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Puritans not tolerant of other religions 

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Puritans not tolerant of other religions 

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Puritans felt so strongly about their religion that they persecuted anyone who disagreed. even hung a young woman! the killings of the Boston martyrs

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The Puritans Were Not Tolerant of Other Religions

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This article goes through all of the different ways Jefferson tried to fix education. Even a bill he tried to pass to change it

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Smith discusses Jefferson's ideas about education and his plan for a decentralized system of public schools.

In November 1776, while a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, Thomas Jefferson was selected to head a committee charged with the task of revising the laws of Virginia, subject to approval by the General Assembly. Although Americans were now at war with Britain, Jefferson believed it vital that Virginia's legal code be changed in accordance with republican principles, and he devoted much of the next two years to this task.

Among Jefferson's drafts for new legislation was the celebrated "Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom," but there was another piece of legislation that Jefferson viewed as even more important: "A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge." In Notes on the State of Virginia (written in 1781), Jefferson summarized his educational plan as follows:

This bill proposes to lay off every county into small districts of five or six miles square, called hundreds, and in each of them to establish a school for teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. The tutor to be supported by the hundred, and every person in it entitled to send their children three years gratis, and as much longer as they please, paying for it. These schools to be under a visitor [i.e., superintendent], who is annually to choose the boy of best genius in the school, of those whose parents are too poor to give them further education, and to send him forward to one of the grammar schools [high schools, in effect] of which twenty are proposed to be erected in different parts of [Virginia], for teaching Greek, Latin, geography, and the higher branches of numerical arithmetic. Of the boys thus sent in any one year, trial is to be made at the grammar schools one or two years, and the best genius of the whole selected, and continued six years, and the residue dismissed. By this means twenty of the best geniuses will be raked from the rubbish annually, and be instructed, at the public expence, so far as the grammar schools go.

The next stage of this filtering process, Jefferson goes on to explain, occurs when half the students supported at public expense in grammar schools are dismissed after six years, perhaps to become teachers themselves. The remaining students then receive scholarships to study for three years at the College of William and Mary. (For various reasons, Jefferson later became disillusioned with his alma mater and substituted the University of Virginia, which he founded in 1819, instead.)

Jefferson's bill never passed the Virginia Assembly, and it was not until 1796 that the Assembly instituted a more modest scheme of public education. Jefferson never gave up, however. In his later years, after retiring from public life, he continued to advocate his plan, with some minor modifications.

Many historians have praised Jefferson for his efforts on behalf of public education, while portraying him as a forerunner of the common school movement that began to take off during the late 1830s, under the leadership of Horace Mann in Massachusetts. Some historians have also linked Jefferson to other American advocates of state schooling in the late eighteenth-​century, such as Benjamin Rush, Noah Webster, Samuel Knox, Robert Coram, and Samuel Harrison Smith.

These are dubious associations, for reasons I cannot fully explain here. (I will discuss other American advocates of state education in later essays.) For now, suffice it to say that some commentators have distorted Jefferson's ideas about education by representing them as an embryonic version of later plans for a universal system of education that is free and compulsory.

There is no doubt that Jefferson shared the prevailing view of Enlightenment intellectuals that a "general diffusion of knowledge" is essential to a free society. As he wrote in 1816, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Similarly, in a letter to George Washington (1786), Jefferson said:

It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the state to effect, and on a general plan.

In an oft-​quoted letter to John Adams (1813), Jefferson expressed hope that public schools would become "the keystone in the arch of our government." Such statements may appear to be nothing more than Enlightenment truisms, but it is important to understand how Jefferson's views on public schooling differed from the standard Enlightenment call for a uniform system of state education that would produce "republican machines" (to use the disturbing phrase of Benjamin Rush).

Jefferson's plan, as indicated in the passage quoted above from Notes on the State of Virginia, called for a highly decentralized system in which small wards ("districts of five or six miles square") would establish and control their own schools. Jefferson feared centralized authority, so he did not want even a state government to "take this business [of elementary education] into its own hands." In his "Plan for Elementary Schools" (1817), Jefferson warned that if a governor and state officials were to control the district schools, "they would be badly managed, depraved by abuses," and would soon exhaust the available funds.

The key to local school districts, according to Jefferson, is that they give parents direct and ultimate control over how their children are educated. To suppose that schools will he better managed by "any authority of the government, than by the parents within each ward...is a belief against all experience." A government can no more manage schools than it can manage "our farms, our mills, and merchants' stores." Elementary education should be the concern of local communities under the supervision of parents; it should not be controlled by the federal or state governments.

Extreme decentralization was thus the centerpiece of Jefferson's plan for public schools, and he warned of the potential consequences should this feature be ignored.

What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or the aristocrats of a Venetian Senate.

For Jefferson, the distribution of power among federal, state, county, and local agencies was indispensable to America's "system of fundamental balances and checks for the government." When a person is empowered to control his own destiny at the local level, "he feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs not merely at an election, one day in the year, but every day." Such a person will defend his liberty; "he will let the heart be torn out of his body, sooner than his power be wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bonaparte."

Jefferson's intense opposition to centralization was illustrated in an ill-​fated plan for public schools sponsored by Charles Mercer in the Virginia Assembly. In 1817, Mercer's plan passed in Virginia's lower house, but it was defeated in the senate. The decisive vote against Mercer was cast by Jefferson's protégé, Joseph Cabell -- a man who had labored in behalf of Jefferson's educational proposals. Why did Cabell, acting in accordance with Jefferson's desires, oppose the Mercer plan? Part of the reason lay in Mercer's desire to grant considerable power to a state board of education. This was anathema to Jefferson who, as one historian put it, "expressed both fear and scorn when contemplating a centralized state authority in education."

Throughout most of his life Jefferson favored providing three years of free education to all (free) children, rich and poor alike. By 1820, however, Jefferson had changed his mind. Only pauper children should receive free schooling; those parents able to pay tuition should be required to do so. Jefferson believed that the fees of parents who could afford to pay would cover much of the cost of educating pauper children. The remaining expenses would be minimal: "To a county, this addition would be of about one-​fifth of the taxes we now pay to the State, or about one-​fifth of one per cent."

Jefferson's early proposal used the word "shall" when discussing the construction of schools in each district. But later, in 1816, Jefferson proposed that local voters should decide the matter themselves. It "should be put to their vote whether they will have a school established." If they vote the proposal down, "let them remain without one."

Jefferson's attitude toward compulsory attendance laws -- a cornerstone of modern public education -- is worth noting. Some historians have maintained that Jefferson, in his early proposals, implicitly favored compulsory attendance for three years of elementary education. But Jefferson never said this, and it cannot legitimately be inferred from his words. In 1817, Jefferson made his one and only pronouncement on compulsory attendance laws: He opposed them, while noting the delicate and complex issues involved.

A question of some doubt might be raised...as to the rights and duties of society towards its members, infant and adult. Is it a right or a duty in society to take care of their infant Members in opposition to the will of the parent? How far does this right and duty extend? -- to guard the life of the infant, his property, his instruction, his morals?

Jefferson answered his own questions thusly: "It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by the forcible transportation and education of the infant against the will of the father."

Instead of compulsory attendance laws, Jefferson recommended another incentive: The right to vote should not be granted to people who cannot demonstrate basic literacy skills. "If we do not force instruction, let us at least strengthen the motives to receive it when offered."

True to his Enlightenment beliefs, Jefferson argued that an ignorant citizenry is bound to succumb to tyranny. In 1814, he praised a new Spanish constitution because it withheld voting rights from "every citizen who could not read or write." This provision would give Spain "an enlightened people, and an energetic public opinion which will control and enchain the aristocratic spirit of the government." A few years later, Jefferson called for the disenfranchisement of Americans who cannot "read readily in some tongue, native or acquired."

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Thomas Jefferson on Public Education, Part 1

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Smith discusses Jefferson's ideas about education and his plan for a decentralized system of public schools.

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For Biblical purposes

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If colonial America was suffused with classicism, what of Puritan New England?

Was the pervasive influence of the classics and classical languages seen as a hindrance-or as a help-to those who labored in the Lord's vineyard to establish a Christian government and culture in early America? It is an easy question to answer. Not only were the majority of Puritans not threatened by the classical emphasis in the education of the time, but they were positively enthusiastic about it. In fact, much of the classical education of the colonies was the direct result of its promotion by Puritan leaders.

Although the "shot heard 'round the world" is generally considered to refer to the first gun shots fired in the War for Independence, there was another event in early America that made history: the Massachusetts Education Laws of 1642 and 1647. In many respects, these were as revolutionary as the war itself. The product of the concern for education in Puritan New England, these laws constitute the first time in history that an organized state had mandated universal education. The Puritans had the creation of a Godly society as their chief end, and this, they thought, was best accomplished by educated citizens. But what is interesting about the Puritans is the kind of education they sought.

When the Massachusetts General Court passed the School Laws, they did it with the purpose in mind to further knowledge of the Bible by promoting literacy. The law not only required that every town of 50 homes or more have an elementary school teacher, but that every town of 100 or more have a grammar school. The grammar schools of the time emphasized Latin and, secondarily, Greek and Hebrew. They were designed to prepare students for college and, ultimately, for the ministry, the law, and sometimes medicine. They strove to prepare them to read all the classical authors in their original tongues.

How the Puritans Were Educated

Latin grammar was taught from one of the numerous revisions of Lily, supplemented by texts like John Amos Comenius' Orbis pictus, John Brinsley's Latin Accidence, and Charles Hoole's The Common Rudiments of Latin Grammar; the students then parsed and construed from the Sententiae puriles, Cato's Distichs, Aesop's Fables, and the Colloquies of Erasmus and Corderius; and from these introductory materials they went on to selected works by Ovid, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, and Juvenal. Greek grammar was usually studied out of Camden, with scholars going on to Homer, Hesiod, Isocrates, and the Greek New Testament. When Hebrew was included, it was mostly taught from the grammars of William Schickard or John Buxtorf; though, since the language was not required for entrance into Harvard, it was probably not begun in earnest until the freshman year, during which it was vigorously stressed owing to the Biblical interests of the Puritans and the scholarly interests of Henry Dunster and Charles Chauncy.

A "grammar school" was what came to be known also as a "Latin school." The oldest continuously operating school in the United States is Boston Latin School, which was founded in 1635. It produced many famous Americans, including Samuel Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Benjamin Franklin, William Hooper, Robert Treat Paine, Josiah Quincy, John Winthrop, and Cotton Mather, five of whom signed the Declaration of Independence.

Boston Latin was a "grammar-school," which emphasized instruction in classical languages, primarily Latin and Greek. "By the time a pupil reached his seventh year at the Boston Latin School," says Richard Gummere in his seminal book, The American Colonial Mind and the Classical Tradition, "he was reading Cicero's orations, Justinian, the Latin and Greek Testaments, Isocrates, Homer, Hesiod, Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, and dialogues from the topics in Godwin's Roman Antiquities, as well as turning the Psalms into Latin verse!"

The classical program in Boston schools became even more classical in the 18th century. "I entered Lovell's [John Lovell, headmaster of Boston's South Latin School] in 1776 at seven years," said Jonathan Homer, pastor of First Church in Newton, Massachusetts, "and studied Latin from 8 o'clock to 11, and from 1 till dark. I entered college at the age of fourteen, and was equal in Latin and Greek to the best in the Senior class."

Education of Cotton Mather

But it is in Cotton Mather, the quintessential New England Puritan, that we see the most accomplished, yet representative, example of the work of classical education in the Puritan colonies. He was the grandson, on his mother's side, of John Cotton, one of the founders of Boston Latin School, who entered Cambridge (Emmanuel College) when he was thirteen. He was also the son of Increase Mather, another prominent New England Puritan scholar. Increase was a graduate of the school his father-in-law helped found, and, after graduating from Harvard, he went on to obtain his M. A. from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. An "austere Puritan divine" like his own father, Richard, Increase was also the President of Harvard for 16 years, during which time he continued to fill the pulpit of North Church in Boston, an activity he engaged in until his death in 1723. He spent 16 hours a day in his study, "emerging only for meals and family prayers." "He loved his study," said one contemporary, "to a kind of excess."

Cotton Mather was descended, said one writer, "in right of both parents, from what was deemed the aristocracy of New England, when clergymen were the nobles of the religious dynasty, which our fathers sought to establish in the new world." With such a pedigree, it is hard to imagine that Cotton Mather himself could have become anything but what he became. In fact, the distinction of the Mather family seemed only to become more pronounced as generation succeeded generation. "The family of Mathers was remarkable for the retentive memory and studious inclinations that seemed to be constitutional with its members; qualities that appeared rather to increase than diminish," and which seemed to culminate in Cotton. An epitaph to his grandfather, Richard, reportedly read:

Under this stone lies Richard Mather,
Who had a son greater than his father,
And eke a grandson greater than either.

"Thus happily born," said David Hall, "and possessing such favorable capacities, it was set down as a matter of course, that Cotton Mather must make a great man." And he did. "Prophetically ushered into life," as one writer put it, he not only became one of the most influential American exponents of Christianity, but one of the best educated and most learned minds of his age.

Cotton, the oldest of numerous children in what one biographer calls a "bookish, hothouse religious atmosphere," attended Boston Latin School during the headmastership of Ezekiel Cheever, the greatest and most famous of that school's headmasters, who "brought the dead languages to life while teaching Mather to love Christ above the classics." The school emphasized the classics, and "[b]y the age of 11," says Jennifer Monaghan, "he was so fluent in Latin that he would take notes in Latin on sermons as they were delivered in English." He entered Harvard at the age of 11, when he was examined by the President of Harvard himself, Leonard Hoar, who determined the boy's knowledge of Greek and Latin exceeded that required to enter the college, and graduated at the age of 15. Despite his age, said biographer Kenneth Silverman, "he seems to have breezed through." In fact, he was the youngest student Harvard ever had. He began to assist in his father's ministry in 1680, was ordained in 1685, and served the church for the rest of his life.

"Cotton Mather and his father Increase Mather," says Gummere, "are the high-water mark of the ancient learning as applied to the conversion of souls in the Puritan hierarchy." Mather devoted the rest of his life to scholarship and the writing of books, of which he produced some 382. His books display a wide diversity of interest and concern. Many of his writings dealt with the educational responsibilities of teachers, ministers, pastors, and parents.

The Purpose of Puritan Education

For Mather, the chief purpose of education was theological: "All the learning the many have," he said, "serves only as a bag of gold about a drowning man; it sinks them the deeper into the scalding floods of the lake that burns with fiery brimstone: But the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ is a saving thing." While learning might speed a man to Hell, he thought, it could also help transport him to heaven-if used rightly and for the right purpose. Mather's works, reflecting the larger colonial culture, illustrate his facility and his passion for Latin, logic, and rhetoric, the three subjects in the classical trivium, as well as the mathematical subjects in the quadrivium.

Mather Combines the Classical and the Christian

His writings display the characteristic style of academic and theological writing of the time, which was to express thoughts by using expressions culled both from the Bible and classical authors. Everything, it seemed, had some Biblical or classical precedent, some analog in ancient history or literature. It was a common technique, especially among the Church fathers, to allegorize the writings of the pagans and see their lives and their literature as a foreshadowing of the Christian revelation. Echoing the argument of St. Augustine, Mather argued, "in our valuable citations from them that are strangers to Christianity, [we] should seize upon the sentences as containing our truths, detained in the hands of unjust possessors." "Once this was established," said Gustaaf Van Crumphout, Mather "did not scruple to elucidate Christian mysteries with phrases from Euripides' Baccha e or to describe the Gospel as a new song of Orpheus or the mount of God as the true Cithaeron." In fact, Mather was criticized for many things, but few more severely than the stylistic results of the over-profusion of classical quotations in his writings.

