A Bid to Redefine Indian Education...!!!

By JAMES BROOKE

Facing final exam pressures common to all boarding schools, students here have found an uncommon way to unwind. Following the bouncing ponytail of Al Blackhorse, their history teacher, Indian students hop, skip and dip in a clockwise whirl of the Navajo grass dance.

It's spiritual, social and a stress reliever," Mr. Blackhorse said after the taped chants and drumbeats of the late afternoon powwow faded from the brand new campus of the Native American Preparatory School.

For decades, the words "Indian boarding school" could conjure up fearful, Dickensian images: cold showers barracks where white teachers cut Indian boys' braids, burned their traditional clothing, handed out English names and forbade them from speaking the language of their parents.

Richard Pratt, founder of the first Federal Indian boarding school, set the tone in 1892 when he lectured a congress of educators: "Kill the Indian in him and save the man."

One century later, on a 1,600-acre campus dotted with pinon pines and cut by the Pecos River, a group of white and Indian educators are starting what they hope will become a model for a different kind of Indian boarding school education for America's next century.

"We are saying, yes, we are native people, but we are also connected to the rest of the world," said John Anthony Reyna, a Taos Pueblo who teaches art here. Operating from modern adobe buildings originally built for a resort, the new school is believed to be the only privately financed boarding school for Indian students in the United States.

After seven years as a summer school, the Preparatory School moved in August into its new, $6 million campus here in high mountains 40 miles east of Santa Fe. In this setting, the school offers a rigorous, traditional curriculum coupled with studies of Indian literature, art and history, as well as weekly visits by Indian leaders, artists and professionals.

The idea is to offer bright Indian high school students the kind of elite education that privileged white children have long enjoyed at New England boarding schools. But instead of paying an annual tuition valued at $16,000, Indian families pay only $900.

"We want to fill the American Indians' educational hole -- doctors, scientists, educators, business leaders," said Richard Prentice Ettinger, the chairman of the school's board. The son of a founder of the Prentice Hall publishing house, Mr. Ettinger has made the family foundation, the Educational Foundation of America, the school's principal financial backer. With an annual budget of $1.7 million, the school is almost entirely privately financed.

The need for improved Indian education is clear. Scoring at the bottom of America's five major racial groups, only half of Indian students graduate from high school and only 3 percent graduate from college.

At the same time, Congress shows little interest in increasing Federal investment in Indian education. In its most recent version of the Federal budget, Congress calls for a 10 percent cut for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an agency that maintains 187 schools.

Closer to home, Congress this year cut in half, to $5 million, the budget for Santa Fe's Institute of American Indian Arts, the nation's only arts college for Indians. With Congress debating an end to Federal financing altogether next year, the Institute's President, Perry Horse, resigned on Nov. 21.

Here, on rolling hills of the western Plains where Pecos Indians once hunted buffalo, the Native American Preparatory School may be forging a formula for improved educational results. A followup study of 50 students from the 1988 summer session found that five years later three-quarters were enrolled in college.

The school not only combats the low expectations that traditionally handicap teachers of Indians, but it also combats the low self-esteem that traditionally handicaps Indian students. In Mr. Reyna's art class, students work on baskets and masks under a wallboard that proclaims: "I am talented, skillful and intelligent! I look, act, think and dress like a winner!"

For some Indian teen-agers, accustomed to undemanding reservation schools, the educational atmosphere here is too hot.

In early September, only a few days after the first freshman class of 50 students arrived, a mini-riot erupted on campus, leaving a trail of broken lights and wounded feelings.

"Everything around here says you are in a resort, then you get nailed with homework," Norman E. Carey, the head of the school, said as he strolled the grounds on a recent afternoon. "Some of the students never had homework before. A great deal of anxiety contributed to the flare-up."

The school closed for 10 days as a result of the disturbance. When it reopened, two teachers and eight students did not return.

But, as the school nears the end of its first term, many of the 40 students expressed enthusiasm in interviews.

"Time goes by so fast here -- one day you think it's Thursday and it's already Saturday," said Nikki Nez, a 14-year-old who wore a Navajo-style choker, fashioned from bone, brass beads and artificial sinew.

