Family+Life+and+Education

FAMILY LIFE American Indian family life was different from and was changed by contact with Europeans, who misinterpreted, misconstrued, or simply misunderstood Indian customs. Although [|family] customs and structures may vary between tribes, the family is of extreme importance in American Indian culture. Most tribes consider it the backbone of their society.
 * ===== According to researchers Harriet Light and Ruth Martin, American Indian [|__families__] do not have the same rigid structure found in European-American families. For instance, while the European-American family is typically limited to three generations living in the same home, many American Indian households can include extended relatives and even close friends[[image:images.jpg align="right"]] =====
 * ====It was ordinary for a European man to be required by the prospective bride’s family to prove his ability to support her, but when an American Indian man presented the bride’s family with skins or other goods, to prove the same thing, Europeans decided that Indian women could be bought. Divorce seems to have been relatively easy, and sexual freedom was not inconsistent with marriage. Problems arose only when the spouse did not approve.====
 * Girls commonly married between the ages of 15 and 17 while boys from about 18 to 20.
 * Women outnumbered men two to one, so it was not uncommon for a man to have many wives, depending on how able he was to provide for them
 * [[image:9452.jpg width="226" height="169" align="left"]]
 * Women made and owned all the household goods while men owned their weapons and their clothing.
 * European men did not approve of the division of labor among American Indian men and women.
 * Women grew crops, erected houses, and did everything related to the home. Men hunted, fished, and made war. Since hunting and fishing were recreational in Europe, Europeans regarded Powhatan men as lazy idlers. In fact, the contribution of both sexes was about equal, until the European demand for hides and furs made the male hunters more important than the female farmers.
 * Children were important to the prosperity of the group, they were treated like responsible individuals and members of the group almost from infancy, in order to let them develop into self reliant adults which European men did not approve of and did not understand why they were treated this way.
 * Most Indian cultures were matrilineal and descent was through the mother's side[[image:1064.jpg width="427" height="234" align="right"]]
 * Indian Children, unlike Europeans, were not spanked or beaten as punishment.

**EDUCATION** Native Americans in different parts of the new world had different education experiences. The Aztecs and Incas offered formal training to selected members of their population. Members of wandering Indian tribes learned from their parents and other tribe members. When the Europeans arrived, they utilized "assimilation" to educate the Indians. The Americans used boardi ng [|__schools__] to as similate the Indians; they forced Indian children to adopt white culture over Indian culture. Finally, in the 20th century, Indians started to attend public schools. These schools provided some degree of culture shock to Native Indian students, as school faculty would teach using Western teaching and learning methods.

History[[image:training-boys.jpg width="210" height="330" align="right"]]

 * The initial "mission" for Native American education was to assimilate Indian children into American culture. Native American children had to wear school uniforms, get haircuts (boys), use Western names, eat American foods, and speak English. The students had to become Christians, and they had to observe Western holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. In the 1920s and 30s, John Collier fought to change that concept. Younger children started to [|attend school] near their families; Indians started to learn about both European and Native American cultures. Thanks to the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, assimilation as an education goal was abandoned. In the last two decades of the 20th century, Native American education became parallel to American education. Today, most Native Americans attend public schools.
 * A lot of attention has been given to minorities in regular K-12 [|school] systems. The performance of African American students compared to their Caucasian counterparts received media and political attention. But not much is said about the unique requirements for Native American students. Compared to their Caucasian counterparts, not as many American Indians complete school, attend college, or achieve academic accomplishments.
 * Initially, Indians attended the boarding schools to learn how to assimilate. The boarding school system gave way to regular schooling. In some locations, Native Americans attend their own school system, which is parallel to regular public education. They have their own K-12, Vocational, and College schools. Native Americans also attend regular public school systems, including vocational and special education programs. Specific Native American tribes have workshops specific to a craft or skill.
 * [[image:training-girls.jpg width="210" height="334" align="right"]]Native American education takes place from Alaska to Argentina and Chile. There are Indian tribes in the South American jungles that haven't been assimilated. These tribes continue the teaching methods that their ancestors used to facilitate tribe function and survival. Because of conquest and intermarriage, Most Native Americans in Latin America attend public schools. In the ancient times, the Aztecs and Incas offered public schooling for their children.
 * American schools teach based on Western philosophy and learning methods; Native Americans learn from their cultural perspectives. For example, Indians are group-oriented, rather than individually oriented. American school grading structure has students competing against each other, as opposed to working as teams. Native Americans learn best by watching how things are done; many American schools usually teach by lecture. Many Indians feel that they haven't been "trained" unless they can physically do what they have been trained to do.