This tendency to fuse together the Biblical and the classical was not merely ornamentation, but a product of the deep-seated thinking of Christian intellectuals soaked and steeped in both traditions. Their goal was not merely spiritual and not merely educational, but was directed at melding the two traditions into one, all the while reminding their readers that as wonderful and useful as are the classics, it is through their conscription into the service of Christ that they gained their greatest glory. It was, according to Robert Middlekauf, to "fuse piety and intellect, to pursue ideas with the heart as well as with the mind, and to bring their thinking constantly to bear on their love of God." So deeply was Mather immersed in both Biblical and classical literature that the two traditions seemed inseparable. "It often seems," said Cromphout, "as if [Mather] needed to draw upon both traditions, the Judaeo-Christian and the classical, in order to complete a thought."

Although Mather gave great credence to what he found in the ancient authors, he did so not because they were old , but because he found in them what seemed to coincide with reason. Their literary value was also a logical one. In the contest that was later in the French Revolution to pit reason against authority, Mather saw not a contest, but a correspondence. He approved of the rules of Aristotle and Horace because "they were logical and based on reason or nature," says Cromphout, "not because they had the sanctity of authority." The wisdom of the ancients derived its authority from reason, and it found its expression even in the pagans because the "Power and Process of Reason is Natural," Mather said, "to the Soul of Man," a very part of the image of God.

Classical Rhetoric and Principled Persuasion

As always, Mather notes that the principles the student would find articulated by the classical authors found their greatest expression in the Bible itself, telling his readers, "That there is nowhere to be found any such Rhetoric, as there is in our Sacred Scriptures." It is yet another refrain of his theme that classical learning, far from being at odds with Christianity, is to be seen as a fulfillment of what the pagans had only imperfectly grasped. The pagan discoveries of the principles of persuasion did not make these principles pagan in themselves; rather the principles were the products of the divinely instituted order of the world the pagans had only happened upon and put to use. And the Word of God not only did not repudiate these principles, but in fact served as their most glorious exemplars-a fact, he asserts, that even the pagans recognized: "Even the pagan Longinus himself," Mather pointed out, "will confess, The Sublime, shining in them."

A "mighty and wondrous incentive to religion"

Mather's interest in and mastery of the trivium of Latin, logic, and rhetoric was accompanied by an equal preoccupation with the quadrivium-the scientific learning of the time. In fact, his book, The Christian Philosopher, although intended primarily to be a work of natural theology, was, according to Solberg, "the first comprehensive treatise on all the science known at the time to be written by an American." It was a book in which he "ransacked the learning of the ages" to make the argument that God had revealed himself not only in Scripture, but, as the Apostle Paul argues, in nature itself. He wrote it to demonstrate that "Philosophy is no enemy, but a mighty and wondrous incentive to religion." "The whole world is indeed a temple of God, built and fitted by that Almighty Architect." Mather saw no clear distinction between the secular and the theological. For him, everything was part of what one of his commentators called the "divinely organized universe of correspondences." "Mather's writing aims at nothing less than the perfecta summaque sapientia-the perfection and summation of wisdom-through a comprehensive accumulation and organization of all the knowledge stored up in the textual memory of the contemporary academic discourses."

Mather never worshiped the classical learning he expounded, but rather pressed that learning into the service of the One he did worship. "His God remained," said Cromphout, "like Pascal's, the 'God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob' and never became 'the God of the philosophers and savants.'" Mather's manual for the training of ministers was just one indication of the essential role the classics were seen to have in a complete Christian education. Not only was classical education conducted largely by ordained Christian ministers (or aspiring ones), but education in the classics was considered an essential element in the education of a Christian cleric. Not only did they think a classical education was consistent with a Christian vocation; they considered it absolutely essential.

Mather was only the most prominent of the many Puritan divines who saw classical education as an essential preparation for the Christian life of learning. Not only did the Puritans ensure as much as possible that their children receive such an education, but they were the acknowledged leaders of the educational institutions of the time. In fact, Harvard itself, a thoroughly classical institution up until fairly recent times, was founded by Puritans. Those of the founding fathers who had a formal education were themselves classically educated. It is widely known that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson are the most startling examples of men who knew the classics in Latin and Greek. What is less widely known is that we have the Puritans to thank for it.

Originally published in The Classical Teacher Spring 2011 edition.

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The Classical Education of the Puritans | Memoria Press

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Was the pervasive influence of the classics and classical languages seen as a hindrance-or as a help-to those who labored in the Lord's vineyard to establish a Christian government and culture in early America? It is an easy question to answer.

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Excerpts from his proposals

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Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania

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Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania, by Benjamin Franklin, 1749

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Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania, by Benjamin Franklin, 1749

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Used to help children to read. Sheet of paper on a piece of wood covered by a thin sheet of horn

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13 Everyday Objects of Colonial America | HISTORY

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Early American colonists may not have had electricity, plumbing or cars, but they found ways to make daily life easier with these objects.

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First real textbook and can still be purchased!

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The New-England Primer: The Original 1777 Edition

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The New-England Primer: The Original 1777 Edition [Cotton, John] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The New-England Primer: The Original 1777 Edition

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First dictionary. Webster still has most used dictionary

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Full Digital copy of 1st universal primary textbook 

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Full Digital copy of 1st universal primary textbook 

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Education of the different classes: The daily lives of the colonists in the 13 Colonies during the Colonial Period

Colonial Education
This article contains fast facts and information about Colonial Education that was available to kids and children before the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. Colonial Education was determined by the social class of the family. The early American colonists who had immigrated from Europe followed the standards of education that used in the 'mother countries' and were based on wealth and class. Some of the institutions for Colonial Education were tax-supported and some were privately operated. Girls were rarely given the opportunity to be educated. Colonial Education was determined by the social class of the family.

Colonial Education

The boys from upper class families were taught be private home tutors and then sent to college or university. Many of the Upper Classes sent their boys abroad to English educational institutions in order to receive a university or college education.

Colonial Education of the Middle Classes
Boys from the middle class, the sons of merchants, ministers, doctors and lawyers, attended dame schools, elementary schools and grammar schools. Only occasionally would they attend college

Colonial Education of the Lower Classes & Indentured Servants
Limited colonial education - apprenticeships were available to some lower class boys

Slaves

Slaves had no education and in the Southern colonies slaves were forbidden by law to learn how to read and write

Colonial Education

Colonial Education and Religion- Education in Puritan New England
The first colonies to be established in Colonial America were in New England and were predominantly Puritan. The Puritans encouraged Colonial Education for religious reasons as Bible reading and Bible study played an important role in their religion. Puritan parents believed that the education of their children in religion was their premier duty. the children of Puritans were schooled in the Scriptures in daily devotions, at mealtimes and in sermons. In 1642 the Massachusetts Bay Colony established an early law that stated it was the parental duty of teaching children to "read and understand the principles of religion and the capitall lawes of this country". It should be noted that this law was not always enforced.

Colonial Education - Home Education & Home Tutors
The basic principles of required behaviour and education would be started in the home. Children were taught to respect their mother and father and ask for their parents blessing and to say prayers. The girls would be taught obedience to the male members of the family at a very early age. Disobedience was seen as a crime against their religion. The Church firmly believed this and quoted the Bible in order to ensure the continued adherence to this principle. The education of girls concentrated on housewifely duties and the skills associated with women. Only wealthy or sometimes middle class girls were taught to read and write by private home tutors.

Colonial Education - Dame Schools
The most basic level of education was conducted for boys aged between 5 and 7 at what was called a 'Dame School'. These lessons and general education were conducted not in a school but in the house of the teacher. These were usually run, for a small fee, by a local, well educated housewife, and were therefore also referred to as ' Dame Schools '. At the Dame School the boy's education would consist of being taught to read and write English, learn the catechism and also learn lessons in behaviour.

Colonial Education - Elementary Schools
Elementary schools were established in the colonies with a strong emphasis on religion. Boys began their education at Elementary Schools from the age of 7 years old to 10 years old. The boys first learnt the rudiments of Latin with the assistance of a text-book known as Lily's Latin Grammar. Parts of speech together with verbs and nouns would be taught at the age of 7 and the rules of grammar and sentence construction would be taught at the age of 8. Their third year at school, at the age of 9, concentrated on English-Latin and Latin-English translations and basic math.

Colonial Education - Horn Books

Colonial Education - Grammar Schools
The Grammar Schools educated boys aged 10 to 14 years of age. Their lessons continued with Math and Latin to English translations and occasionally the study of Greek. Lessons in literature including the works of the great classical authors and dramatists, such as Ovid, Horace, Virgil, Cicero and Seneca. At 14 the boys would leave Grammar School to attend University.

Colonial Education - Life at Colonial Schools
The life of school boys at school was quite strict. During summer the school day started at six o'clock in the morning and finished at five o'clock in the evening. There was a two hour break at midday. The school week consisted of a 5 full days and a half day on Thursday, which continued for up to 44 weeks of the year - more than double the current school hours. The punishments were fierce and fifty strokes of the cane was not an uncommon occurrence. education was based on repetition and constant examinations. A typical school week and education at a Colonial Grammar School would cover:

Monday: An examination based on the previous Sunday's sermon

Tuesday to Thursday: The basic curriculum

Friday: Examinations and Punishments

Saturday: Study of the catechism and some mathematics

The boys from upper class families were the elite. Their families were wealthy, well bred and well educated minor aristocrats. Many of the Upper Classes sent their boys abroad to English educational institutions in order to receive a university or college education. This would often be supplemented by a Grand Tour of the major Cities of Europe. As time went by it was far more convenient to study in America and colleges and universities were established in Colonial America. During the Colonial Era colleges of Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Princeton, Pennsylvania, Columbia, Brown, Rutgers, and Dartmouth were founded. Colonial Education - College and University
Benjamin Franklin played a major role in launching the University of Pennsylvania which was the first college free from denominational control. Student enrolments to colleges were small, numbering about 200 boys at one time. Education and the curriculum at university was gradually extended to cover:

Education in Theology, religious education

Education in the classics

Education in Law

Education in the Liberal Arts including Grammar, Logic, Music, Astronomy, Arithmetic and Geometry

Education in the Arts including Philosophy, Rhetoric, Poetics and Natural History

Picture of Benjamin Franklin

Colonial Education

Facts and information with this article on Colonial Education

History, Facts and interesting info about Colonial Education

Fast, Fun Facts for kids

Interesting Facts about the Colonial Education - a great history resource for kids

Social Studies Homework help for kids on Colonial Education

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Fast facts about Colonial Education. Comprehensive Information about schools, colleges and Colonial Education. History, information and Facts about Colonial Education.

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"Kill the Indian in him, and save the man."

That was the mindset under which the U.S. government forced tens of thousands of Native American children to attend "assimilation" boarding schools in the late 19th century. Decades later, those words-delivered in a speech by U.S. cavalry captain Richard Henry Pratt, who opened the first such school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania-have come to symbolize the brutality of the boarding school system.

The history of this forced assimilation is far from settled. On August 7, 2017, the U.S. Army began exhuming the graves of three children from the Northern Arapaho tribe who had died at Pratt's Carlisle Indian Industrial School in the 1880s. The children's names were Little Chief, Horse and Little Plume-names they were forbidden to use at the school.

Students at Carlisle and the roughly 150 other such schools that the government opened were susceptible to deadly infections like tuberculosis and the flu. During Carlisle's operation between 1879 and 1918, nearly 200 other children were buried in the same cemetery as the Northern Arapaho boys, according to The Washington Post.

Carlisle and other boarding schools were part of a long history of U.S. attempts to either kill, remove, or assimilate Native Americans. In 1830, the U.S. forced Native Americans to move west of the Mississippi to make room for U.S. expansion with the the Indian Removal Act. But a few decades later, the U.S. worried it was running out of places to relocate the country's original inhabitants.

"As white population grew in the United States and people settled further west towards the Mississippi in the late 1800s, there was increasing pressure on the recently removed groups to give up some of their new land," according to the Minnesota Historical Society. Since there was no more Western territory to push them towards, the U.S. decided to remove Native Americans by assimilating them. In 1885, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Hiram Price explained the logic: "it is cheaper to give them education than to fight them."

As part of this federal push for assimilation, boarding schools forbid Native American children from using their own languages and names, as well as from practicing their religion and culture. They were given new Anglo-American names, clothes, and haircuts, and told they must abandon their way of life because it was inferior to white people's.

Though the schools left a devastating legacy, they failed to eradicate Native American cultures as they'd hoped. Later, the Navajo Code Talkers who helped the U.S. win World War II would reflect on the strange irony this forced assimilation had played in their lives.

"As adults, [the Code Talkers] found it puzzling that the same government that had tried to take away their languages in schools later gave them a critical role speaking their languages in military service," recounts the National Museum of the American Indian.

In addition to the Northern Arapaho in Wyoming, the Rosebud Sioux of South Dakota and native people of Alaska are also seeking the return of children's remains from Carlisle, reports Philly.com. Yet if the results of Northern Arapaho's search are any example, this may prove to be quite difficult.

On August 14, 2017, the Army sent the remains of Little Chief and Horse back to their relatives on the Wind River Reservation. The Northern Arapaho will bury them on August 18, 2017. Little Plume, however, was not sent back because he wasn't found. In what was supposed to be his coffin, archaeologists instead discovered the bones of two others who couldn't have been Little Plume because their ages didn't match his.

Researchers aren't sure who those two people are or where Little Plume could be, and the Northern Arapaho haven't stated whether they'll continue to search for him. For now, the Army has reburied the two people found in his coffin, and Little Plume remains one of Carlisle's many missing children.

HISTORY Vault: Native American History

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How Boarding Schools Tried to 'Kill the Indian' Through Assimilation | HISTORY

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Native American tribes are still seeking the return of their children.

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This article is from the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 6 volumes, edited by William S. Powell. Copyright ©1979-1996 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other…

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Recipients of the Seven Feathers Culture Award, the four Ray siblings, of Sand Springs, enjoy sharing and promoting Cherokee culture and traditions with other students and communities.

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Recipients of the Seven Feathers Culture Award, the four Ray siblings, of Sand Springs, enjoy sharing and promoting Cherokee culture and traditions with other students and communities.

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How is the Bureau of Indian Affairs still around??!

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How is the Bureau of Indian Affairs still around??!

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Mission Statement

The Bureau of Indian Affairs' mission is to enhance the quality of life, to promote economic opportunity, and to carry out the responsibility to protect and improve the trust assets of American Indians, Indian tribes and Alaska Natives.
History of BIA
Since its inception in 1824, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has been both a witness to and a principal player in the relationship between the Federal Government and Indian tribes and Alaska Native villages. The BIA has changed dramatically over the past 185 years, evolving as Federal policies designed to subjugate and assimilate American Indians and Alaska Natives have changed to policies that promote Indian self-determination.

For almost 200 years, dating back to the role it played in negotiating treaty agreements between the United States and tribes in the late 18th and 19th centuries, the BIA has embodied the trust and government-to-government relationships between the U.S. and the Federally recognized tribes. Over the years, the BIA has been involved in the implementation of Federal laws that have directly affected all Americans. The General Allotment Act of 1887 opened tribal lands west of the Mississippi to non-Indian settlers, the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 granted American Indians and Alaska Natives U.S. citizenship and the right to vote, and the New Deal and the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 established modern tribal governments. The World War II period of relocation and the post-War termination era of the 1950s led to the activism of the 1960s and 1970s that saw the takeover of the BIA's headquarters and resulted in the creation of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975. The Tribal Self-Governance Act of 1994 along with the Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act have fundamentally changed how the Federal Government and the tribes conduct business with each other.

In the early years of the United States, Indian affairs were governed by the Continental Congress, which in 1775 created a Committee on Indian Affairs headed by Benjamin Franklin. Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution describes Congress's powers over Indian affairs: "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes." The BIA, one of the oldest bureaus in the Federal government, was administratively established by Secretary of War John C. Calhoun on March 11, 1824, to oversee and carry out the Federal government's trade and treaty relations with the tribes. Congress gave the BIA statutory authority by the act of July 9, 1832 (4 Stat. 564, chap. 174). In 1849, the BIA was transferred to the newly created U.S. Department of the Interior. For years thereafter, the Bureau was known variously as the Indian office, the Indian bureau, the Indian department, and the Indian Service. The Interior Department formally adopted the name "Bureau of Indian Affairs" for the agency on September 17, 1947.