"Back in Santa Fe, I felt like I wasn't working hard -- and I was getting A's and B's," she continued. "This is a big change, from easy to real hard."

The daughter of a woodworker who dropped out of high school, Nikki said she was "hoping to go to Stanford or Berkeley."

Teachers here say they work to draw Indian children out of their traditional classroom reticence that stems from the students either viewing the teacher as an elder, worthy of rapt attention or being intimidated by non-Indians in the class.

Fred Leon, a 14-year-old from Laguna Pueblo, discussed his new assertiveness in an interview a few minutes after he addressed the student body about his fall-term art projects.

"At home, I was mixed with Anglos and Mexicans -- the others dominated the class, and I felt left out," he recounted. "Here, it's Native Americans. You get attention, you get called on."

After three months, Fred, the son of a small rancher, said he was still in awe of the school's creature comforts. "There's only two to a room," he said, "and you get a big old bed all to yourself."

With plans to steadily expand until it has a traditional four-year student body, the school is starting a $20 million capital drive to raise money to build additional housing for faculty and students, a library, a gymnasium and a science laboratory.

Although only a tiny fraction of Indian students will ever have the opportunity to attend a school like this, school officials believe they can set a model for Indian education and provide role models for tribal populations. Already, this drop in the bucket is making some local splashes.

"At home on the reservation, there is only TV and drunks," said Denisa Livingston, a 14-year-old from Shiprock, Ariz. "When I go home now, people look at me as a model."

And for students who want to know how the old Indian boarding schools were, they need only to ask Mr. Blackhorse, a 33-year-old veteran of the war in the Persian Gulf.

"Everything was very regimented -- you marched around campus, there were bunk beds, open bay showers all together," the teacher recalled of his New Mexico boarding school of 25 years ago. "Everything stressed the assimilation process. I was always getting intimidated by the Anglo teachers. I didn't want to ask questions in class."

Here, school directors encourage close family ties. Students can go home every other weekend. Telephones in their rooms can receive incoming calls. Parents can work off their tuition bills by spending weekends as dorm monitors.

The other evening, after students had drifted out of the cafeteria after dinner, Mr. Blackhorse recalled how old-style Indian boarding schools used to handle the family unit.

"I remember my grandparents dropping me off at the school, when I was 4 years old," he recounted. "I remember seeing their old car going down the road and running for the door. The older boys stopped me."

Source: NYTimes

The Global Search for Education: More From India

Is there a future for a US - India partnership in education?

In his remarks at the recent Brookings Institute conference in Washington, Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns commented, "We are counting on India's rise, not just as an economic partner, but as a global power -- one that engages everywhere from Latin America to the Middle East to South Asia."

Is there also a partnership opportunity in education? What might these two education systems be able to learn from each other?

In the US, we have a significant poverty problem that has a large impact on the educational readiness of children from poor and low income families. 1 in 5 children live in poverty and 1 in 4 rural children live in poverty. 38.5% of rural children are eligible for free or reduced price school meals. The average cognitive scores of preschool-aged children in the highest socioeconomic group are 60% above those of low-income children. (Information provided by Save the Children US Programs)

Dr. Madhav Chavan, CEO and Co-founder of the Pratham Organization notes:

"On the face of it, the two systems are at least a century apart and may have nothing to learn from each other. Indian educators would need to look at how the US schools evolved over the last two centuries, and the US counterparts may want to look at how similar the root causes of poor learning are in schools where children of the poor go. I have been thinking lately that the basic model of the school is fast becoming outdated in the modern times. The challenges India faces are also an opportunity to move away from the two centuries old model of schooling. US school systems have huge resources to try something new. Perhaps both sets of educators should sit down and ask what kind of schools are needed for this century and if they can be systematically developed over the next twenty years."

This week in The Global Search for Education, Dr. Chavan discusses the major issues facing India's education system and some of the solutions Pratham (one of the largest non-government organizations working with under privileged children) is putting in place to deal with them. Pratham began by offering pre-school education to children in the slums of Mumbai. These programs were subsequently expanded to nearly every state in India. Pratham's programs are aimed at supplementing governmental efforts. In 2005, it established the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) to quantify the problems of education in India. In January 2007, it launched the Read India campaign to help India's 6 to 14 year olds learn to read, write, and do basic arithmetic.

