Contemporary American Indian History

Objectives

Through the use of this unit, I want my students to understand the history and experience of American Indians in different educational environments including boarding schools, tribal schools, and traditional public schools. I want them to understand the policies made by the United States government to assimilate American Indians into mainstream society and the efforts made by tribes to stop and reverse this process.

Currently, not one student attending my school identifies as American Indian. The Pittsburgh Social Studies curriculum only mentions American Indians in the context of the French and Indian War in 8^th grade, and when learning about Manifest Destiny in 11^th grade. Students are not given any further information and many assume that American Indians no longer exist. I want my students to understand that American Indians are not “artifacts of past,” but are a “people with a future.”³

I also want my students to draw parallels and make connections between the forced assimilation of American Indians with their own school experiences and relationship with dominant society (white society). Students have expressed to me in the past that they feel like they are expected to “act white” while they are in school and that they feel like their culture does not have a place in the classroom. I want to challenge this by asking students if they think their culture and language have a place in the classroom and should be integrated into lessons. I will also challenge my students to decide if integration of student culture should be required by the school district.

In this unit, I question the practice of requiring students to code-switch in urban classrooms as a form of assimilation. My students will examine the detrimental effects and legacy of American Indian boarding schools, particularly at the Carlisle Indian School run by Richard Henry Pratt. My students will analyze the recent efforts of tribal schools to infuse and encourage culture in their students’ educational experience at the Rough Rock Community School and the Oneida Nation High School. My students will also examine the need for American Indians to code-switch when attending a non-reservation school using the novel, The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. My students will make observations about when and where they must code-switch to “fit in.” To conclude, my students will participate in the current debate surrounding student use of slang and AAE (formerly known as Ebonics) language in the urban classroom.