Since 1824, there have been 45 Commissioners of Indian Affairs, of whom six have been American Indian or Alaska Native: Ely S. Parker, Seneca (1869-1871); Robert L. Bennett, Oneida (1966-1969); Louis R. Bruce, Mohawk-Oglala Sioux (1969-1973); Morris Thompson, Athabascan (1973-1976); Benjamin Reifel, Sioux (1976-1977); and William E. Hallett, Red Lake Chippewa (1979-1981). From 1981 to 2003, the title "Deputy Commissioner" was used to denote the head of the BIA. In 2003, after a major reorganization of the BIA, the title was administratively changed to "Director," which is still in use today. The first BIA Director was Terrance Virden, followed by Brian Pogue and Patrick Ragsdale (2005-2007). Then Jerold L. "Jerry" Gidner, Sault Ste. Marie Chippewa served from (2007-2010). Michael Black, Oglala Lakota Sioux, served as Director from 2010 to November, 2016. Bruce Loudermilk, a citizen of the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana, served as Director from November 2016 to September 2017. Director Bryan Rice, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma was appointed in October of 2017. On April 28, 2019, the position was then filled by Darryl LaCounte, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in North Dakota.

William Hallett was the last to serve as BIA Commissioner following the establishment of the Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs position within the Interior Department in 1977. Since then, 12 individuals, all American Indians, have been confirmed by the United States Senate for the post: Forrest J. Gerard, Blackfeet (1977-1980); Thomas W. Fredericks, Mandan-Hidatsa (1981); Kenneth L. Smith, Wasco (1981-1984); Ross O. Swimmer, Cherokee Nation (1985-1989); Dr. Eddie F. Brown, Tohono O'odham-Yaqui (1989-1993); Ada E. Deer, Menominee (1993-1997); Kevin Gover, Pawnee (1997-2001); Neal A. McCaleb, Chickasaw Nation (2001-2002); David W. Anderson, Lac Courte Oreilles Chippewa-Choctaw (2004-2005); and Carl J. Artman, Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin (2007-2008); Larry Echo Hawk, Pawnee (2009-2012); Kevin K. Washburn, Chickasaw Nation (2012-2016).Tara Katuk Mac Lean Sweeney, Native Village of Barrow Inupiat Traditional Government/Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope (2018-2021). Bryan Newland, Bay Mills Indian Community (2021-Current).

The past thirty years have also seen the largest increase in the number of American Indian and Alaska Native people working for the BIA. Currently, most of its employees are American Indian or Alaska Native, representing a number larger than at any time in its history. In keeping with the authorities and responsibilities granted under the Snyder Act of 1921 and other Federal laws, regulations, and treaties, BIA employees across the country work with tribal governments in the administration of law enforcement and justice; agricultural and economic development; tribal governance; and natural resources management programs in order to enhance the quality of life in tribal communities.

The BIA carries out its core mission to serve 574 Federally recognized tribes through four offices. The Office of Indian Services operates the BIA's general assistance, disaster relief, Indian child welfare, tribal government, Indian Self-Determination, and reservation roads programs. The Office of Justice Services directly operates or funds law enforcement, tribal courts, and detention facilities on Federal Indian lands. The Office of Trust Services works with tribes and individual American Indians and Alaska Natives in the management of their trust lands, assets, and resources. Finally, the Office of Field Operations oversees 12 regional offices and 83 agencies which carry out the mission of the Bureau at the tribal level.

The BIA's responsibilities once included providing health care services to American Indians and Alaska Natives. In 1954, that function was legislatively transferred to the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, now known as the Department of Health and Human Services, where it has remained to this day as the Indian Health Service (IHS). For information about the U.S. Indian Health Service, visit www.ihs.gov.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs is a rarity among Federal agencies. With roots reaching back to the Continental Congress, the BIA is almost as old as the United States itself. As Federal policy has changed from notions of subjugating and assimilating American Indians and Alaska Natives, so the BIA's mission has changed as well. Its role now is as a partner with tribes to help them achieve their goals for self-determination while also maintaining its responsibilities under the Federal-Tribal trust and government-to-government relationships.

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Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) | Indian Affairs

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Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior encompasses the Office of the Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs(ASIA), the Bureau of Indian Affairs(BIA) and the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE). Through its bureaus, offices and programs, Indian Affairs carries out the United States’ government-to…

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Why Native Americans have high drop out rates and how to combat them 

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Why Native Americans have high drop out rates and how to combat them 

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This paper was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education's Indian Nations at Risk Task Force and was completed in 1992. A shorter version of this paper appeared in the January 1992 issue of the Journal of American Indian Education.

Plans for Dropout Prevention and Special School Support Services
for American Indian and Alaska Native Students
Jon Reyhner Abstract

American Indian and Alaska Native students have a dropout rate twice the national average; the highest dropout rate of any United States ethnic or racial group. About three out of every ten Native students drop out of school before graduating from high school both on reservations and in cities. Academically capable Native students often drop out of school because their needs are not being met while others are pushed out because they protest in a variety of ways how they are treated in school.
As the psychiatrist Erik Erikson has pointed out, positive identity formation is an ongoing, cumulative process that starts in the home with a trusting relationship established between mother and child and develops through the child's interaction with other children and adults. To build a strong positive identity, new adults that the child interacts with need to reinforce and build on the cultural messages that the child has previously received. However, too often in schools today teachers are not reinforcing what Native parents show and tell their children producing cultural discontinuity between home and school and forcing Native children to choose between their Native heritage and school success with disastrous results. Many of the problems faced by students such as drug and alcohol abuse are symptoms of the poor self concepts of Native students who have unresolved internal conflicts resulting from educators asking students to give up their Native culture. Teaching methods and school curriculum need to be changed to reduce cultural conflict between home and school. In addition, the underlying causal factor of internal identity conflict in many Native teenagers needs to be treated at a community as well as an individual level through community-based counseling programs.

In order to help Native students form positive, mature identities and to reduce the number of Native dropouts large schools need to be restructured to allow teachers to get to know and interact with their students, caring teachers (especially Native teachers) need to be recruited who will spend the time and effort to learn from as well as teach their students, these caring teachers need to use active teaching strategies with their students to keep their students motivated, Native curriculum needs to be developed and used in Native schools to reduce cultural discontinuity, testing needs to be used in schools to help students learn rather than to track them into non-academic programs, and parents need to have the power to demand schools give their children an education that will strengthen Native families rather than separate Native children from their parents. Academic student advocacy programs such as the ones sponsored by the American Indian Science and Engineering Society and by tribal colleges need to be encouraged.

Both on and off reservations many schools are not providing an appropriate education for Native students. They are denied teachers who have special training to teach Native students, they are denied a curriculum that includes their heritage, and culturally biased tests are used to push them out of academic programs. The supplemental add-on programs such as Indian Education Act, Johnson O'Malley (JOM), Bilingual Education, Special Education, and other federal programs of the last two decades have had a limited success in improving the education of Indian children. However, add-on programs are only a first step to making schooling appropriate for Native children. Native education must be viewed holistically rather than fragmented with basic skills, Native studies, and other classes taught in isolation from one another. In addition to treating the curriculum holistically, dropout prevention needs to be treated holistically. Students do not drop out of school just because of academic failure, drug and alcohol abuse, or any other single problem. Too often well meaning add-on remedial programs focus on finding the reason for failure in students and their homes, "blaming the victims." These programs treat the symptoms of the cultural conflict going on between students and teachers in school rather than the root problem. The idea that Native students are "culturally disadvantaged" or "culturally deprived" reflects an ethnocentric bias that should not continue. When schools do not recognize, value, and build on what Native students learn at home, they are given a watered-down, spread out curriculum that is meant to guarantee student learning but which often results in their education being slowed and their being "bored out" of school. The "traditional school system" has failed dropouts rather than they having failed the system.

Beyond correcting these problems to prevent future dropouts, more needs to be done to help current dropouts through retrieval programs such as the Graduate Equivalency Diploma (GED) and community-based drug prevention programs. In addition, the negative tinge of vocational programs needs to be removed, and these programs opened to all students. In particular, vocational programs need to be tied to real jobs through partnerships with business, labor unions, and government.

Dropout prevention starts with caring teachers who give students every chance for success in the classroom through interactive and experiential teaching methodologies, relevant, and culturally appropriate curriculum. At risk students need peer support through cooperative instructional methodologies and peer counseling programs. Dropout prevention also includes support services outside of the classroom from school administrators and counselors who work closely with parents.

If teachers and school administrators continue to not get appropriate training in colleges of education, local training programs need to provide school staff with information both on what works in Native education and information about the language, hi story, and culture of their Native students. Parents and local school boards also need on-going training about what works in Native education and what schools can accomplish. Head Start, elementary, and secondary schools need the support of tribal education departments and tribal colleges to design and implement effective educational programs that support rather than ignore Native heritages.

Introduction

The National Center for Education Statistics (1989) reports that American Indian and Alaska Native students have a dropout rate twice the national average; the highest dropout rate of any United States ethnic or racial group reported. About three out of every ten Native students drop out of school before graduating from high school both on reservations and in cities (see Table 1). The research reported in this chapter shows that academically capable Native students often drop out of school because their needs are not being met while others are pushed out because they protest in a variety of ways how they are treated in school. The studies reviewed in this chapter show that both on and off reservations many schools are not providing an appropriate education for Native students. They are denied teachers with special training to teach Native students, they are denied a curriculum that includes their heritage, and culturally biased tests are used to label them failures and push them out of academic programs.

Table 1. Summary of Recent Dropout Studies
¹Cohort Dropout Rates. Studies by school districts sometimes give the dropout rate for one year, which gives dropout rates almost 2/3 less than the above studies. One-year studies such as reported by Borgrink (1987) ignore students who will drop out in subsequent years before graduating or who have dropped out in previous years. Longitudinal studies are those that follow students through high school or studies that go back to look at previous school records and then try to trace students forward through their school years. The above studies ignore students who drop out before the first grade level included in the study.
²Data from "High School and Beyond" survey conducted by the National Center for Educational statistics from 1980 to 1986. Weighted sampling was used to include enough Native students in the study to make Native sample large enough to provide useful information on them.
³Approximate figures.
⁴Twenty-five percent random sample from most reservation schools. The Native student dropout problem is not of recent origin. Only a small percentage of students attending the famous Carlisle Indian School in the Nineteenth Century actually graduated (Eastman, 1935). The 1969 Senate report, Indian Education: A National Tragedy--A National Challenge, also documented dropout rates for American Indians at twice the national average. That report led to the passage of the Indian Education Act. Many Native people testified in the Indian Nations at Risk (INAR) Task Force hearings to the success of Indian Education Act, Bilingual Education Act, Chapter 1, and other supplemental, add-on programs. However, ethnographic studies done of classrooms across the country since 1969 show that supplemental programs are not enough to solve the problem. The need for school-wide reforms is pointed out by the recent Department of Education (ED) sponsored study on dropout prevention (Sherman & Sherman, 1990).
As reported by Estelle Fuchs and Robert J. Havighurst from the National Study of Indian Education in the late 1960s, "Many Indian children live in homes and communities where the cultural expectations are different and discontinuous from the expectations held by schoolteachers and school authorities" (1972, p. 299). Many Native students are forced to choose between their Native heritage and schooling. If they choose their heritage, they can fall further and further behind and eventually be pushed out of school. If they choose school, they can suffer serious psychological problems resulting from the rejection of their homes and families which can lead to drug and alcohol abuse. In the INAR Task Force hearings, much testimony was given on the need for Native teachers and Native curriculum to reduce the cultural conflict between home and school.

Positive identity formation as the psychiatrist Erik Erikson (1963) has pointed out is an ongoing, cumulative process that starts in the home with a trusting relationship established between mother and child and develops through the child's interaction with other children and adults. To build a strong positive identity, new adults that the child interacts with need to reinforce and build on the cultural messages that the child has previously received. If teachers give growing Native children messages that conflict with what Native parents show and tell their children, the conflicting messages will confuse the children and hurt the formation of strong self concepts.

A long term study of Native Hawaiian students showed conventional schools force Native students to choose between their home culture and the culture of the school with disastrous results (Jordan, 1984; Tharp, 1982; Vogt, Jordan, & Tharp, 1987). When teaching methodology was changed to reflect how students were taught in the home, students showed greater academic achievement. Cultural mismatch between home and school often starts a cycle of failure for Native students (Spindler, 1987).

Too often, well meaning remedial programs focus on finding the reason for failure in students and their homes, "blaming the victims." The idea that Native students are "culturally disadvantaged" or "culturally deprived" reflects an ethnocentric bias that should not continue. When schools do not recognize, value, and build on what Native students learn at home, they are given a watered-down, spread out curriculum that is meant to guarantee student learning but which often results in their education being slowed and their being "bored out" of school. As a Denver adult education teacher summed it up in the INAR/National Advisory Council on Indian Education (NACIE) Joint Issues Session in San Diego the "traditional school system" has failed dropouts rather than they having failed the system.

Two major studies (Deyhle, 1989; Platero, 1986) of Native dropouts found that a traditional Native orientation was not a handicap in regard to school success. In addition, the Navajo Dropout study found that "the most successful students were for the most part fluent Navajo/English bilinguals" (Platero, 1986, p. 6). Lin (1990) found Native college students who had traditional orientations outperformed those with modern orientations.

To prevent students from dropping out of school, it is necessary to know why they drop out. Many studies have focused on the supposed deficits of students who drop out, including their parents' income, their intelligence, and their school attendance. Less attention has been given to the deficits of the schools and teachers pushing Native students out, but this is an even more important topic for Native parents and educators.

Recent studies (see Table 1) show that Native students continue to drop out of school at twice the national average. The National Center for Education Statistics reports dropout rates for American Indian students at 35.5 percent in 1989. The largest detailed recent study done in 1986 by the Navajo Division of Education reports a 31 percent dropout rate (Platero, Brandt, Witherspoon, & Wong, 1986). This rate is confirmed by a smaller detailed study done on the Utah portion of the Navajo Reservation (Deyhle, 1989). Other smaller studies give similar rates. The 1989 Northern Cheyenne educational census also shows 31 percent of Indian adults without either a high school education or a GED program (Ward & Wilson, p. 26).

All the above figures are only slightly higher than the 27.1 percent of Native teenagers between the ages of sixteen and nineteen living on reservations that were found in the 1980 census to be not enrolled in any school and who were not high school graduates. However the census figures also showed wide variation among reservations as to how many Native teenagers were not in school. One New Mexico Pueblo had only 5.2 percent of those teenagers not getting a high school education while several small Nevada, Arizona, Washington, and California sites had no students completing a high school education (Bureau, 1985).

Research indicates a number of factors associated with higher student dropout rates. Factors that are particularly critical for Native students include:

Large schools

Uncaring teachers

Passive teaching methods

Irrelevant curriculum

Inappropriate testing

Tracked classes

Lack of parent involvement

Each of these factors is explained in detail below [see also Weis, Farrar, & Petrie (1989) for a general discussion on dropouts describing some of the factors discussed below].
Large schools

There is evidence that the increased size of American schools, especially the large comprehensive high schools with more than one thousand students, creates conditions for dropouts. Recently, the National Study of Schooling (Goodlad, 1984) criticized large schools for creating factory-like environments that prevent teachers and other school staff from forming personal relationships with students. The recent ED sponsored study on dropout prevention (Sherman & Sherman, 1990) found small class and program size, low pupil-teacher ratios, program autonomy, and a supportive school environment associated with successful dropout prevention. It found that "many students who have not met with success in the regular school program have been alienated by a large, bureaucratic system that does not respond to their unique needs" (p. 49).

Smaller schools also allow a greater percentage of students to participation in extra-curricular activities. Students participating in these activities, especially sports when excessive travel is not required, drop out less frequently (Platero, et al., 1986). Many reservation schools do not have drama clubs, debate teams, and other non-sport extra-curricular activities which would help develop Native student leadership and language skills.

