated that by
1705 more than eighty percent of the
Indians of this region had been wiped
out by epidemics, at a time when there
had been no sustained European
contact here along the Lumbee
River). Thus only a few of the original
tribes could possibly be "'historically
known."
Nevertheless, when tribes have
moved through the government's
bureaucracy toward federal
recognition they have been compelled
to document their connection to
"historically known tribes." When the
Lumbee submitted their petition for
federal recognition, they emphasized
their connection to the Cheraw. Bills
introduced to grant legislative
recognition to the Lumbee called for
them to be named "Lumbee Tribe of
Cheraw Indians" (with the exception
of a more recent version). It seems that
if tribes want to play in the
government's identity game, they have
to play ^y the government's rules. But
by doing so, are they consenting to the
construction of Indian identity by nonIndians?
This shouldNOTbe taken to mean
that the Lumbee have no legitimate
claim to descent.from th^Cheraw. In
fact, they do (as well as from othei
tribes). But just because no Europear
colonist wrote down the wore
"Lumbee" during the seventeenth
century (before epidemic decimatior
and tribal coalescence caused the word
to be submerged within the local
Indian community), that does NOT
mean that "Lumbee" (the ancient name
of the river) is not an appropriate name
for The People in and of itself. It is.
But all the while, the fact that the
government dictates which name is
considered to be legitimate continues
to complicate "the construction of
Indian identity."
For more information, visit the
Native American Resource Center in
historic Old Main Building, on the
campus of The University of North
Carolina at Pembroke.
Birthdays from
Pembroke First
Batpist Church
December Birthdays:
Brannagan R. Locklear. December
8; Kelsey Rae Elk. December 12;
Zachary Maynor. December 27 and
Krishna Graham. December 31.
January Birthdays
Pauline Thomas, January 1;
Courtni Clark, January I; Roderick
Oxendine, January 5; Brianna Chavis,
January 13;bawson Brooks, January
14; Vicki Bell, January 18; Stephen
Trevor Hunt, January 23; Carl Clark,
I January 24;andDelsea Thomas, Janu!
ary 25.
II Congratulations to^ Billie Jo and
r Brannagan Locklear on t life-birth of a
son, Brannagan Kai Locklear who
weighed 8 lb 11 oz. bom January 1,
' 2001. He was born on his greati
grandmother's birthday, Mrs. Lucratie
i Locklear. Happy Birthday.
Unomr a naw l?? you may lor
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