Native American Education
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MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF EDUCATION Department of English Language and Literature Native American Education Diploma Thesis Advisor: Author: Mgr. Zdeněk Janík, M. A. Olga Sochorová Brno 2007 Acknowledgements I would like to thank to Mgr. Zdeněk Janík, M. A. for consultations, professional and patient advising. I also would like to thank to the Native American students and faculty at the Dartmouth College who were helpful guides and kind participants in my research. I never can have enough thanks for my parents who have always been supportive during my studies and my extracurricular activities. I would also like to thank to my friends (they know). And last but not least, I definitely would like to thank to the Department of English Language and Literature, to its professional, friendly and always encouraging faculty that helped me to insight the world of foreign languages. 2 Declaration: I hereby declare that I worked on the thesis on my own and that I used only the sources mentioned in the bibliography. I agree with this diploma thesis being deposited in the Library of the Faculty of Education at the Masaryk University and with its being made available for academic purposes. In Brno, August 2007 ................................................. Signature 3 Content INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 5 1. PRE-COLONIAL PERIOD................................................................................... 9 2. COLONIAL PERIOD .......................................................................................... 17 2.1 SAVAGENESS, CIVILIZATION, CHRISTIANIZATION............................................ 18 2.2 BEGINNINGS OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS FOR NATIVE AMERICANS.......... 21 2.2.1 Catholic approach ......................................................................................... 22 2.2.2 Protestant approach ...................................................................................... 23 2.3 COLLEGES FOR NATIVE AMERICANS................................................................ 26 2.3.1 Henrico .......................................................................................................... 26 2.3.2 Harvard.......................................................................................................... 27 2.3.3 William and Mary .......................................................................................... 28 2.3.4 Dartmouth...................................................................................................... 30 3. FEDERAL PERIOD............................................................................................. 35 3.1 BACKGROUND OF THE NATIVE AMERICAN EDUCATION FROM THE 18TH THROUGH THE MID-20TH CENTURY ............................................................................................. 35 3.2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND NATIVE AMERICAN EDUCATION TILL THE 1960S ........................................................................................ 37 3.3 EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND SCHOOLS FOR NATIVE AMERICANS............................... 47 4. SELF-DETERMINATION PERIOD ................................................................. 53 4.1 COMMUNITY SCHOOLS........................................................................................... 55 4.2 HIGHER EDUCATION, TRIBAL COLLEGES, AND NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES......... 57 5. DARTMOUTH COLLEGE TODAY, INCLUDING STUDENT SURVEY... 63 5.1 NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES AT DARTMOUTH COLLEGE ....................................... 63 5.2 CASE STUDY: NATIVE AMERICAN STUDENTS SURVEY ........................................... 64 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 71 LIST OF TABLES........................................................................................................ 76 LIST OF APPENDIXES .............................................................................................. 76 BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................................................................................... 77 APPENDIXES............................................................................................................... 80 4 Introduction Education could be considered one of the most important means of each society to pass on its knowledge, either onto young generation or just in general among all its people. Each society developed its own typical ways and ideas about what education is, what should it contain, and how should it be transmitted. Throughout the centuries, the world’s geopolitical events interconnected the continents, and societies from one continent have been influencing the societies on the other. Sometimes the direction is more one-way then two-way; however this might seem an inevitable human activity. During the winter and spring months of 2006 I was visiting a friend in Vermont, USA. That was the time when I was deciding about the topic of the thesis I was obliged to write, and it was then when I found out about the Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, situated not too far from the place I was visiting. It was easy to find out that the Dartmouth College belongs amongst first institutions educating Native Americans; however I did not know much what that meant. This information certainly raised my curiosity about the topic and although I knew some history of the United States of America I had no idea about Native Americans in the relation to education. That is why I decided to write the thesis with such a topic, made arrangements to visit the place again in winter and spring months of 2007 and with hopes that the work would help not only me but also to other readers to understand what also is Native American education, herein is the present paper. First of all, it is necessary to present who are Native Americans in the context of this thesis. It is acknowledged, that there were no people in the Americas before Columbus arrival known as Indians, however for the purposes of this thesis the term Native American as well as American Indian, Indian or Native will be used. The use of common terms will help to acknowledge the diversity among different tribes and individuals and exclude the necessity to specify each fact to a certain tribe or an individual.1,2 1 This would be fairly impossible as the resources do not contain such specific information anyway. But still the importance of not too a big generalizations will be taken into account by providing few examples. 2The author is also aware of stereotypes and negative connotations which are connected with the use of the compound American Indian or a single word Indian within the United States society and of the thin line which may make the difference in the real meaning, nevertheless it will never be used in such negative connotation, so it is not offensive to the members of American tribes. During the research for the 5 There are many Native tribes throughout the American continents and from the geographical point of view this thesis will consider North-American Indians, specifically Indians of the present United States of America. Currently, there are 562 indigenous entities in the United States. In census 2000, 4.3 million people which is 1.5 percent of the total United States population, reported that they were American Indian and Alaska Native. In the same census, seventy-two percent of 5 years and older individuals claimed they spoke only English at home, 18 percent claimed they spoke other language than English yet spoke English “very well,” and 10 percent stated they spoke other language than English which they spoke less than “very well.” Concerning the level of education at least seventy-one percent of American Indians achieved high school education, which is lower in comparison to 80 percent of the total population. Statistics from the census 2000 also provided data about how educational attainment of Native Americans varied by place of residence. (Ogunwolle 2006: 1, 7, 17)3 It is sure, that before 1492 none of the Native Americans spoke any English and did not know about education in the form Europeans were providing it, nevertheless the following thesis will provide information about the long way Native Americans went to learning English and attending educational institutions, this is not to say it was their best destiny, however the history cannot be changed but still we can learn from it not to make mistakes in the future again. So who is an American Indian? Historically, Wilkins (2007: 28) says, the determination who was considered an Indian laid on the fact whether the person met certain criteria set by the tribal nation, such as social, cultural, linguistic, territorial, sociopsychological, or ceremonial. However, as the power of the federal government grown during the nineteenth century, the tribal power over the tribal identity was being replaced by legal and race-based definitions pronounced through laws, regulations, and court cases. (Wilkins 2007: 21, 28) Today, the federal government uses ethnological data, including blood quantum which is in fact “the most important criteria used by the federal government and tribal governments to determine Indian status.” (Wilkins 2007: 28) According to Wilkins, the use of blood quantum causes many problems especially as “it is not the carrier thesis it was observed that acknowledged authors use these words as well, and it is politically correct to use them