"Our first objective in many cases is teaching the child basic skills such as reading and writing."

What proportion of adult Indians is educated?

According to the 2011 census figures, I believe that 25% of adult Indians are illiterate. 50% are semi-educated. Of the remaining 25%, roughly 2 to 4% have received a top class 'elite' education, 10% have received a good education and are from the upper middle class, and the other 12% have received some college education and are from the middle class.

What are the issues India faces in their education system at each of the different levels of learning?

I think India faces two basic educational system problems at three different levels. The first issue is one of quantity. The second is one of quality. The three levels are the basic level, i.e. the primary education (up to age 14), the secondary education (ages 14 to 18), and then higher education such as college and university. In all three levels, both issues of quantity and quality are the concern.

In our annual status of education survey we have learned the following. At the primary level, we find by 5th grade, in large numbers of Indian states, less than 50% of children can read a Grade 2 level text. Only about 40% can solve Grade 5 math problems. And so, 50% of our children at the primary level are at a risk of not entering or not completing secondary education level. That's what we face at the primary level. I believe that a large number of primary school students come from illiterate or semi-literate families who should be able to get additional support, including tutoring, to enable them to handle secondary education.

At the next level, that is secondary education and vocational schooling, the Indian infrastructure and the availability of trained teachers is very poor. My feeling is that we need to think beyond our existing educational learning curriculum, which is very linear. We need to become more innovative so that we can expand and improve learning at the higher levels.

Quality of testing and assessment (certification) is also a big issue. It is hard to say what our examination system actually examines with credibility. For example, if you are a first class student in one corner of India as opposed to another corner in India, it can mean two different things. I believe a solution to this is a standardized test for all.

What things can organizations such as yours do to help students who are not achieving in the existing system?

"The challenges India faces are also an opportunity to move away from the two centuries oldmodel of schooling."

In India, our first objective in many cases is teaching the child basic skills such as reading and writing. Our annual education survey also checks children's competence in these basic skills and also their school attendance. We also interview parents. Right now our system just expects teachers to "complete the curriculum" regardless of whether children learn. So looking at the indicators and outcomes is the first step. Based on those results that I have explained above, our team can intervene to help with learning gaps that exist in certain school communities. When we have the schoolteacher and the volunteer (who come from the same community or village as the child) working in sync with the teacher, progress has been made.

I think there is a need to have a very strong bridge between home and school so that parents can be told how the child is doing, especially if the child is not doing well, and so that parents can also help the child in some way.

Our middle class families can make up the learning gaps in our schools with private tutoring. So many middle class Indian students are learning all day in school, coming home, having a quick snack, and then rushing off for several more hours of tutoring. This of course can make children overburdened and overstressed.

Have Indian children started participating in the PISA test?

Yes, India is participating in two states. So let's wait and see how we do.

"50% of our children at the primary level are at a risk of not
 entering or not completing secondary education level. 

What do you think are the most important next steps to making the progress in the Indian educational system you would like to see?

We have to set short, mid, and long term outcome goals. We need to do this at the policy level, and so that means moving away from the current input oriented system we have. If we do that, we are addressing half the problem.

Second, we have to address our teacher training process. Teacher training in India is a big problem. Training needs to be revolutionized. In some states, they have tried to address it, but it comes up again and again. Some teachers have the knowledge, but that does not mean they can get the results from their students. Teachers learning how to teach and improving their practices is extremely important.

If these two things are done, then the third thing that we can address is how and what we test. We also need to open up our procedures for testing students. Credible standardized tests will be important to raise and maintain quality standards.

There is also too much emphasis on textbooks. I think we need to focus beyond books. Health, sports, the arts and handicrafts can give children a wider experience of the world. Somehow childhood is missing in our education. I'd like to see children have the opportunity to explore more. It is interesting that India has so many artists and yet art is not a part of our school system. These are important things that we don't define as knowledge. Being able to read and write is a critical objective. But our definition of education and knowledge has to expand beyond what we are currently teaching in schools. 

Source: 

Why a Liberal Arts Education Matters...!!!