[[image:spokane-schoolgirls.jpg align="left"]]

 * O ne historical occurrence that has had long lasting and far-reaching impact on the education of American Indian people was the formation of the American Indian boarding school. Such institutions were built and operated throughout the country, controlled by non-American Indian government agents and churches, were designed to suppress the culture, language, and spirituality of American Indian nations throughout the United States.
 * During the late 1800’s and into the mid-1900’s, boarding school attendance was mandated. The Indian boarding school served as a means to assimilate American Indian children and to train American Indian students as laborers
 * From the age of 5 through 18, American Indian children were removed from their families, for months or years at a time, and placed in the boarding school where a harsh indoctrination occurred.
 * For the most part, the level of education and training afforded American Indian students prepared them for menial vocations. As a result, most American Indian students today do not have several generations of professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, or bankers to emulate.
 * Today, it is often the first or second generation of the American Indian professional that is being encountered, not because of cultural inferiority or academic indifference, but because of the lack of a dignified, humane system of education. Indeed, many of the psycho-social ills that persist in American Indian communities today can be traced to the boarding school era and the systematic enforcement of child maltreatment.
 * While not as prevalent, the American Indian boarding school still exists, although attendance is voluntary. Most schools now work closely with surrounding American Indian tribes, employing tribal members as staff and reflecting the culture of American Indian students as part of its educational programming.[[image:wood-chopping-crew.jpg width="354" height="247" align="right"]]

**//School completion //**. Currently 90% of Native American students attend non-tribal, public schools. Unfortunately they have some of the highest dropout rates of any minority group and a disproportionate number are identified as requiring special education services. Several studies have demonstrated that tests and teacher reports show that Native American children function at average to superior range up to the fourth grade and, beyond the fourth grade, their academic performance rapidly declines, resulting in a 40% to 60% school dropout rate. Several reasons for this trend have been suggested, including that some students are ridiculed for pursuing higher education; they are accused by their peers of just trying to "act White". In a study, Native American high school students indicated the following as reasons for dropping out of school: **//Higher education //****. Currently, Native American students are also **behind the national average when it comes to higher education. A dropout pattern develops by the fourth grade. In addition, only 7.6% have a Bachelor's degree, compared with 15.5 % of the total population. Less than 4% of Native Americans have an advanced degree in comparison to 9% of the total population. However, this may change: higher rates of Natives have high school and Associate's degrees than the population as a whole. The latter statistic might be associated with the high poverty levels in the Native American population as many Associate degree institutions may be a less expensive alternative. The dropout rate as well as the lack of individuals with higher degrees may be explained by a lack of scholastic interest from Native American students. **//Circular communication and learning styles //**. Communication and learning styles are collaborative factors in a Native American student's progress in school. As discussed earlier, a student's lack of interest in the school's curriculum or in their own abilities seem to be influential factors in their academic development. A Native American community leader expressed the Native American communication style as //circular,// instead of the American culture's linear communication style. A Native American child who has grown up in a family with a circular communication style may have a difficult time learning from a teacher who is teaching via a linear learning style. Like any bi-lingual or bi-cultural student in a dominant cultural, linguistic and teaching environment, Native American students may also encounter similar difficulties in learning through a lack of connection with the material. Many Native American political groups have created new policies to help their students' educational development through language acquisition. They noted that cultural priorities were lost in schools, and further concluded that tribal priorities must be included in programs that strengthen the Native languages. Parents, tribes, communities and schools in partnership were encouraged to develop programs to strengthen surviving language and traditional skills, and to rebuild skills that have been lost. As these educational leaders begin to incorporate more Native American historical, cultural and linguistic studies into their curriculum, as well as adopt more culturally appropriate teaching styles that cater to the Native American students, they hope to stimulate the Native American students' interest in their own academic progress. [] [] [] [] [] [] []
 * Student-teacher relationships (teachers do not care about me-37%; teachers do not provide enough assistance-39%; disagreements with teacher-33%)
 * Content of schooling (school is not important to what I want to do in life-44%; school is not important to me as a Native American-24%)
 * Lack of parental support (problems at home-44%; lack of parental encouragement-39%)

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Created By: Renee Krause end info added by Missy Beckwith