Navigating Mainstream Public Schools: A Native America Perspective

Written by Kayla Bailey

Education and learning have long been associated as a gateway to creating a better life for oneself, especially in the United States, where elementary-high school education stresses almost exclusively the value in obtaining a degree. Framing education from a Native American perspective, numerous complications become apparent when considering current Native student’s ability to complete lower education. Numerous native students are positioned in the role of an outsider within public school systems and continually, both inadvertently and explicitly, conditioned to withdraw from engaging in their education.  Many of these obstacles stems from historical events, a lack of representation and understanding for cultural beliefs, and a deficit of monitored government assistance, exacerbated by systematic abuses and discrimination, potentially leading and correlating to cyclical problems in obtaining employment, housing, and good mental health.

            Analyzing the statistics, Native students disproportionately receive disciplinary action in school and are suspended or expelled at two times the rate of their white counterparts (Clarren 13). When students miss school due to these circumstances, particularly when incidents compound the others, they begin to develop gaps in their learning that has been proven to influence significantly their math and reading comprehension skills. Suspension and expulsion additionally work to push native students out of public education, usually resulting in increased drop-out rates or attending virtual schools. Although these virtual schools provide an alternative to students who may not be able to complete a more traditional education, often times these online courses lack the dynamic element of engagement that help to create lasting imprints of understanding.

            Various studies reveal that when poverty is accounted for as a barrier to education, ethnicity and race are still prevalent barriers to open public education. Considering just the content of lesson plans throughout the United States education system demonstrates an outdated model of tribal perspectives. A vast majority of student exposure to Native American history and cultural reflects backwards imperialist narratives, largely beginning and ending with Christopher Columbus, Thanksgiving, and Pocahontas (Clarren 15). This can be indescribably harmful to the native student’s concept of self, leaving them vulnerable to feeling the burdens of othering, a concept in which native students become acutely aware of the ways in which they stand out from their peers. In adolescent years, this issue stands dominant against pressures to fit in with peers and feel accepted. In the ethnographic study conducted and described in “Strategy and Resistance: How Native American Students Engage in Accommodation in Mainstream Schools,” Masta discusses how 8^th grade students felt proud of their Native American identity, but typically felt alienated by their peers for engaging in tribal traditions and events which inadvertently lead to withdrawal from interacting in academic settings with peers. The tensions that arise between a white centered perspective of education and create a diverging three methods of how native students navigate as explored by Masta, this manifests through cultural knowledge, academic knowledge, and survival knowledge. Understanding how these intersect is crucial to better understanding the native experience, because at the core of self-identity also relies on how one’s identity interacts with the social sphere in which that person is positioned, which in turn has the potential to determine how much of the self, one feels comfortable and safe exposing.

            Vital to understanding this concept is acknowledging the historical ramifications and dynamic relationships between Native Americans and previously instituted boarding schools. When thinking about how this pertains to Native Americans, the trauma that was endured as a result of forced assimilation through boarding schools has lasting and remnant effects on current generations. Culture has been defined as being rooted in history and adapting by participation in current social practices. Again, this relays back to how current native students navigate their social settings. To this day, the United States education system and other social institutions are largely embedded in structural inequalities that “reproduce the oppression brought about by colonialism and racism” (Masta 24).  Glimpses of a potential solution to this exists in schools that look to instilling and requiring ethnic studies in curriculum. An analysis of the ethnic studies program at Northern Arizona University provides an example of how institutions can work to decolonize knowledge in the modern world and provide a better diversity of learning (Banales and Roaf 74). However, even in this example, obstacles arose when hiring more diverse professors with how receptive the students were to their accepting their credibility. Although, having a more diverse teaching staff has been proven at the adolescent level to have positive ramifications for issues of representation in adolescent level people.

            The battle to secure an inclusive, comprehensive education reveals numerous complications in how, systematically, various obstacles interact with each other. Working to unravel these obstacles through theoretical frameworks and implementation of tribal perspective has proven to be somewhat effective. However, even with increasing representation of native teachers and accurate curriculum, unlearning the biases that perpetrate these abuses is rooted in a desire to support a change and acknowledging of disproportionate privileges across the board. For many white citizens, acknowledging accountability for the abuses of minority groups and actively working to uplift and support their voices needs to be considered universal as long as these groups still live in a society that threatens their existence on the basis of ethnicity and race.

 http://www.californiaindianeducation.org/indian_boarding_schools/

https://billingsgazette.com/news/local/education/billings-students-back-bill-that-would-allow-native-american-dress/article_5f4f615e-66a7-5508-8caa-6c43189b03d9.html

 

 

Works Cited

Clarren, Rebecca. “Left Behind.” Nation, vol. 305, no. 4, Aug. 2017, pp. 12–25. EBSCOhost, www.ulib.iupui.edu/cgi-bin/proxy.pl?url=https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy.ulib.uits.iu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=voh&AN=124873781&site=eds-live.

Masta, Stephanie. “Strategy and Resistance: How Native American Students Engage in Accommodation in Mainstream Schools.” Anthropology & Education Quarterly, vol. 49, no. 1, Mar. 2018, pp. 21–35. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/aeq.12231.

Sandoval, Denise M., et al. “White” Washing American Education: The New Culture Wars in Ethnic Studies [2 Volumes]. Praeger, 2016. EBSCOhost, www.ulib.iupui.edu/cgi-bin/proxy.pl?url=https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy.ulib.uits.iu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1352229&site=eds-live.