Another negative feature of large schools revealed in the Navajo Dropout Study (Platero, et al., 1986) is that in rural areas students are often required to take long bus rides to school. Students who miss the bus often cannot find alternative transportation thus increasing their absenteeism. Long distances between homes and school also discourage parents from taking a more active role in school activities. An educator from Cuba High School in the INAR/NACIE Joint Issues Sessions in San Diego testified on how some students had to get up at 5:00 am to catch the school bus at 6:30 am so they could start class at 8:50 am.

Unless large schools are restructured to create schools within schools and larger blocks of time that individual teachers can form human relationships with individual students, it is difficult for caring teachers to interact with any one student long enough to know a student personally and to form the kind of supportive relationship described in the section on teachers below which will help a student stay in school. Another approach to this problem has been the creation in large urban areas such as Buffalo, New York, of Native magnet schools to provide both the closeness and culturally appropriate curriculum that Native at risk students need to succeed.

Uncaring teachers

The importance of warm, supportive, and caring teachers is documented in the Native student dropout research (Coladarci, 1983; Deyhle, 1989; Platero, et al., 1986). Caring teachers are willing to learn about their students and their students' cultures as well as to teach students. From what they learn, caring teachers adjust their teaching to fit the cultural background of their students. Fewer Native students report that "discipline is fair," that "the teaching is good," that "teachers are interested in students," and that "teachers really listen to me" than other racial or ethnic group (National, 1990, p. 43). Two General Equivalency Diploma (GED) instructors note in supplemental testimony before the INAR Task Force hearings in Seattle that:

Those students who study for the GED examination often are experiencing for the first time instructors who are Native American themselves, and who truly acknowledge that they are intelligent human beings who are capable of learning and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. For many, this is a new concept. (Document 191, p. 5)
In testimony at the INAR/NACIE Joint Issues Sessions in San Diego, an educator testified,
Students who have dropped out have indicated to us that their reasons include not being able to identify with what is going on in the classroom, teachers not really explaining what needed to be done, teachers going too fast, insufficient time to complete class assignments. They felt that they had been put on a schedule with no flexibility. If they needed more time on a test, it wasn't allowed. They also felt defeated because teachers and other school staff members didn't seem to understand the m. The easy way out was just to leave school.
Ms. Michelle Credo who served as a duty aide at Juneau Middle School testified,
I have seen discrimination in the treatment of students. There is too much emphasis on punishment, and the same kids are being punished over and over. My role in discipline was to supervise in-school suspension, and I was supposed to discourage them from any infraction. I was learning a lot from listening to them. Many came from dysfunctional families or families that feel powerless against the school system. Many were very bright, but teachers would tell me that I could get more work out of them because I had fewer to supervise. These young people had leadership capacity that was not being nurtured at all. I tried to suggest providing a counseling program rather than simply resorting to punishment (sit and do homework or nothing). I wanted the school to look at why these problems kept occurring. (INAR Second Meeting, Juneau, AK, August 2, 1990)
Whenever possible students should be involved in making and enforcing school rules. The success of this approach was found by Albert Kneale in a Native school ninety years ago (1950) and were described by William Glasser in his book Schools Without Failure, first published in 1968.
The most complete account of how caring individual attention to Native students leads to academic success is given in Kleinfeld's 1979 study of an Alaskan school, St. Mary's. St. Mary's, a Catholic boarding school, was successful despite what would be generally considered inadequate funding. Kleinfeld concluded from her study of the school that,

The most important kind of education happening at the school is not happening through subject matter instruction or through teaching technical skills. It happened through the communication of values, of principles for organizing one's life despite the disorganizing pressures of cultural change. This system of values is communicated only in small part by direct teaching. Rather, it is lodged within the structure of student and staff relationships at the school. These standards are communicated above all through the intimate associations that develop at St. Mary's between teachers and their students. (1979, pp. 27-28)
St. Mary's volunteer teachers interacted with students both in and out of the classroom. The school was "a village society with a structure of social relationships similar to that of the students' own communities" (p. 32) and "most classes taught by the volunteers were a mixture of factual information, personal experiences of the teacher, references to Eskimo village life, delightful in-jokes, and broad humor" (p. 34). St. Mary's students did not score higher on standardized tests than graduates from other schools, but the experience and self-confidence gained from interacting with caring adults allowed them to master the college environment better.
Another successful Native school reinforces some of Kleinfeld's conclusions. Rock Point Community School in Arizona draws many of its non-Native teachers (about half the high school teaching staff) from returned Peace Corps volunteers. These teachers care about the community as well as their jobs and see education in a more holistic way. Teaching subject matter is only a part, and not necessarily the major part, of their jobs (Reyhner, 1990).

An ethnographic study done on Navajos and Utes, including both interviews with students and classroom observations, reports that students "complained bitterly that their teachers did not care about them or help them in school" (Deyhle, 1989, p. 39). This study also reports that "a little less than half of the Navajo and almost two-thirds of the Ute [students] felt school was not important for what they wanted to do in life" (p. 42). She also finds that "When youth experienced minimal individual attention or personal contact with their teachers, they translated this into an image of teacher dislike and rejection" (p. 39).

Time and again in the INAR Task Force hearings Native parents testified about the need for more Native teachers both to provide role models for their children and for the unique cultural knowledge they have to offer. Unfortunately, in an attempt to improve the quality of teaching in the United States, changes have been made in teacher preparation programs and certification standards that aggravate rather than solve problems for Native education. Increased certification standards are preventing Native students from entering the teaching profession because the National Teachers Examination and other tests used are culturally biased and fail to measure Native student strengths. The Winter 1989 issue of the Fair Test Examiner reported how nearly 38, 000 Black, Latino, Native and other minority teacher candidates are being barred from classrooms by teacher competency tests. In addition, teacher preparation and certification programs are culturally and linguistically "one size fits all," and the size that is measured is a middle-class, Western-European cultural orientation. Recent research has identified a wide body of knowledge about bilingual education, Native learning styles, and English-as-a-second-language (ESL) teaching techniques that teachers of Native students need to know. In addition teachers of Native students should have a Native cultural literacy specific to the tribal background of their students. But teachers often get just one generic multicultural course in accredited teacher education programs.

An additional key factor previously mentioned that is not evaluated by either tests or course grades is teacher personality. Studies (Kleinfeld, 1979; Coburn, 1989; Deyhle, 1989; Platero, Brandt, Witherspoon, & Wong, 1986) clearly show the Native student's need for warm, supportive teachers. These teachers need to use active teaching strategies, described by Cummins (1988) as experiential and interactive. Teachers of Native students cannot assume that their students will be automatically interested in academic subject matter. Teachers must constantly draw connections for their students between academic knowledge and its application to the real world. The Indian Education Act Applied Literacy Program at Rock Point Community School is an excellent example of academic instruction in a practical environment. As students develop their their literacy skills, they get to use them on a low wattage television station and in an award winning school newspaper (Reyhner, 1990). Basic skills must be taught in a context of meaningful student activity, and meaningful means meaningful for the student as well as the teacher.

The structure of secondary schools needs changing to allow for more teacher-student contact. The present reliance on the "Carnegie Unit" produces a fragmentation of the curriculum. Examples of Native schools that have worked to solve this program include Crazy Horse High School in Wanblee, South Dakota, and Monument Valley High School in Kayenta, Arizona. At Wanblee, English and social studies classes are integrated in the high school across grade levels. At Kayenta, subjects are blocked together so that students change class less and stay longer with each of their teachers. The recent ED sponsored study on preventing dropouts found block programming was successfully used "to create a 'family' environment for students" (Sherman & Sherman, 1990).

All students face difficult transitions as they enter and proceed through their school days. At fourth grade when teachers traditionally tend to move toward more formal textbook-oriented instruction and textbook descriptions change from what students hear daily to abstract narrative descriptions, too many Native student fail to bridge the gap, and it is only a matter of time before they drop out. Again, at either sixth or eighth grade, students often transfer from working most of the day with the same students and teacher to a working with many different teachers and students in a large factory-like secondary school. Dropout prevention must start in the home, continue in early childhood education programs, and continue into high school and beyond as a community-wide effort. Only caring teachers can help students successfully bridge the many transitions they face as they proceed through their schooling.

I do not mean to suggest that we have a lot of evil teachers who do not care about Native students. What I do suggest is that teacher-training programs do not recruit and value caring individuals, teacher training programs do not particularly prepare teachers to teach Native students, and, once hired, teachers often get little in-service training on Native curriculum and teaching methods. If the educational system does not nurture and value caring teachers, it will not get them. Much of the emphasis in recent educational reform movements has been on the better academic preparation of teachers for students who for one reason or another are determined to learn in school. Many of the recent reforms point at getting rid of students who are bored and uninterested in school through tests and more rigorous discipline. Nationwide, our emphasis on more rigorous discipline rather than prevention has made our country first in number of prisoners. We have a greater percentage of our citizens in prisons than either the Soviet Union or the Union of South Africa. Teachers of Native students need greater access to specialized training and Native curriculum materials and support services. The Great Falls Public School System in Montana was commended in the INAR Task Force hearings for its "very diversified and comprehensive learning resource center that could serve as a model for other such centers."

One witness at the hearings suggested that non-Native teachers teaching in Native communities should be given Peace Corps type training before starting their jobs. The success that Rock Point Community School in Arizona has had with hiring returned Peace Corps volunteers to teach in their high school indicates the validity of that suggestion. However, the current emphasis on academic versus a holistic view of teacher training is leading our nation away from this type of training. More and more states a re making tests such as the National Teachers Examination (NTE) the final requirement for a teaching certificate; however, the NTE cannot measure how much a teacher cares about students and does not measure whether the teacher knows anything about Native language, history, or culture. In addition, the timed nature of standardized tests hurt bilingual students who need to translate English questions into their Native language in order to understand them. States have even taken steps backward from the proper preparation of teachers of Native students. For example, in 1973 the Montana state legislature mandated Indian studies for teachers working on or near reservations, but this law was later repealed.

It seems insane, but it is true in this country that a Native person can successfully complete four or more years of college and receive a Bachelors Degree in education at an accredited college or university and be denied a license to teach Native students on the basis of one timed standardized examination that does not reflect Native education at all. At the same time, a non-Native who has never seen a Native student, never studied native history, language, or culture, and whose three credit class in multicultural education emphasized Blacks and Hispanics can legally teach the Native students that the Native graduate cannot.

Passive teaching methods

It is popularly assumed that students who drop out are already failing, but research on Native students shows that the academic performance of dropouts is not that different from students who remain in school. Navajo students gave boredom with school most frequently as their reason for planning to drop out or having dropped out. Forty-five percent of the Navajo dropouts were B or better students. (Platero et al., 1986; Platero 1986). This lack of interest in education needs to be further examined, but other studies point to the fact that it is the way children are taught in school that produces this boredom (see Cummins, 1988).

This is not a new issue, The Meriam Report in 1928 reported that almost all schools had locked rooms or isolated buildings used as "jails" for unruly students and that in some schools Native children were forced to "maintain a pathetic degree of quietness" (pp. 329 & 332). McCarty and Schaffer (in press) advocate an "explorer" curriculum for Native students based on the work of Freeman and Freeman (1988). In such a classroom, students "interact with their environment, their peers, and their teachers as they learn about the world" (Freeman & Freeman, 1988, p. 4). Ovando (1988) describes a similar type of problem-solving curriculum for science, and gives an example of its successful application with Alaska Native students in Gambell, Alaska (see also Guthridge, 1986). These type of approaches fight the problems of boredom and lack of interest that are prevalent in classrooms that are focused on students listening to teachers lecture, reading textbooks, and memorizing information.

Cummins (1988) contrasts the traditional transmission method of teaching which focuses on students sitting passively in class and memorizing information with more experiential and interactive teaching methodologies which focus on actively involving students in learning. His review of the research indicated teachers who used transmission methods caused minority student failure while experiential and interactive methods created conditions for minority student success. Other studies of Native students show the same need for teachers to know more about the home culture of their students. Swisher and Deyhle (1989) have analyzed a number of these studies to show how teachers can improve the instruction of Native students, unfortunately most teachers are unlikely to receive this type of instruction in their teacher training programs unless certification requirements are changed.

Native and other minority students are least likely to receive active teaching strategies as they are shunted to low track classes as documented previously. High track students have more active learning activities and high prestige subject matter, for example, Shakespeare in English classes (Oakes, 1985). Low track English classes, where Native students are more likely to be found, had popular, rather than classic, literature and more "alienation, distance, and authority than" high track classes (p. 13 3). Savage (1987) gives a similar description of Chapter 1 classrooms, and Smith (1988) describes generally how instruction, especially in reading, is often segmented into a series of discrete "basic" skills which are taught mechanically with the results that students are often bored. In Deyhle's dropout study students "spoke of the boredom of remedial classes, the repetition of the same exercises and uninteresting subjects" (1989, p. 44). Testimony was also given at task force hearings for more cooperative learning activities in classrooms where students learn together rather than individually. Glasser (1986) sees cooperative education as the method to get potential dropouts to become interested again in what schools have to offer. In a study of Alaskan education, seniors included the following reasons for their classmates dropping out of school: not being good at memorizing facts, boredom, larger class sizes, and unsupportive teachers (Senate, 1989).

Teachers who are not trained to teach Native children, as most teachers are not with our present teacher training system, tend to experience failure when they start teaching Native children. While these teachers often become discouraged and find other jobs, the students are left to suffer from continued educational malpractice. Changes in certification requirements for teachers of Native students to require specialized training in Native education is supported by data from the Report on BIA Education. This data shows an extremely high turnover rate of Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) professional staff, fifty percent in two years, in comparison with nationwide figures, and Native students thinking worse of their teachers than any other group (Office, 1988). Previously, the Kennedy Report, Indian Education: A National Tragedy--A National Challenge (Special, 1969), found that one-fourth of the elementary and secondary teachers of Native children admitted not wanting to teach them. Proper training and screening of teachers could solve this problem, especially the training of Native teachers.

Inappropriate curriculum

In addition to poor teaching methods, Native schools are characterized by inappropriate curriculum (Coladarci, 1983; Reyhner, 1992). The vast majority of textbooks are not written for Native students. In the INAR Task Force hearings, many Native educators pointed out the need for teaching materials specially designed for Native students. Despite vast improvement in the past two decades, there are still reports that "too many textbooks are demeaning to minorities" (Senate, 1989, p. 28). Michelle Stock, education director of the Seneca Nation, in the INAR Task Force public hearings called for a "concerted effort...to promote and provide accurate depictions of Indian people, past and present" and criticized the negative images of Native people given by textbooks and the media (Eastern Regional Public Hearing, October 2, 1990, Cherokee, NC). At the INAR Task Force's Great Lakes Regional Hearing (St. Paul, MN, September 20, 1990), Cheryl Kulas of the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction testified that of 1,369 teachers who took a North Dakota American Indian Studies course, ninety-nine percent of the teachers indicated they did not have books about Native Americans in their classroom and seventy-two percent had not developed or used methods that work successfully with Native American students.

Testimony from the INAR Task Force hearings indicates that too often superficial attempts are made in schools to provide Native curriculum through a Thanksgiving unit or a Native American Day rather than developing a culture-based, culture-embedded curriculum that permeates both the school day and the school year. Extensive material exists to produce elementary and secondary culturally appropriate curriculum for Native students, however, there is little incentive for publishers to produce material for the relatively small market that Native students represent. The wealth of information that could positively effect Native students understanding and self-concept is indicated by books such as Jack Weatherford's (1988) Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World; however, this information does not seem to be reaching Native students at the elementary and secondary level.

Not only are American textbooks largely inappropriate in cultural content for Native students, they are also over-relied on in most classrooms. There is evidence that teaching methods that rely less on textbooks work better with Native students. In mathematics, this means more use of manipulatives, in science it means a laboratory approach including using the natural environment as a laboratory, and in reading it means Whole Language methods where students can read and study literature from both the dominant society and their Native culture (see also chapter 14, this book). Deyhle (1989) in her dropout study notes how teachers too often tell their Native students to read the chapter and answer the questions at the end of the chapter. An uninteresting task even when students can read well, but an impossible one for many Native students who cannot read well.

