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 4th 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.
I bet it was hard for the students to come to school and learn a whole new language. Also with that many students, it was probably hard to get alot of one on one with the teacher. With the sports, I wonder what kind of coaching the Indians were getting if any. They probably just scheduled games and let them go.
ReplyDeleteHi Tyson,
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine being sent to a school where only one language was allowed to be spoken, a language that I did not know or for that matter find a purpose in wanting to learn. I do wonder how learning even took place. How did teacher's provide instruction with academic success? Although they were being assimilated into the "white" culture what advantage did it give them if they couldn't grasp the same academic levels of their same age non-tribal peers?
When I read your post I thought about how hard it would be to go to France and try and get around there, not knowing the language. It would be hard so hard to communicate. I think about how these young children must have felt. They were basically guinea pigs to this process. They were the first to find out what techniques worked and what didn't. Being a teacher candidate, I wonder what the most useful strategy for this was. Now-a-days there are different programs such as the Rosetta Stone etc. I wonder how effective these programs are. LOL, kind of wondered off but I do wonder...
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