Well, what is it going to be: engineering, medicine or commerce?

Most 12th-grade students in India are faced with this question, as they struggle to fit themselves into one of a few narrowly defined boxes. Heaven forbid someone might enjoy reading both Newton’s laws and Plato’s dialogues! Plato is clearly a waste of time with no practical, remunerative value. Or is it?

I grew up in Kolkata, India, and came to the United States as a freshman to study physics at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif. Harvey Mudd is a unique liberal arts college which specializes in science and engineering, while also honing its graduates to be well read in the humanities and social sciences. While taking intensive physics and mathematics classes, I also studied history, economics, linguistics, philosophy and creative writing. I am now pursuing a Ph.D. in theoretical physics at Princeton University.

Based on my experiences, I wanted to advocate for the value and necessity of a broad, liberal education rich in both technical subjects and the humanities.

The pragmatic attitude taken by most Indian students and parents is certainly understandable in a country where millions of students regularly compete for scarce college placements and job opportunities. The entrance requirements at Indian universities have steadily risen, with certain premier colleges in New Delhi posting the mind-boggling admission cutoff of 99 percent last year.

In this high-stress setting, students want to study whatever will land them a job, creating a college experience much more akin to “technical training” rather than intellectual exploration. However, I believe it is precisely today’s environment with a rapidly expanding, educated working class in India that makes an interdisciplinary liberal arts education all the more necessary.

In a global world dominated by so-called knowledge workers, the ability to communicate effectively and work well on a team is imperative. But besides raw technical ability, how do you develop the myriad other skills needed to distinguish yourself and excel in your job? How can you learn to inspire people so they want to work towards the sales goals you’ve set?

As a start, try an oratory class and read speeches given by paradigm-changing leaders. To learn the brevity, precision and charisma needed to write a funding proposal for your dream project, try a creative writing class. To incorporate vastly different perspectives from your team members, try classes in psychology and philosophy. These may help you understand where they might be coming from.

And nothing could be more practical than the humanities.

As the story goes, when three blind men felt an elephant, one concluded it was flat like a wall, another thought it sharp like a spear and the last was sure an elephant was thin like a snake. All were correct in their own way, just incomplete.

The ability to synthesize different perspectives into the big picture is far more powerful than narrow expertise in any single field. The social sciences offer perspectives from vantage points separated by time, place and society. Drawing and painting offer perspectives on what perspective even means. Critical thinking is the logical result of being able to simultaneously synthesize multiple ideas in one’s mind.

Real-world problems rarely ever have textbook solutions. More than anything, the purpose of a college education is to learn how to think critically and what questions to ask. Liberal arts colleges aim to mold their students into well-rounded, well-informed global citizens with a wide skill set — whether it is through elective or voluntary courses that push specialized students to be broader, or general requirements that force every graduate to know at least something about certain subjects.

In the throes of our current economic crisis, all conventional strategies for success are moot. All the more reason for a liberal arts education that creates resilient people who can invent creative solutions and always have new ways by which to try things differently.

As Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited; imagination encircles the world.”

Source: NYTimes

Indian Education By Sherman Alexie---The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Annotation:

Junior Spirit journeys “off the rez,” and going beyond the cycle of impoverished hope and desecrated dreams -- learns to navigate the river of the world.

First Grade

            My hair was too short and my U.S. Government glasses werehorn-rimmed, ugly, and all that first winter in school, the other Indian boyschased me from one corner of the playground to the other. They pushed me down,buried me in the snow until I couldn’t breathe, thought I’d never breathe again.

Theystole my glasses and threw them over my head, around my outstretched hands,just beyond my reach, until someone tripped me and sent me falling again,facedown in the snow.

Iwas always falling down; my Indian name was Junior Falls Down. Sometimes it wasBloody Nose or Steal-His-Lunch. Once it was Cries-Like-a-White-Boy, even thoughnone of us had seen a white boy cry.

Thenit was Friday morning recess and Frenchy SiJohn threw snowballs at me while therest of the Indian boys tortured some other top-yogh-yaughtkid, another weakling. But Frenchy was confident enough to torment me all byhimself, and most days I would have let him.