Schools also need to develop curriculum that deals with racism in schools. At the INAR Task Force hearings there was repeated testimony about Native students facing racial prejudice in their schools. John Bresulieu, chairperson of the Minneapolis public schools Indian parent committee testified that,

students felt threatened or ashamed to be identified as an Indian in schools with few Indians or supportive services for Indian students. Other students, who cannot hide the fact that they are Indians, often face merciless teasing and ridicule from others who openly make fun of their names and appearances. Too many Indian students are often forced to defend themselves from such racial and physical harassment and are suspended and expelled from school as a result. (INAR, Great Lakes Regional Hearing, St. Paul, MN, September 20, 1990)
Inappropriate use of tests
The emphasis on standardized testing in this country produces built in failure from the way the tests are designed (Oakes, 1985, chapter 2; Bloom, 1981). In addition to the built-in sorting function of standardized tests, they have a cultural bias that has yet to be overcome. Some of the changes made to improve education in American schools recommended in A Nation at Risk (National, 1983) and other studies have hurt rather than helped Native students. For example the academic emphasis that uses tests to measure school success has led to more Native students being retained in grade, and retention leads to dropping out as overage students reach high school. The National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 reports that 28.8 percent of Native students have repeated at least one grade, the highest percentage of any racial or ethnic group reported (National, 1990, p. 9). The research on failing (retaining students in grade for another year) students indicates that it only creates more failure. Even retention in kindergarten does not help students who are having academic problems. Countries such as Japan do not practice grade retention (Shepard & Smith, 1989). With current practices, schools can even make themselves look better by pushing out Native students since they are evaluated on their average test scores. The more "at risk" students they push out, the higher the schools' average scores (Bearden, Spencer, & Moracco, 1989).

Unthinking school administrators and teachers use the BIA mandated California Test of Basic Skills (CTBS) and other standardized test scores to show that their present curriculum is not working without realizing they are comparing bilingual and culturally different student test scores with monolingual English student norms. The result is that they keep changing the curriculum in a futile attempt to get Native language speaking students in the early grades to have English language test scores that match the test scores of students of the same age who have spoken English all their lives. They also are driven to "teach to the test" in order show success with the result that the curriculum becomes based on whatever the standardized test covers rather than on the real needs of Native students. Research indicates that it takes about six years for non-English speaking students to get an academic proficiency in English which will give them a chance to match the English language test scores of students whose native language is English (Cummins, 1988).

It is also only fair that achievement tests given to Native students be aligned with what they are being taught in their schools (and not vice versa!). Testimony given at the INAR/NACIE joint issue sessions in San Diego give instances of the use in BIA schools of tests designed for state mandated curriculums on students who were not taught using those curriculums. The report of the National Commission on Testing and Public Policy, From Gatekeeper to Gateway: Transforming Testing in America, (1990) focuses on the issue of both too much standardized multiple choice testing in our nation's schools and on how the results of that testing are used inappropriately. As the title of the National Commission's report suggests and Cummins (1988) maintains, tests should be used to pinpoint student weaknesses in order to help them rather than being used to fail students, give them inferior high school "attendance" diplomas, or keep them out of the teaching profession as is done now.

Negative effects of tracking

"Tracking" is the common practice in secondary schools of dividing the student body into high achievers, average achievers, and low achievers and providing separate classes for each group. This tracking is often based on the questionable results of the standardized testing that is described above and by racist attitudes towards minorities. Oakes (1985) describes the negative effect that tracking has in our nation's high schools and how Black, Hispanic, and Native students are disproportionately represented in the lower tracks where they receive a substandard education. She documents how in tracked classrooms "lower-class students are expected to assume lower-class jobs and social positions as adults" (p. 117) and that "students, especially lower-class students, often actively resist what schools try to teach them" (p. 120). Statistics from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 reported in Table 2 show that less than ten percent of Native students are in the upper quartile of achievement test scores in history, mathematics, reading, and science while over forty percent are in the lowest quartile. The low expectations of teachers for low track students, already unsuccessful in school, make an already serious problem worse. The differential treatment high and low track students receive from teachers are described below under the heading of "teaching methods."

Table 2. Distribution by Quartiles of Eighth Grade Native Student Achievement
SOURCE: Table 106, National center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics 1989, 25th Ed. (NCES 89-643). Washington, DC: Office of Education Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education using data from "National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988: survey.
Useem (1990) describes how many students, including many Native students, get tracked out of advanced mathematics classes. However, she found some schools with more advanced mathematics classes and more flexibility in allowing students into these classes. She emphasizes the need for counselors and teachers to take an advocacy role in encouraging students to try advanced mathematics courses. The American Indian Science and Engineering Society located in Boulder, Colorado, does an excellent job of working with schools and colleges throughout the country to encourage Native students to pursue science careers. Their magazine Winds of Change contains excellent articles on Native education.

The experiences of Jaime Escalante, as portrayed in the movie Stand and Deliver, illustrate how teachers who have high expectations for their students and who can bring their subjects alive for their students can produce high achievement in minority students who are normally written off in our schools. This supports the research of Bloom (1981) that, given proper teaching, ninety percent of students can master classroom subject matter. The film also portrays some of the negative aspects of standardized testing, as when Educational Testing Service officials assumed cheating when Hispanic students succeeded beyond the officials' expectations.

Lack of parent involvement

Last but not least of the changes that need to take place in schools to decrease dropouts is greater parent involvement. Often school staff say they want parent involvement, but what they really want is parents to get after their children to attend school and study. In the words of one hearing witness in San Diego,

They [school officials and teachers] really want parents as cake bakers and cops. That is their idea. They send home recipes and say "This is what we want your kid to look like. You feed him and clothe him, you bathe him -- make sure he doesn't have any lice--send him to school on time, pick him up, come to back-to-school night and open house, and let us do our song and dance. We will send home the homework and you can sign off. You are the cop." So your kid is on probation at home. This sets up a very negative relationship.
While getting parents to get their children to school is important, parent involvement also means educating parents about the function of the school and allowing parents real decision making power about what and how their children learn. The best way to get schools to reflect parent and community values and to reduce cultural discontinuity between home and school is to have real parent involvement in Native education. At many successful Native schools, the school board, administrators, and teachers are Native people. Parents need to have effective input as to how and what their children are taught. This is best achieved through Native control of schools. However, restrictions on curriculum placed by states on public schools, and even the BIA on BIA-funded schools, limit the effectiveness of Native parent involvement. State and BIA regulations force Native schools to use curriculum and textbooks not specifically designed for Native children and to employ teachers, who though certified, have no special training in Native education.
Native student retrieval and re-entry strategies

The few good studies of Native dropouts such as the Navajo Dropout Study (Platero, et al., 1986) point out the nationwide need to systematically keep track of the number of Native dropouts since retrieval programs can only be designed when the extent of the problem is known. The new Montana TRACKS program indicates how states can begin the process. Many studies seriously overestimate and other seriously underestimate the extent of the dropout problem because schools do not know how many children have never entered school or whether a student who appears to have dropped out has actually just transferred to another school without notice.

The importance of knowing the extent of the problem is indicated by the Navajo Dropout Study which found that.

Fully 46% of all dropouts expect to return to school and graduate, while another 45.1% say "maybe" when they are asked if they expect to return to school and graduate. Only 8.8% have no hope or expectation of returning to school or graduating. (Platero, 1986, p. 33)
A regular school based retrieval program is most desirable, but alternative schools, and General Education Diploma (GED) programs also provide effective means to further the education of "at risk" Native students.
Role of GED, Young Mothers, Tribal College, and other programs

The importance of GED programs in helping dropouts finish a high school level education can be seen in the 1989 educational census of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation where 19 percent of the Indian adults had GED certificates. Twenty-seven percent of Indian adults on the Northern Cheyenne reservation with a high school education had received GED certificates (Ward & Wilson, p. 26). Young Mother programs that allow students with babies to continue their high school education in school and at the same time teach parenting skills, allow both teenage mothers to complete their high school education and to better raise the next generation of Native students.

The Indian Self-Determination and Assistance Act of 1975 has allowed Native organizations to set up alternative schools for students that have been pushed out or who have dropped out of BIA and public schools. Sometimes, upon entering these alternative programs is the first time Native students experience Native teachers and a Native curriculum. BIA-funded Native-controlled alternative schools and urban magnet schools for Native Americans are uniquely able to provide an environment with all the things this chapter has shown Native students need. Small untracked schools with Native teachers, culturally appropriate curriculum, and active parent involvement provide a haven for Native students who cannot or will not adapt to large impersonal education systems.

The Tribal community colleges also play an important role in sponsoring locally controlled GED programs for Native youth. Tribal community colleges actively recruit dropouts and work with local high schools. However, Native students are often unprepared for college work and need to take developmental, non-credit classes. These extra classes use up government aid eligibility with the result that students who need the aid the most run out of eligibility before completing a bachelor's degree. This is especially true in teacher training programs as these programs often spell out every course the student must take and any deviation extends the students time in college. Tribal community colleges also play an additional important role in spearheading local dropout studies and other much needed Native educational research.

Nutrition, medical, and drug abuse problems

Reservation, rural, and inner-city poverty effect Native students disproportionately. In addition, the medical problems associated with alcohol abuse, most notably fetal-alcohol syndrome, impact Native communities. The need for programs such as WIC, Head Start, and National School Lunch is great. In addition, there is a continued need for boarding schools to take in Native youth from dysfunctional homes. However, despite the bleak picture of reservation life sometimes portrayed by the media, recent Indian Health Service statistics indicate that Native people are winning the war on drugs, but they still have a long fight ahead of them.

The age-adjusted alcoholism death rate for Native people decreased 61 percent from 1973 to 1987, but it still remains 4.3 times the rate for all races in the United States (Indian, 1990). From the beginning of Native-white contact, Native people's lack of experience with alcohol has been taken advantage of. The United States Government was unable to consistently enforce laws against selling liquor to Natives, and, despite many reservations being legally "dry" today, bootlegging continues. In addition, bars are built as close as possible to dry reservations. Former Education Secretary Cavazos pointed out that alcohol is the "number one drug of choice for America's youth" (United States, 1989, p. v). The National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 found that 16.4 percent of Native students reported that "someone offered to sell me drugs" in school, the highest percentage of any racial or ethnic group (National, 1990, p. 45).

In addition to the problems, possibly genetic, of inexperience with alcohol, the Native drug abuse problem is aggravated by the cultural conflict between Natives and the mainstream culture. Students do not drop out of school just because of academic failure, drug and alcohol abuse, or any other single problem. Many of the problems faced by Native students such as drug and alcohol abuse are symptoms of the poor self concepts of Native students who have unresolved internal conflicts resulting from educators asking students to give up their Native culture. The underlying causal factor of internal identity conflicts resulting from cultural conflict between Native cultures and the dominant culture needs to be treated at a community as well as an individual level.

As Gerald Grey, principal of Chemewa Indian School, noted in his testimony at San Diego, getting students sober was just the start of treatment. Once the student returned from treatment, the underlying problems that led to drug abuse must be addressed. Much clinical drug abuse treatment is aimed at the individual and does not have a high success rate. Native drug abuse is a community problem needing community approaches to treatment. Treating the individual and sending him or her home or back to school usually leads to relapse. The community, especially the student's peer group, needs to be worked with. Based their review of the research on Native alcoholism, Edwards and Edwards (1988) recommend a community approach for adolescent treatment and give seven recommendations:

Utilize Native Elders to act as role models and to provide support services.

Provide for alcohol education programs that include counseling.

Have first offender programs that require attendance at group counseling sessions and teach problem-solving skills. Requiring attendance of parents at these sessions is also helpful.

Provide early prevention programs focusing on improving parenting skills and child self-concept.

Provide identification and intervention programs for "at risk" students.

Train adolescent peer counselors.

Provide employment opportunities for Native youth.

Professional school counseling too often is restricted to academic matters. Counselors, as certified teachers, are unlikely to have a real knowledge of the Native community and are unlikely to have the time to give in-depth help to troubled youth. This weakness of the professional counseling program can be overcome, at least in part, through the training of peer counselors. An excellent example of giving students a reason for learning is the peer counseling program at Chinle High School that two students described at the INAR/NACIE Joint Issue Sessions in San Diego. These students volunteered for a class where they learned about the effects of drug and alcohol abuse and learned leadership and peer counseling skills. The students then applied what they learned by helping students with problems. Cheryl Kulas, assistant director for Indian education for the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction, also described a Peer Facilitator Training Program sponsored by her department that teaches peer support techniques, decision making skills, and offers alternatives for substance abuse as part of a Youth Leadership Institute (Great Lakes Regional Hearing, St. Paul, MN, September 20, 1990). The non-profit Native American Development Corporation has also published a number of booklets on how Native youth and communities can fight drug abuse. ¹
In addition to Native efforts, the nation as a whole has to do more to control alcohol and other drug abuse among youth. The banning of advertisements of alcoholic beverages on commercial television would be a major step in deglamorizing alcohol. Also, the linkage of sporting events with the promotion of alcohol and tobacco products needs to be discouraged. For example, the linkage of smokeless tobacco products with both professional and amateur rodeo events aggravates a growing health problem among Native students.

One of the greatest tragedies of Native drug abuse was recently brought to the attention of America in Michael Dorris's book The Broken Cord. This book describes the tragedy of children born with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). If these students survive to school age, teachers can do little to help them become as academically successful as non-FAS students. The problem of FAS highlights the need for community prevention programs that discourage drug abuse for all Native people and which provide counseling and alternative recreational activities on a community-wide level.

Another major drug problem among Native children is inhalant abuse. With the current crisis over the use of "hard" drugs, not enough attention is given to how students, often in elementary schools, abuse common products such as Liquid Paper, rubber cement, and gasoline. Like the FAS child mentioned above, a child who abuses inhalants can suffer brain damage that the best intentioned and trained teacher cannot overcome.

Historically, vocational programs for Native students have had a racist tinge. The Jesuit priest, Father Palladino, wrote that "a plain, common English education, embracing spelling, reading and writing, with the rudiments of arithmetic, is booklearning sufficient for our Indians" (1922, p. 113). Father Palladino and others felt Indians were lazy and an academic education would encourage their "natural indolence." The vocational education of students was also an excuse to employ Native children in the upkeep of their schools as a cost-cutting measure. Vocational education in government boarding schools even led to the possible violation of state child labor laws (Meriam, 1928). This trend continued after World War II when Native workers were considered as suitable for "close, tedious, repetitive work requiring great dexterity and fortitude" (Senese, 1985, p. 76). Gloria Kootswatewa, vice-chair of the Kickapoo Tribe, testified at the INAR Task Force hearings how,

All Indians students are geared toward vocational education, they are never counseled for college-bound courses. I had a problem with my son and asked the school to change his courses. I was told all Indians go to voc-tech. (Plains Regional Hearing, September 18, 1990, Oklahoma City, OK)
Oakes (1985) documents how vocational education for poor and minority students "limit their future opportunities and, in fact, relegate them to low-level occupations and social status" (1985, p. 150). Her review of the research "strongly suggests that participation in vocational programs has not enhanced the employment opportunities of participants," rather vocational education segregates Native and other minority students "in order to preserve the academic curriculum for middle- and upper-class students" (pp. 152-153). In addition, she found that schools in upper income neighborhoods had vocational programs that prepared students for higher income jobs than vocational programs in low income schools, for example, bookkeeping versus cosmetology. Rather than specific job training, employers want to know if potential employees are trainable. This is especially true in this era of rapidly changing technology. Students who are able to read, write, compute, and reason are trainable.
In addition to the inability of high school vocational programs to keep up with rapidly changing technology, there is a problem with the low status of vocational programs. The importance of Native student self-concept in school success was brought out again and again in the INAR Task Force hearings. Unless vocational education is something for all students and is part of a pervasive/integrated K-12 career education program, it is likely to remain a second class education for second class citizens. The INAR Task Force hearings also brought out problems that Native students have had with vocational education provided by proprietary schools. Some of these schools are only interested in the financial aid Native students can qualify for, and students do not get the training they need for actual employment.

