Chapter 5 Discipline, Punishment, & Violence: Chapter 6 Employees

     This chapter began by talking about the number of employees it obtained and also who was allowed to do what in the high school. The school was quite limited in employees but did have one person in necessary fields such as a carpenter, farmer, and clerks. The school also had a disciplinarian, matron and five assistant matrons these seven people were the only ones allowed to discipline the students. However, that did not take place as I further read into this chapter some of the employees were striking the children. For example, the cook would routinely slap children on the back of the head when they would mess up. This would keep children nervous and keep them in line as she thought. Soon many of the parents would begin to hear about this from children who began to run away. The children would be returned back and when they were the parents would also send letters stating that if the children were struck anymore they would come and remove their child from the school. The superintendent immediately took action and emphasized that if a child needs to be disciplined that they immediately be brought to a matron or him personally. From then the children were treated quite a bit better but some of the children never did get over the discipline of being beaten and at that times when into depression, which some could not be brought out of.

      When this chapter began it talked about how the employees were again very few. This time though as time went on many students’ jobs were beginning to be offered to whites and Indians alike. In 1912, out of the 31 employees at the boarding school nine were Indian. Many of these Indians earned equal pay as well just like the whites, except for the more advanced positions which at that time were given to the older more experienced employees not the recent graduates. The employees would be on a probationary period of six months by that time they were then in permanent status. Many of the Indian employees must be able to basically have dual skills if one employee took ill or leave of absence such as a teacher becoming a matron, or a clerk becoming a disciplinarian for a short time. As the years grew so did the numbers of the Indian employees and being treated fair and equal as well.

Chapter 3: The Curriculum & Chapter 4: The Cylce of Days

In Chapter 3 of my book it started to talk about the curriculum that was going to be taught at the school as well as what happened to the children. First when children were taken to the boarding school, just like every other one English was the only language to be spoken. In my book it stated that “If English is good enough for whites and blacks then it is good enough for Indians”. Most of the schooling took place in one room school houses that were taught by a single teacher who normally didn’t have a high school education. In the beginning of the school there were five teachers total to teach 150 students. Which wasn’t so bad in the beginning, but as time went on attendance started to grow and the teacher population did not. In 1922 when they finally added on one more teacher to make six the student population was 290 students.

            As I started to read more into this chapter I read that children there were only taught Basic English and skills and also basic manners. Many of the children could not even count when they came to the school. With so few teachers it was very hard to cover a large chunk of material in the English language when children didn’t even understand the language.

The fourth chapter discussed about the cycle of days and this chapter after talking about the 4^th of July celebration, and how school started in first week of September but children wouldn’t show up until a week or two later. This was because they were allowed to return home during the summer and for some it was a long trip back to the school. The children would take the trip unsupervised and sometimes it was luck finding their way, but for others when they had older students with them it was a bit easier. Then this chapter started to discuss sports, Rapid City Indian school was not known for its sports. While I was reading I noticed that they were constantly getting beat, it was a seldom occurrence for the to get a win in what I assume was predominantly white school such as Sturgis, School of Minds, Lead and other Rapid City school. It also did not matter what sport it was basketball, football or baseball wins were hard to come by for the Native American students who were usually younger by a great margin.

Chapter 2: Providing for the children

The first few pages of this chapter have to deal with the rations of the students and also what they ate. At the beginning of the functioning of the school the students were given the bare minimum of nutrition. At time the students would get only one glass of milk during their 3 course meals. Also, quite a few students had trouble getting used to the 3 square meals a day. Many of the children ate when they were hungry and had a hard time waiting to be told to eat. When they were served food it was normally the same thing every day. This book had a menu of the early years of what was served.

1910 Food Menu

Breakfast: Oat meal & milk, Fried potatoes, bread & coffee.

Dinner: Boiled meat (which was very bland) & gravy, potatoes, cabbage, bread & water.

Supper: Roast Meat & gravy, potatoes, beans, prunes, bread & water.

            This menu did not have very many variations to it, every now and then the cooks would put dumplings in with the gravy but that was the best of what the children got at that time. Fresh fruits were never served the only way children got the nutrients of vitamins was normally through the cabbage which contained vitamin C which greatly help prevent the scurvy. In the book it also shared how the children complained of their oatmeal being wormy, and the book also names 3 children who had run away because they had found worms in their rice. The menu slowly got better as time grew on and parents as well as the government began to notice that the children would complain of being hungry and write letters to their parents to insist that they take them home.

            Another thing this book talked about was the horrible was the health care. Many of the students who attended Rapid City were subjected to a variety of possible sicknesses including; tuberculosis, scarlet fever, smallpox, cerebro-spinal meningitis, influenza and many others. The medical care for these viruses was nothing more than rest and water, because at this time in the medical field there weren’t very many antibiotics available. The flu pandemic was one of the biggest concerns at this point in time and in 1918-19 it actually caused the school to shut down in order to control the plague.