Butthe little warrior in me roared to life that day and knocked Frenchy to theground, held his head against the snow, and punched him so hard the my knucklesand the snow make symmetrical bruises on his face. He almost looked like he waswearing war paint.

Buthe wasn’t the warrior. I was. And I chanted It’sa good day to die, it’s a good day to die, all the way down to the principle’s office.

 I think the world 

is a series of broken dams and floods,
and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats.

Second Grade

          Betty Towle, missionary teacher, redheaded and so ugly that no one ever had a puppy crush on her, made me stay in for recess fourteen days straight.

“Tellme you’re sorry,” she said.

“Sorryfor what?” I asked.

“Everything,”she said and made me stand straight for fifteen minutes, eagle-armed with booksin each hand. One was a math book; the other was English. But all I learned wasthat gravity can be painful.

ForHalloween I drew a picture of her riding a broom with a scrawny cat on theback. She said that her God would never forgive me for that.

Once,she gave the class a spelling test but set me aside and gave me a test designedfor junior high students. When I spelled all the words right, she crumpled upthe paper and made me eat it.

“You’lllearn respect,” she said.

Shesent a letter home with me that told my parents to either cut my braids or keepme home from class. My parents came in the next day and dragged their braidsacross Betty Towle’s desk.

“Indians,indians, indians.” She said it without capitalization. She called me “indian,indian, indian. “

AndI said, Yes I am, I am Indian. Indian, Iam.

I draw because words are too unpredictable.

I draw because words are too limited.

Third Grade

Mytraditional Native American art career began and ended with my very firstportrait: Stick Indian Taking a Piss inMy Backyard.

As Icirculated the original print around the classroom, Mrs. Schluter interceptedand confiscated my art.

Censorship,I might cry now. Freedom of expression,I would write in editorials to the tribal newspaper.

Inthe third grade, though, I stood alone in the corner, faced the wall, andwaited for the punishment to end.

I’mstill waiting.

Fourth Grade

“Youshould be a doctor when you grow up,” Mr. Schluter told me, even though hiswife, the third grade teacher, thought I was crazy beyond my years. My eyesalways looked like I had just hit-and-run someone.

“Guilty,”she said. “You always look guilty.”

“Whyshould I be a doctor?” I asked Mr. Schluter.

“Soyou can come back and help the tribe. So you can heal people.”

Thatwas the year my father drank a gallon of vodka a day and the same year that mymother started two hundred quilts but never finished any. They sat in separate,dark places in our HUD house and wept savagely.

Iran home after school, heard their Indian tears, and looked in the mirror. Doctor Victor, I called myself, inventedand education, talked to my reflection.DoctorVictor to the emergency room.

Fifth Grade

Ipicked up a basketball for the first time and made my first shot. No. I missedmy first shot, missed the basket completely, and the ball landed in the dirtand sawdust, sat there just like I had sat there only minutes before.

Butit felt good, that ball in my hands, all those possibilities and angles. It wasmathematics, geometry. It was beautiful.

Atthat same moment, my cousin Steven Ford sniffed rubber cement from a paper bagand leaned back on the merry-go-round. His ears rang, his mouth was dry, andeveryone seemed so far away.

Butit felt good, that buzz in his head, all those colors and noises. It was chemistry,biology. It was beautiful.

Oh, do you remember thosesweet, almost innocent choices that the Indian boys were forced to make?

Poverty doesn’t give you strength 

or teach you lessons about perseverance. 

No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.

Sixth Grade

Randy,the new Indian kid from the white town of Springdale, got into a fight an hour after he first walked intothe reservation school.

StevieFlett called him out, called him a squaw man, called him a pussy, and calledhim a punk.

Randyand Stevie, and the rest of the Indian boys, walked out into the playground.

“Throwthe first punch,” Stevie said as they squared off.

“No,”Randy said.

“Throwthe first punch,” Stevie said again.

“No,”Randy said again.

“Throwthe first punch!” Stevie said for the third time, and Randy reared back andpitched a knuckle fastball that broke Stevie’s nose.

Weall stood there in silence, in awe.

Thatwas Randy, my soon-to-be first and best friend, who taught me the most valuablelesson about living in the white world: Alwaysthrow the first punch.