Partnerships with business

Whereas Native students can get the skills and confidence they need to be employment trainable in high school, there is still a need to encourage businesses to provide on-the-job training for Native students. But these job opportunities must not just be minimum wage, assembly-line type jobs. Too often in the past Indian reservations had been treated like third world countries, to have their natural resources and cheap labor exploited by both big and small businesses. Federal funding for partnership programs needs to fit in with tribally specific economic development plans which insure that Native communities and individual employees benefit from the partnerships as well as the employers. Partnerships with businesses are difficult to develop in reservation settings because few businesses exist. In urban settings more can be done. Individual schools need encouragement and guidance to seek out business partnerships even at a distance.

Partnerships with businesses, labor unions, universities, and government agencies such as the Indian Health Service need to:

Provide mentors who act as role models, advisors, and paraprofessional counselors for at-risk students.

Provide vocational experiences for at-risk students including field trips, short-term summer programs, and internships.

Work with schools so that schools provide the academic preparation necessary for employment in the partnership organization.

Develop a spirit of volunteerism and self-help within businesses and among students to provide community-wide development.

Provide employment for graduates.

Conclusions

The supplemental add-on programs such as Indian Education Act, Johnson O'Malley (JOM), Bilingual Education, Special Education, and other federal programs have had a limited success in improving the education of Indian children. However, add-on programs are only a first step to making schooling appropriate for Native children. There is a need to view Native education holistically rather than fragmented with basic skills, Native heritage, and other classes taught in isolation from one another.

In addition to treating the curriculum holistically, dropout prevention needs to be treated holistically. As the research reported in this chapter shows, students do not drop out of school just because of academic failure, drug and alcohol abuse, or any other single problem. Dropout prevention starts with caring teachers who give students every chance for success in the classroom through interactive and experiential teaching methodologies and relevant curriculum. In addition, at risk students need peer support through cooperative instructional methodologies and peer counseling programs. Dropout prevention also includes support services outside of the classroom from school administrators and counselors who work closely with parents.

If teachers and school administrators continue not to get appropriate training in colleges of education, local training programs need to provide school staff with information both on what works in Native education and information about the language, history, and culture of the Native students. Parents and local school boards also need on-going training about what works in Native education and what schools can accomplish. Head Start, elementary, and secondary schools need the support of tribal education departments and tribal colleges to design and implement effective educational programs that support rather than ignore Native cultures.

Much testimony was given in the INAR Task Force hearings on the importance of self-esteem for Native students. It is sometimes not made clear that self-esteem is not an independent variable, but is rather a reflection of how competent a Native child feels. Having students memorize material to show success on standardized tests is a poor way to develop self-esteem. However, if students interact with caring, supportive adults, if students are allowed to explore and learn about the world they live in, including learning about their rich Native heritage, if they are allowed to develop problem solving skills, if they are given frequent opportunities to read and write and to do mathematics and science in meaningful situations, and if they are encouraged to help improve the world they live in through community service, the consequence will be that Native students will feel good about themselves and will be successful in life.

While much of the attention given to dropouts focuses on high schools, students are deciding in the primary grades whether school is something for them. If they are failed, if they do not find school interesting, if their school is something alien and foreign to them, they are "at risk." Teachers need to build on the cultural values that Native parents give their children if teachers want to produce a strong positive sense of identity in their students. Attempts to replace students' Native identity with a dominant cultural identity confuse and repel Native students and force them make a choice to either reject their families' values or their teachers' values. Neither choice is desirable or necessary. Students can be academically successfully and learn about the larger non-Native world while at the same time retaining and developing their Native identity. The solution to the current problem Native students often face is to change schools with Native students so that the Native cultural values are reinforced rather than ignored or depreciated.

Recommendations

The following recommendations are made to implement effective dropout prevention programs:

1. Special programs for students such as provided by the Indian Education Act need to be continued. However, more needs to be done to integrate these special programs into a culture-based curriculum rather than as add-on curriculum. The new school-wide Chapter I programs are a step in the right direction.

2. Teachers of Native students should be provided with and required to have training in cooperative, holistic, experiential, interactive, bilingual, and ESL teaching methodologies that have shown to be effective with Native students. In other words, the suggestion of Fuchs and Havighurst "that teachers of Indian children should be systematically trained to take account of the sociocultural processes operating in the communities and classroom where they work," drawn from The National Study of American Indian Education completed in 1971, needs to be finally implemented (1972, p. 305).

3. School boards and administrators should be encouraged to limit the size of new schools. When this is not possible, or in existing schools, restructuring should be encouraged that produces schools within schools, magnet schools, and similar programs that reduce student anonymity and alienation.

4. School boards and administrators should be encouraged to decrease the negative effects of tracking on Native students through the use of heterogeneous grouping.

5. Advocacy programs such as carried on by the American Indian Science and Engineering Society should be encouraged to promote Native students taking more science and mathematics classes. Challenging students academically in classrooms alleviates student boredom, a major reason for students leaving school.

6. Schools should be encouraged to explore alternatives to failing students in grade, suspension, and expulsion.

7. Some Native students still must attend boarding schools far from their homes. All Native communities that want them should be provided with K-12 day schools. This applies mainly to the Havasupai and Navajo reservations. If the State of Alaska can provide village high schools, the BIA should be able to make an equal effort without requiring lawsuits.

8. The BIA and ED should do more to promote development of Native Education Departments to help them develop (1) site-based cooperative tribal teacher training programs operated by tribal community colleges and four year colleges, (2) tribal curriculum guidelines and materials, and (3) reservation-wide dropout prevention programs which track students and provide community based intervention, support, and treatment programs. The mandate of Public Law 100-297, Section 5106, for both Native curriculum development and developing and strengthening tribal education departments needs to be carried out. So far the BIA has refused to implement this act or its predecessor 25 CFR 32.4.

9. As the "fifty-first state," the BIA should provide a Native teacher certification and school accreditation program, and Native government education departments should provide specific language, history, and culture endorsements and standards. This certification and accreditation would then be acceptable in all BIA funded schools.

10. There is a need for more funding of educational research in conjunction with Native Education departments and tribal colleges on what works for Native education.

11. There needs to be a publication program for tribal curriculum and textbooks sponsored by ED and BIA in conjunction with Tribal Education Departments and in cooperation with Tribal Colleges and University Native American Studies Programs.

12. A national initiative needs to be made to deglamorize the use of alcohol and tobacco including the banning of beer and wine advertisements from television and a program to discourage the linkage of athletic events with advertisements for alcoholic beverages and tobacco products.

Notes:
¹These booklets are available through the Educational Resources Information Clearinghouse (ERIC) system at most university libraries. They include two "What Can We Do?" booklets: Protecting Youth from Alcohol and Substance Abuse, Adolescence --A Tough Time For Indian Youth; three "How Can We Help" booklets: Post-Traumatic Stress: What Some Indian Youth and Vietnam Veterans Have in Common, Positive Self Esteem Can protect Native American Youth, and Strong Tribal Identity Can Protect Native American Youth; and two other booklets: Pass the Word, We Can Beat the Enemy and Blue Bay: A Tribal Approach to Fighting Alcohol and Drug Abuse, Our Way of Healing.
GO TO LINKS TO OTHER AMERICAN INDIAN/ALASKA NATIVE DROPOUT ARTICLES

Bearden, L.J., Spencer, W.A., & Moracco, J.C. (1989). A study of high school dropouts. The School Counselor, 27, 113-120.

Bloom, B. S. (1981). All our children learning. New York: McGraw Hill.

Borgrink, H. (1987). New Mexico dropout study. Santa Fe, NM: New Mexico State Department of Education, Evaluation, Testing, and Data Management Unit. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 303 289)

Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce. (1985). American Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts on identified reservations and in historic areas of Oklahoma (excluding urbanized areas): 1980 census of population (Volume 2, Subject Reports) (PC 80-2-1D, Part 1). Washington, DC: Author.

Coburn, J., & Nelson, S. (1989). Teachers do make a difference: What Indian graduates say about their school experience. Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.

Coladarci, T. (1983). High-school dropouts among Native Americans. Journal of American Indian Education, 23 (1), 15-22.

Cummins, J. (1988). Empowering minority students. Sacramento, CA: California Association for Bilingual education.

Deyhle, D. (1989). Pushouts and Pullouts: Navajo and Ute School Leavers. Journal of Navajo Education, 6 (2), 36-51.

Eastman, E.G. (1935). Pratt: The Red Man's Moses. Norman: University of Oklahoma.

Eberhard, D.R. (1989). American Indian education: A study of dropouts, 1980-1987. Journal of American Indian Education, 29(1), 32-40.

Edwards, D.E., & Edwards, M.E. (1988). Alcoholism prevention/treatment and Native American youth: A community approach. The Journal of Drug Issues, 18 (1), 103-114.

Erikson, E.H. (1963). Childhood and society (2nd Ed.). New York: W.W. Norton.

Franks, E.M., Fortune, J.C., & Weaver, D. (1990). A profile of a dropout population in a Native American high school, a local perspective. A paper presented at the annual American Education Research Association meeting in Boston, MA, April 16- 20, 1990.

Freeman, Y., & Freeman, D. (1988). Bilingual learners: How our assumptions limit their world. Occasional Papers No. 18, Program in Language and Literacy, College of Education, University of Arizona, Tucson, Edited by K. Goodman & Y.M. Goodman.

Fuchs, E., & Havighurst, R.J. (1972). To live on this earth: American Indian Education. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Glasser, W. (1986). Control theory in the classroom. New York: Harper & Row.

Goodlad, J. (1984). A place called school: Prospects for the future. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Guthridge, G. (1986, April). Eskimos solve the future. Analog, 67-72.

Indian Health Service, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (1990). Trends in Indian health 1990. Washington, DC: Author.

Jordan, C. (1984). Cultural compatibility and the education of Hawaiian children: Implications for mainland educators. Education Research Quarterly, 8 (4), 59-71.

Kleinfeld, J. S. (1979). Eskimo school on the Andreafsky: A study of effective bicultural education. New York: Praeger, 1979.

Kneale, A. (1950). Indian agent. Caldwell, ID: Caxton.

Lin, R-L. (1990). Perceptions of family background and personal characteristics among Indian college students. Journal of American Indian Education, 29(3), 19-28.

McCarty, T.L., & Schaffer, R. (in press). Language and literacy in Native American classrooms. In J. Reyhner (Ed.), American Indian education: History, research, theory, and practice. Norman: University of Oklahoma.

Meriam, L. (Ed.). (1928). The problem of Indian administration. Baltimore: John Hopkins.

National Center for Education Statistics. (1989, September). Analysis report: Dropout rates in the United States: 1988 (NCES 89-609). Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.

National Center for Education Statistics. (1990, June). National education longitudinal study of 1988: A profile of the American eighth grader (NCES 90-458). Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.

National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reform. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Oakes, J. (1985). Keeping track: How schools structure inequality. New Haven, CN: Yale University.

Office of Indian Education Programs, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior. (1988). Report on BIA education: Excellence in Indian education through the effective school process. Washington, DC: Author.

Ovando, C. J. (1988). Teaching science to the Native American student. In J. Reyhner (Ed.), Teaching the Indian child: A bilingual/multicultural approach (pp. 227-245). Billings, MT: Eastern Montana College. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 301-372)

Palladino, L. B. (1922). Indian and White in the Northwest: A history of Catholicity in Montana. Lancaster, PA: Wickersham.

Platero, P. R., Brandt, E. A., Witherspoon, G., & Wong, P. (1986, December). Navajo students at risk: Final Report for the Navajo Area student dropout study. Window Rock, AZ: Navajo Division of Education, Navajo Tribe.

Platero Paperwork, Inc. (1986). Executive summary: Navajo area student dropout study. Window Rock, AZ: Navajo Division of Education, The Navajo Nation.

Reyhner, J. (1990). A description of the Rock Point Community School bilingual program. In J. Reyhner (Ed.), Effective language education practices and native language survival (pp. 95-106). Choctaw, OK: Native American Language Issues.

Reyhner, J. (1992). Adapting Curriculum to Culture. In J. Reyhner (Ed.), Teaching American Indian students (pp. 96-103). Norman: University of Oklahoma.

Sanders, D. (1987). Cultural conflicts: An important factor in the academic failures of American Indian students. Journal of Counseling and Development, 15 (2), 81-90.

Savage, D.G. (1987). Why Chapter 1 hasn't made much difference. Phi Delta Kappan, 68, 581-584.

Senate Special Committee on School Performance, Fifteenth Alaska Legislature. (1989). Helping schools succeed at helping all children learn. Fairbanks, AK: Author.

Senese, G. B. (1985). The irony of self-determination: Community and economic development, self-help, and the social education of Native America 1940 to 1975. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (University Microfilms International # 8600306)

Shepard, L.A., & Smith, M.L. (Eds.). (1989). Flunking grades: Research and policies on retention. New York: Falmer.

Sherman, R.Z., & Sherman, J.D. (1990, October). Dropout prevention strategies for the 1990s (Draft Copy). Washington, DC: Pelavin Associates, Inc.

Smith, F. (1988). Joining the literacy club: Further essays into literacy. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Special Subcommittee on Indian Education, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, United States Senate. (1969). Indian education: A national tragedy--A national challenge. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.

Spindler, G.D. (1987). Why have minority groups in North America been disadvantage in their schools? In G.D. Spindler (Ed.). Education and cultural process: Anthropological Approaches (pp. 160-172). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland.

Stuhr, C. (1987). Fear and guilt in adult education: A personal account of investigations into students dropping out. Swift Current, Saskatchewan: Cypress Hills Community College. (Eric Document Reproduction Service No. ED 285 038)

Swisher, K., & Deyhle, D. (1989, August). The styles of learning are different, but the teaching is just the same: Suggestions for teachers of American Indian youth. Journal of Navajo Education, Special Issue, 1-14.

Tharp, R. G. (1982). The effective instruction of comprehension: Results and description of the Kamehameha Early Education Program. Reading Research Quarterly, 17(4), 503-527.

United States Department of Education. What works: Schools without drugs. Washington, DC: Author.

Useem, E.L. (1990). 'You're good, but you're not good enough:' Tracking students out of advanced mathematics. American Educator, 14( 3), 24-27 & 43-48.

Vogt, L.A., Jordan, C., & Tharp, R.G. (1987). Explaining school failure, producing school success: Two cases. Anthropology & Education, 18, 276-286.

Ward, C.J., & Wilson, D.R. (1989). 1989 Educational census of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. Unpublished paper.

Weatherford, J. (1988). Indian givers: How the Indians of the Americas transformed the world. New York: Fawcett Columbine.

Weis, L., Farrar, E., & Petrie, H. G. (Eds.) (1989). Dropouts from school: Issues, dilemmas, and solution. Albany: State University of New York.

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Dropout Prevention for American Indian and Alaska Native Students

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This paper was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education's Indian Nations at Risk Task Force and was completed in 1992. A shorter version of this paper appeared in the January 1992 issue of the Journal of American Indian Education.

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Place-based education. Promotes learning experiences that are rooted in the cultural, historical, environmental, economic and literary contexts of students.

All-Senses Experiential Learning
Storytelling

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Photo from "Real Life Indian" series by Viki Eagle, 2015.

American Indian students make up 1% of the total population in the United States. Despite 85% of Native students attending public schools, these students have the highest dropout rate of any racial or ethnic group at over 65% (Shield, 2004). A recent study revealed that faculty support is one of the most significant factors in increasing student success. The data shows that faculty support increased Native students' GPA by .13 whereas solely institutional support only garnered an increase of .10 (Marroquin & McCoach, 2017). Critical theory is crucial to understanding the relationship and influence higher education has on Native Americans; a population with 566 tribal entities recognized and eligible for funding by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (Grande, San Pedro & Windchief, 2015).