 Seventh Grade

Ileaned through the basement window of the HUD house and kissed the white girlwho would later be raped by her foster-parent father, who was also white. Theyboth lived on the reservation, though, and when the headlines and storiesfilled the papers later, not one word was made of their color.

 JustIndians being Indians, someone must have said somewhere and they werewrong.

Buton the day I leaned out through the basement window of the HUD house and kissedthe white girl, I felt the good-byes I was saying to my entire tribe. I held mylips tight against her lips, a dry, clumsy, and ultimately stupid kiss.

ButI was saying good-bye to my tribe, to all the Indian girls and women I mighthave loved, to all the Indian men who might have called me cousin, evenbrother,

Ikissed that white girl and when I opened my eyes, I was gone from thereservation, living in a farm town where a beautiful white girl asked my name.

“JuniorPolatkin,” I said, and she laughed.

Afterthat, no one spoke to me for another five hundred years.

I grabbed my book and opened it up. 

I wanted to smell it. Heck, I wanted to kiss it. 

Yes, kiss it. That's right, I am a book kisser. 

Maybe that's kind of perverted or maybe it's just romantic and highly intelligent. 

Eighth Grade

Atthe farm town junior high, in the boys’ bathroom, I could hear voices from thegirls’ bathroom, nervous whispers of anorexia and bulimia. I could hear thewhite girls’ forced vomiting, a sound so familiar and natural to me after yearsof listening to my father’s hangovers.

“Giveme your lunch if you’re just going to throw it up,” I said to one of thosegirls once.

Isat back and watched them grow skinny from self pity.

Back on the reservation, mymother stood in line to get us commodities. We carried them home, happy to havefood, and opened the canned beef that even the dogs wouldn’t eat.

Butwe ate it day after day and grew skinny from self pity.

There is more than one way tostarve.

Ninth Grade

Atthe farm town high school dance, after a basketball game in an overheated gymwhere I had scored twenty-seven points and pulled down thirteen rebounds, Ipassed out during a slow song.

Asmy white friends revived me and prepared to take me to the emergency room wheredoctors would later diagnose my diabetes, the Chicano teacher ran up to us.

“Hey,”he said. “What’s that boy been drinking? I know all about these Indian kids.They start drinking real young.”

Sharing dark skin doesn’t necessarilymake two men brothers.

Tenth Grade

            I passed the written test easily and nearly flunkedthe driving, but still received my Washington State driver’s license on the same day that Wally Jimkilled himself by driving his car into a pine tree.

            No traces of alcohol in his blood, good job, wife and twokids.

“Why’dhe do it?” asked a white Washington State trooper.

            All the Indians shrugged their shoulders, looked down atthe ground.

            “Don’t know,” we all said, but when we look in themirror, see the history of our tribe in our eyes, taste failure in the tapwater, and shake with old tears, we understand completely.

            Believe me, everything looks like a noose if you stare atit long enough.

Do you understand how amazing it is to hear that from an adult? Do you know how amazing it is to hear that from anybody? It's one of the simplest sentences in the world, just four words, but they're the four hugest words in the world when they're put together. 

You can do it.

Eleventh Grade

            Last night I missed two free throws which would have wonthe game against the best team in the state. The farm town high school I playedfor is nicknamed the “Indians,” and I’m probably the only actual Indian ever toplay for a team with such a mascot.

            This morning I pick up the sports page and read theheadline: INDIANS LOSE AGAIN.

            Go ahead and tell me none of this is supposed to hurt mevery much.

Twelfth Grade

            I walk down the aisle, valedictorian of this farm townhigh school, and my cap doesn’t fit because I’ve grown my hair longer than it’sever been. Later, I stand as the school-board chairman recites my awards andaccomplishments, and scholarships.

            I try to remain stoic for the photographers as I looktoward the future.

Back home on the reservation,my former classmates graduate: a few can’t read, one or two are just givenattendance diplomas, most look forward to the parties, The bright students areshaken, frightened, because they don’t know what comes next.

They smile for thephotographer as they look back toward tradition. The tribal newspaper runs myphotograph and the photograph of my former classmates side by side.

Indian Education

By Sherman Alexie

Indian_Ed_text.doc