What are Native American Pedagogies?

Place-Based Learning

Place-based education promotes learning experiences that are rooted in the cultural, historical, environmental, economic and literary contexts of students. As such, it is critical to understand the ways that culture and place are intrinsic to the experiences of Native students and other populations. This framework provides faculty with an applicable set of best practice strategies to incorporate into the classroom and serve an array of students (Conti, 2013).

All-Senses Experiential Learning

Experiential learning in the Alaska Native way uses all the senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell, plus intuition and gut feeling. This framework recognizes that young people learn through engagement in activities that support their community in cooperative, collaborative and intentional ways that increase memory and skill development (Merculieff & Roderick 2013).

Storytelling

Storytelling is central to the learning of indigenous peoples. Stories convey information about history, survival, culture, and are used as a formative corrective method when an individual creates disharmony in the community. In this latter example, Elders may choose to tell a corrective story without criticizing, singling out or disciplining an individual knowing that lessons will be remembered better if they are conveyed in an animated style (Merculieff & Roderick 2013). Consider how you might incorporate case studies, biographies, fiction, and oral history in your course.

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American Indian students make up 1% of the total population in the United States. Despite 85% of Native students attending public schools, these students have the highest dropout rate of any racial or ethnic group at over 65% (Shield, 2004). A recent study revealed that faculty support is one of the most significant factors in increasing student success.

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Native American and Indigenous History Month

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Native American and Indigenous History Month

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In honor of Native American and Indigenous History Month, Cal State Fullerton hosted a panel of Native American speakers to discuss issues that face this community and stories of how they have navigated the pandemic.

Panelists were Rheanna Lipari '14 '20 (B.A. English, M.S. secondary education), a teacher at Madera Technical Exploration Center; Nicole Merton '21 (B.F.A. art-creative photography), a photographer; and Tracy Stanhoff, president of the American Indian Chamber of Commerce of California and leader of the American Indian National Chamber of Commerce. The event was moderated by Tonantzin Oseguera, vice president for student affairs.

CSUF President Fram Virjee welcomed the panelists and talked about America's history of not only discriminating against Native Americans but also of committing genocide. When Virjee and his wife, Julie, were visiting the Camp Kigali Memorial in Rwanda (where ten Belgian U.N. peacekeepers were murdered, clearing the way for the Rwandan genocide), he saw a plaque listing all the known genocides in human history by order of death toll: Armenian genocide (1 million people), Cambodian genocide (2 million people), Holocaust (6 million people). But at the top of that list was the genocide of the estimated tens of millions of Native American and Indigenous peoples of North America who were systematically murdered from 1492 on.

"My shock was not only that America, a nation that the world looks to as a beacon of social justice and opportunity, was on the list ... but at the top. It was only matched by my shame in not realizing that until that moment," he admitted.

"There is a myth that the imperialism our nation is founded upon was somehow consensual rather than violent," he continued. "History books portray the wiping out of native tribes as an accidental consequence of western settlement rather than government-sponsored killing campaigns ... and with that is the denial of America's role in perpetuating one of the deadliest genocides in human history.

"At Cal State Fullerton, we want to be more intentional and consistent in our acknowledgement that we are occupants of land that belongs to the Tongva and Acjachemen peoples. While the past cannot be erased, the university has recently created new partnerships with tribal community colleges and established a CSUF Native and Indigenous Student Success Advisory Board."

The panelists were then asked to share their stories.

How was your story shaped by the work you do?

Stanhoff: I was raised by a strong family. My grandfather was Choctaw and he was sent to a boarding school where he couldn't speak his own language. It was hard but he always told us to make our own way. My grandmother was Prairie Band Potawatomi. We have to be resilient. COVID-19 put a focus on the lack of infrastructure on reservations and for native people. Yet those of us who had ancestors who walked the Trail of Tears, we continue to emerge as a strong people. The past can't define our future. I come from a long line of people who have tried to improve our families and people. As a chairwoman of our tribe, we are supporting people and the theme of resiliency really resonates in my life. A lot of basic needs aren't being met on reservations - water, sewers, electricity, internet. We still face those trying times.

Merton: I am Apache on my father's side. I chose to do my senior photography project by focusing on issues facing our community. I focused on the murder and abuse of Indigenous women. Different people told me I couldn't do that. I should stop - but as I communicated with survivors, we built bonds. I felt more of a connection - I didn't care what others were saying - I just wanted to get their voices out and I saw that I could make a difference.

Lipari: My family is from the Karuk people in Northern California near Oregon. As an educator, I work with Native American students from Mexico. They have different experiences and come from a much harsher environment. There are hardships in leaving their towns, they have experienced crime - they're going through pressure that no child should have to face. And they don't have the resources. Many of these tribes speak different languages, not Spanish. I let them know they are valued.

In my childhood, many people made it clear that they didn't like Native Americans. I heard that we were drunks or on welfare. The other fourth graders at my school didn't like me. I lived in Native American housing. My students still experience this discrimination. Some start working at age 14 to help provide for their families. My job is to remind my students that regardless of where you come from, there's a way out.

What do you want Native Americans to know about the power of resiliency within the community? How can those who don't work with these communities make a difference?

Merton: I believe you can work with Indigenous communities, research the crises they face, and come up with a way to offer help. I can't do many things, but through my photography I can be an ally. Try to make a difference. We need others from outside to come and stand with us. Help us. Read about our issues.

Lipari: For those working with Native American communities, be real with yourself. Understand your biases and the reality of stereotyping - address those biases first. People also think Native Americans are just within the boundaries of the U.S. Native American tribes can be found throughout the Americas. Also, don't deny the reality of what we've faced. Where are you living? Whose lands are you on now? There are ways to give back to Indigenous communities - advocacy, write letters, make people realize why pipelines are awful for native communities. We all need to do our part.

Stanhoff: I advocate for treaty rights and about how they affect lands we're on. Indigenous families being separated at our southern border is horrific. We need to support efforts to help people. My tribe has 50-plus treaties and that makes a difference - we cannot forget that. We have to fight to keep our native lands. Resiliency means getting back to the basics of having our land, culture, people and respect. We don't receive "free" health care, education, subsidies - it's in exchange for treaty rights. We are the first people of this land. It's been Native American land for thousands of years. We were forcibly removed.

How does history impact the Native American resiliency story?

Lipari: My mom was adopted and she didn't know her history until she was in her thirties. I met my birth family at age four. I quickly gained a grandfather, aunts and uncles.

As a child, I learned that many people didn't like me because I was Native American. I denied my heritage. My father was Italian so I claimed that side. I knew children and teachers would treat me differently. When I was living in Yreka, a male teacher told me, "Pocahontas was a whore." When my mother called the school to complain, she was asked if "I had a problem with male teachers." That created a hard place for me to exist. I lost my culture.

It wasn't until I got to CSUF that I looked at trauma. I was a single mother, often not knowing if I'd be homeless. I was constantly worried. I want my students to make sure they know I am there for them, for who they are.

Stanhoff: I've been blessed to have been raised in my culture. I know how we got here and I try to focus on the positive. We have always faced adversity from those who want to keep us at the bottom. I continue to focus on treaties, the respect provided to our people, helping other Native Americans. We also need to see native people on boards, in government, in schools. We need native people in places of power. CSUF is doing amazing work to educate the next generation of students.

Merton: I didn't know about my history until I was about 30. I wasn't aware of my father's heritage. Since then, I've connected with my uncle and I'm still researching, engulfing myself with history/stories. I want to pass along this information to my two sons. My children were one of the reasons I pushed to work on this project. It's emotional for me. Women tell me their stories and it's incredible how they go through these things and are still standing strong. I'm working on a book now, too. I want to continue to share these voices and make a difference.

What messages you would like readers to walk away with?

Stanhoff: We need to respect each other. We can have differences and values but be human. Be kind. I'll listen and treat you with respect and I ask the same in return. Often Native Americans get patronized. People will say things like, "Come out of your teepees." Remember no one is an island - you need partners, compassion, respect. We may not agree but I'll work to make sure you have a chicken in your pot and a roof over your head. And don't forget that education is so important.

Merton: We need more compassion and understanding and empathy. If you want to make a difference, have an open mind. Listen to the elders. Share their knowledge. We all need to come in with an open mind.

Lipari: We need unity, not institutionalized ideologies such as blood quotas to "prove" you're Native American. We don't have enough time for this. Value each other as a people - we are a whole people. We still experience discrimination. Pipelines are still being built despite treaties. There are reservations without power. People are still taking our land away ... we need support.

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Honoring Native Americans and Indigenous People | CSUF News

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In honor of Native American and Indigenous History Month, Cal State Fullerton hosted a panel of Native American speakers to discuss issues that face this community and stories of how they have navigated the pandemic. Panelists were Rheanna Lipari '14 '20 (B.A. English, M.S.

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Why are Native Americans prone to addiction 

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Why are Native Americans prone to addiction 

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Individuals in the United States use alcohol widely, and drinking is often perceived as normal behavior.

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in 2021, 47.5% (or 133.1 million people aged 12 or older) drank alcohol within the past month of the survey in the United States. 2 Additionally, over 10% (or 29.5 million individuals aged 12 or older) reported past-year alcohol use disorder (AUD). 2 While not every individual who engages in some alcohol use in their lifetime develops an AUD, it is estimated that 30% of adults in the United States will. ³ Certain factors-such as genetics, drinking at an early age, exposure to a parent's misuse of alcohol, and mental health conditions like depression and post-traumatic stress disorder-may increase an individual's risk of developing an AUD. Some populations may be more susceptible to problem alcohol use than others.

The LGBTQIA+ Community

For many in the LGBTQIA+ community, poor cultural and/or socioeconomic conditions negatively impact their mental health, and research indicates that adults who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual are nearly twice as likely as heterosexual adults to experience a substance use disorder, and transgender individuals are nearly 4 times as likely to have a substance use disorder compared to their cisgender counterparts. 4,5

To put it into perspective, in 2020, 63.8% of lesbian, gay, or bisexual individuals aged 18 or older had an AUD. That's 3.5 million people. Additionally, 3.9 million gay, lesbian, or bisexual adults aged 18 or older had a co-occurring substance use and mental health disorder. ⁶

Resources for Members of the LGBTQIA+ Community with Alcohol Misuse Problems

The number of specialized treatment programs and LGBTQIA+-specific treatment centers across the nation is rising. These programs provide a safe and supportive space for members of the LGBTQIA+ community to heal and recover.

Many of our American Addiction Centers (AAC) facilities offer a designated LGBTQIA+ addiction recovery program to address the unique experiences and challenges this group of individuals face. Some of the topics covered in our LGBTQIA+ treatment track include healthy relationships, identity awareness, coping with negative stigmas, family dynamics, and support for family members of LGBTQIA+ individuals.

Additional resources include:

Partnership to End Addiction's LGBTQ+, Family, and Substance Use. Parents can find free resources to help them locate a LGBTQ+-friendly treatment, what to consider in terms of medication, and more.

The Family Acceptance Project. This site provides resources for LGBTQ+ youth and their families nationwide in an effort to decrease mental health risks and promote well-being.

The Trevor Project. Crisis counselors answer calls, chats, or texts from LGBTQ+ young people, who are struggling with issues related to depression, suicide, or something else, and need free confidential and secure support 24/7.

Native Americans

There are several factors that affect American Indians and Alaska Native communities, which can increase their risk of developing alcohol addiction. Some of the major risk factors that these communities face include historical trauma, lack of easy access to healthcare, lower educational attainment, poverty, housing problems, unemployment, violence, loss of connection to culture, and mental health issues. ⁷

Mental health illnesses, particularly anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), are more common among American Indians and Alaska Natives than other Americans. ⁷ Additionally, American Indian and Alaska Native communities disproportionately struggle with suicide compared to other Americans. Suicide rates for Alaska Natives more than double those for the entire U.S. population. ⁷

Furthermore, binge drinking and alcohol use disorder occur among American Indians and Alaska Natives at relatively high rates. ⁷

Research indicates that maintaining ties to one's culture can help treat co-occurring substance use and the mental health disorders. ⁷ Additionally, accounting for disparities in resources and barriers to proper healthcare provides efficient addiction and co-occurring disorder treatment for these communities. ⁸

Resources for Native Americans with Alcohol Misuse Problems

Some facilities offer specialty programming for American Indians and Alaska Natives that focus on balance, harmony, and interconnectedness that contributes to these communities' spirituality and makes up part of their spiritual needs. ⁷ Studies suggest that treatments that incorporate American Indians' and Alaska Natives' traditional methods of healing with other modified forms of therapy are most successful. ⁹ For instance, motivational interviewing, a counseling method used to increase motivation toward making positive changes and building self-confidence, has been effective in the treatment of some American Indian and Alaska Native individuals when cultural adaptations are made. These include social interactions that involve a spiritual aspect and a reliance on spirituality, extended family, and tribe or clan relations as motivational factors. ⁹

The Indian Health Service (IHS), a federal health program for American Indians and Alaska Natives, helps members of this community find behavioral health facilities near them.

The IHS' Alcohol and Substance Abuse Branch (ASAB) implements alcohol programs within tribal communities, including inpatient and outpatient rehab in rural and urban settings. You can also explore treatment options that accept IHS funding using their treatment locator.

IHS' Telehealth Behavioral Health Center of Excellence provides direct, ongoing care via televideo to patients at HIS/Tribal/Urban Indian-operated facilities. Services include addictions psychiatry; adult therapy and psychiatry; family, couples, and group therapy; and trauma, PTSD therapy.

African Americans and Afro-Caribbean Americans

According to the 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 21% of Black and African Americans reported having a mental illness, but only 39% of them received any sort of mental health services. 10 Additionally, just over 10% of Black adult Americans aged 12 or older had an alcohol use disorder that year. ²

Nearly 4 in 10 U.S. Black adults reported at least one perceived racial discrimination in their lifetime. Among these individuals, lifetime patterns of substance use were also common. One study of a large, nationally representative example of African American and Afro-Caribbean Americans found that participants who experienced perceived racial discrimination had higher odds of both individual and lifetime polysubstance use than those who did not experience perceived racial discrimination. ¹¹

Furthermore, while suicide rates decreased in the United States in 2020, suicide was the third leading cause of death among African Americans between the ages of 10 and 24 and African American men between the ages of 25 and 34. ¹⁰

Resources for African Americans and Afro-Caribbean Americans with Alcohol Misuse Problems

Unfortunately, young African American adults are less likely than other young adults to receive treatment for substance use disorder treatment. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) recommends that in order to get more young Black people into treatment, programs must be located in a convenient and safe place, should include trauma-informed care, and be staffed with individuals who represent the population served, among other things. Programs centered around providing a space where African Americans feel accepted and understood are vital. ¹²

All of AAC's facilities offer trauma-based therapies, which help address the underlying issues that contribute to substance misuse and addiction.

There are several resources for African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans that focus on behavioral health. These resources include:

The African American Behavioral Health Center of Excellence. This new resource, funded by SAMHSA, aims to transform behavioral health services for African Americans, making it more accessible, more inclusive, more culturally appropriate, and more responsive. There are lots of resources available including free webinars, articles, guides, and essays. You can sign up for the newsletter to get the most up-to-date information.

Black Mental Health Alliance. This organization provides workshops and forums and referral services that support the mental health and well-being of Black people and their communities.

Lee Thompson Young Foundation. This organization focuses on mental health education in African American communities.

Brother, You're on My Mind. An organization born from the partnership between the Omega Phi Psi Fraternity, Inc. and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities that focuses on changing the national dialogue surrounding mental health among African American men. You can download their free toolkit from the website.

Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders

In 2021, 8% of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) had an alcohol use disorder in the past year. That's the lowest rate when compared to other ethnic groups. Additionally, among Americans aged 12 or older, Asian individuals were less likely to use alcohol, binge drink, or heavily drink in the past month, compared to other ethnic groups. 2

However, because of these lower rates, alcohol use disorder-and other mental health disorders-are often hidden from family and friends, which can be a barrier to treatment. In fact, data shows that less than 1% of all individuals who admit to a substance use treatment center identify themselves as AAPI. ¹³

Resources for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders with Alcohol Misuse Problems

Some specialized treatment programs are available to accommodate the unique needs of the AAPI community, including:

The National Asian American Pacific Islander Mental Health Association (NAAPIMHA). Dedicated to the promotion of the mental health and well-being of the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities, NAAPIMHA provides a list of mental health and behavioral health service providers for AAPI individuals in all 50 states.

The National Asian Pacific American Families Against Substance Abuse (NAPAFASA). This nonprofit organization strives to prevent and reduce substance use disorder among Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islander communities by presenting educational materials; promoting recovery, cessation, and harm reduction programs; and advocating for improved language access; among other initiatives.

Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations. This organization provides a mental health and substance use resource guide for Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.

Pregnant Individuals

Pregnant women struggling with alcohol addiction can face unique challenges and barriers to treatment. Using alcohol during pregnancy isn't recommended and can cause damaging effects to the fetus, like stillbirth, impaired growth, and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. 19

Lack of awareness and coping with adverse life effects can contribute to drinking while pregnant. 20 Although not recommended, almost half of women in the U.S. consume alcohol during pregnancy. 19 A global study of alcohol use during pregnancy from 1984 to 2014 found 53.6% of women in the U.S. age 18 to 44 used alcohol, with 18.2% participating in binge drinking. 19 Of pregnant women, 10.2% used alcohol, and 1 in 10 reported use in the past 30 days. ¹⁹

Resources for Pregnant People with Alcohol Misuse Problems

Pregnant women in recovery often have unique treatment needs, like specialized counseling and access to medical support during detox. Unique treatment programs for women and alcohol provide a safe, caring environment that focuses on the needs of pregnant women struggling with addiction. Many programs use trauma-informed approaches, incorporating essential elements like cultural competency, family, and appropriate medications. 21

Several facilities, including our AAC treatment centers, are accessible to pregnant and postpartum women, with inpatient and outpatient care. 22 The APA Women's Programs Office also offers an extensive list of treatment centers and resources. 22 You can explore treatment centers in major cities and other resources offering assistance for pregnant women fighting alcohol addiction. For example, Postpartum Support International (PSI) connects you to local providers and groups that can give encouragement, information, tips, and referrals to help you find a treatment program. ²²

Older Adults

Alcohol addiction among older adults often isn't diagnosed or is underreported. 23 Yet, older adults with SUDs are more likely to misuse alcohol than any other substance. 24 Alcohol use and misuse can be particularly dangerous for older adults, especially those who drink heavily, have health problems, or take certain medications. ²⁵

In 2021, nearly 20% of adults between the ages of 60 and 64 and about 11% of those age 65 reported current binge drinking. 25 Some older people develop AUD over time from prolonged alcohol use, while others become addicted to alcohol by trying to cope with major life changes like the death of a spouse, depression, chronic pain, or loneliness. 26

Resources for Older Adults with Alcohol Misuse Problems

Specialized treatment programs can offer older adults a sense of community while feeling supported in recovery. Providers and professionals often have challenges diagnosing older adults with SUD because other factors associated with aging, like memory loss, can make addiction symptoms harder to recognize. 24

Specialized treatment programs consider challenges like these by acknowledging and respecting differences in older people, creating an accessible treatment environment, and developing an age-sensitive workforce. 24 A community atmosphere is also vital for older adults in recovery. 24

Many tools and resources for older adults with AUD are also available. For example, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) encourage older people to seek treatment by sharing the recovery stories of people who recovered from alcohol addiction after age 60 in the organization's Older Alcoholic - Never Too Late program. SAMHSA also shares several resources for different mental health services for older adults.

Veterans

The Veteran experience is much different from an everyday civilian. Veterans often endure traumatic events that can influence alcohol addiction, like combat, grief, and loss. Many military members also see alcohol use as a part of their culture. ²⁷

In 2018, the Health Related Behaviors Survey (HRBS) found almost 10% of military personnel across all branches were heavy drinkers. ²⁸ Another study showed that more than 65% of Veterans primarily reported alcohol as their substance of misuse, almost double that of the general population. ²⁹ According to Veterans Affairs (VA), 1 out of 10 deployed Veterans in Iraq and Afghanistan were diagnosed with alcohol or drug misuse. 30

Resources for Veterans with Alcohol Misuse Problems

The unique experiences of Veterans can play a significant role in choosing addiction treatment. Specialized programs for Veterans and alcohol provide spaces for camaraderie and healing. Some AAC facilities offer specialized Veteran care through The Salute to Recovery Program. The Salute to Recovery Program helps military personnel recover with evidence-based treatments and a support system they can confide in. Addiction specialists who acknowledge the impact of PTSD on addiction and recovery provide individualized services to best meet your needs.

The VA also has several resources and financial assistance for Veterans seeking alcohol addiction treatment like medical detox, therapy, and co-occurring disorder treatment. ³¹

The Homeless

Typically, people who are homeless experience unique challenges that can contribute to AUD, including poverty, food insecurity, and stress. 32 Alcohol use can also initiate homelessness for many people. ³² Studies show higher levels of AUD in homeless populations, with about 60% reporting AUD in their lifetime and nearly 40% reporting past-year AUD. ³² Having an AUD disorder is associated with becoming and remaining homeless for many. 32

Resources for Homeless Individuals with Alcohol Misuse Problems

Specialized treatment programs support the homeless, often providing many resources they lack. Some facilities care for homeless people with addiction while in recovery through inpatient rehabs or outpatient programs with housing assistance services. After completing a program, aftercare services, like sober housing, can help you get back on your feet while staying sober.

SAMHSA offers programs, grants, and scholarships that give financial assistance and connect homeless people to free programming. 33 People who are homeless have direct access to resources and services to provide shelter, housing counselors, emergency assistance, food assistance, and other care. ³³ Services for homeless youth are also available in some states, including the Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH). ³³

Individuals Living in Rural Communities

People in rural communities often face a lack of resources because of their geographic location. 34 Factors like the normalcy and availability of alcohol, poverty, and demographics can all influence drinking behaviors among rural people. 34 Researchers experience challenges when comparing rates of AUD in rural communities to urban communities due to the different ways rural populations are defined. 34

Although there's a lack of current data, the 2001 to 2002 NESARC found rural drinkers were significantly more likely to exceed daily recommended drinking limits (around 40%) and report past-year AUD (roughly 16.7%) compared to suburban and urban drinkers. 34

Resources for Individuals Living in Rural Areas with Alcohol Misuse Problems

People in rural areas can also access specialized treatment options tailored toward families and children. For example, the Arizona Families in Recovery Succeeding Together (FIRST) aims to treat parents with children in the welfare system. This program connects parents to SUD treatment providers with other services like transportation and relapse management. 35

Rural communities may have less specialized addiction treatment options, but there are many resources to increase availability. Many organizations like AmeriCorps, the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), and State Justice Institute (SJI) offer grants and funding to improve access to quality treatment in rural areas. 36 Others, like the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), provide training to help providers and professionals better serve people in rural communities with alcohol addiction. 36

Finding Resources in Your Area

You can find treatment resources in your area in many ways. Searching on your local government website is a great start. Many states have lists of resources and treatment centers that serve your community. You can also use rehab directories to find treatment, like SAMHSA's treatment locator. This tool helps you filter your search for categories, such as location, facility type, treatment approaches, and payment accepted.

It's helpful to search online for addiction services related to your population to find specific treatment or resources. American Addiction Centers can help you find a suitable rehab, no matter your situation. Contact us today to speak with an admissions navigator who can connect you with different resources and guide you through starting your recovery journey.

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Alcohol Abuse in the Native American Population

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Addiction affects people from all walks of life. Therefore, no one single treatment works for everyone. For some, within certain populations, there exist specialized programs and additional resources to help address challenges specific to them.

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Emma Willard. Troy seminary school still operating!

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Emma Willard. Troy seminary school still operating!

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History of Emma Willard School | Private High School in NY

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Read about the founder Emma Hart Willard and watch a video of the school’s last 100 years. Emma Willard School is an all-girls day and boarding school in Troy, NY.

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Mount holyoke seminary turned into a college. Also still operational 

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Mount holyoke seminary turned into a college. Also still operational 

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In 1837, Mary Lyon did the unthinkable. She founded the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, which later became Mount Holyoke College - the first of the Seven Sisters. Radical moves for a woman wearing a bonnet.

In doing so, she forever changed the landscape of higher education - not just for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts, but for women around the world. She built a place where women could develop their intellects, hone the power of their voices and cultivate courage.

These days, change is all around us, happening at a pace too fast to measure. And while Mary Lyon couldn't have foreseen a digitally connected world, she did understand that a woman would need to be agile, creative and brave to live the life she wanted. Her vision still drives Mount Holyoke.

Mary Lyon once issued a challenge to the women who would follow her: "Go forward, attempt great things, accomplish great things." She did. You will.

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In 1837, Mary Lyon did the unthinkable. She founded the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, which later became Mount Holyoke College - the first of the Seven Sisters. Radical moves for a woman wearing a bonnet. In doing so, she forever changed the landscape of higher education - not just for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts, but for women around the world.

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Wrote uncle toms cabin
- humanized African Americans
- wrote notes on uncle toms cabin. factual documentations of the treatment of African Americans
met Abraham Lincoln

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Established School to educate African American girls

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Upstate New York was a hotbed in the 19th century for the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad. Names like Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass and Gerrit Smith are familiar. But there were also valiant figures from the region, white and Black, who fought for the end of slavery whose names have faded into history. During this Black History Month, after searching through old newspapers and websites, we take a look back at some of Upstate New York's forgotten abolitionists. ***
The story of abolitionist Myrtilla Miner, born in 1815 near the town of Brookfield in Madison County, is an incredible American tale.

"Among the great white benefactors of the colored people, none is greater than Myrtilla Miner," The Times-Herald of Washington D.C. wrote of her. "None except John Brown and Lincoln equals that of Miss Miner."

She was born to a poor hops-growing family. She had 12 siblings and was ill throughout much of her childhood.

Nevertheless, she developed an early thirst for books and learning. She earned extra money as a youngster picking hops to buy books.

When she could not buy them, she borrowed them from wherever she could.

"The village library has been in my father's house," she once wrote in a letter.

A 1978 article in the Post-Standard said she received "no encouragement" from her family about her education. So, she relied on herself.

"Miss Miner may have been the first college student to ask a school for deferred tuition payment," the article mentioned. "As a teenager she requested and received permission from the officials of the Clinton Female Seminary to pay for her education after graduation."

She recognized the value of an education and began teaching in various schools around the Northeast.

In 1847, she travelled south, to teach at the Newton Female Institute in Whitesville, Mississippi.

While there, she learned firsthand the horrors of slavery and the inhumane treatment of Black people.

She once asked if she could educate young Black women. After she was told that was a crime in the state, she returned north and pledged her life to the education of African American women and girls, so they could teach future generations.

In 1851, Miner moved to Washington D.C. and rented a small 14 square foot room and started teaching six girls. Soon she had 15 students, then 40.

Her curriculum included history, philosophy, geography, literature, and astronomy, as well as courses on domestic skills, hygiene, and a study of nature. Each student was assigned her own garden plot to tend.

Miner's work was dangerous and required her to move her school often.

In 1853, with funds donated from prominent members of the abolition community, including gifts from Harriet Beecher Stowe following the release of her work "Uncle Tom's Cabin," Miner opened a permanent school, the Institute for Colored Youth.

She was under constant threat of harassment, as were the teachers she hired and the students. A former D.C. mayor, Walter Lenox, bitterly denounced Miner and her school in a newspaper column.

When a mob tried to burn down her school, Miner was defiant:

"Mob my school! You dare not! If you tear it down over my head, I shall get another house. There is no law to prevent my teaching these people and I shall teach them even unto death!"

A former student of Miner's called her "one of the bravest women I have ever known."

Poor health caused Miner to step down in 1857.

In 1861, she hoped to regain her health by moving to California while continuing to raise funds for the school.

She died in Washington D.C. on Dec. 17, 1864 and is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery there.

"I have done the work of God," she said just before she died.

Her school continued its work after her death and following the Civil War became part of the D.C. public school system and was renamed the Miner Normal School.

Although she had only a "moderate and indirect approach to ending slavery," the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum in Peterboro, said the "history of public higher education for African Americans" can be traced back to the small one-room school started by Myrtilla Miner.
Our series
See all of our profiles of Upstate's forgotten abolitionists here.
Black History Month Black History Month in Upstate NY: Historical sites, monuments and more Black History Month movies: 20 great films to stream right now on Disney+, Hulu, Prime Video, more Peterboro's Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum offers free daily videos during Black History Month CNY Jazz brings L.A. to Syracuse for Black History Month cabaret Send your ideas and curiosities to Johnathan Croyle at jcroyle@syracuse.com or call 315-427-3958.

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Upstate's forgotten abolitionists: Myrtilla Miner bravely taught Washington D.C.'s Black daughters

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Upstate New York was a hotbed in the 19th century for the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad. Names like Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass and Gerrit Smith are familiar. But there were also valiant figures from the region, white and Black, who fought for the end of slavery whose names have faded into history.

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Dr. Edward Clarks Views on educating women

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Dr. Edward Clarks Views on educating women

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So ridiculous

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Education was a hot topic in the 1870. How much education should one have and who should get it? Edward Hammond Clarke sought to put the debate into a new perspective - before too much education made everyone sick.

By the 1870s, there was an established consensus that for boys education should extend well beyond the simple reading and writing demanded in colonial days. Math, science, philosophy were all valued subjects.

For girls, the debate still percolated. Girls had finishing schools and schools that taught home economics. But many schools discouraged girls from studying science and math.

Connecticut's Emma Willard had been fighting this trend as early as 1819 with publication of her
Plan for Improving Female Education. Willard opened a school for girls in Troy, N.Y., the following year. Catherine Beecher opened a school for girls in Hartford, Conn. in 1823. Public high schools opened for girls in Boston and New York in 1826.

Inevitably, greater education led to greater demands for equality in other areas. For example, while Willard never supported the women's suffrage movement, the girls who graduated her school did. As more and more girls received a high school education, more began contemplating college.

Edward Hammond Clarke

Edward Hammond Clarke found that idea dangerous as well as disturbing.

Clarke, a Harvard-trained physician, moved in the right Boston social circles. His patients included abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Born in 1820, he received his Harvard degree in 1841. He took his medical training in Philadelphia.

In 1872 the New England Women's Club, an organization of progressive Boston women, invited Clarke to speak. By then Clarke had a position as a professor at the Harvard Medical College and had reached peak of his profession. He had a reputation for treating medical disorders successfully with the latest medications.

Clarke chose as the topic for his speech the appropriate education for girls. The thrust of Clarke's talk was that educating girls was fraught with peril. If girls during the ages of 13 to 17 spent too much time learning, the efforts they put into developing their brains would hinder the needed growth of their ovaries and uterus.

The state of womanhood was dire, Clarke observed in his practice, as disease ran rampant. Food and fashion were in part to blame, he acknowledged. Too much cake and pie contributed their part. Corsets and binding clothes were to blame for some problems, as well. But not all disease could be explained this way.

"Leucorrhoea, amenorrhea, dysmenorrhea, chronic and acute ovaritis, prolapsis utari, hysteria, neuralgia and the like are indirectly affected by food, clothing and exercise; they are directly and largely affected by the causes that will presently be pointed out and which arise from a neglect of the peculiarities of a woman's organization," Clarke said. "The regimen of a college arranged for boys, if imposed on girls, would foster it even more."

Girls vs. Boys

Clarke's theory was straightforward. "Brain work and stomach work interfere with each other if attempted together."

This put girls at a particular disadvantage. Boys, he postulated, entered the world much more fully developed than girls. They would withstand the rigors of school and college and still turn into men with functioning reproductive organs. Girls simply couldn't do both. What's more, too much time in school doomed women to a lifetime of sickliness, or as he put it: "A youth of study and an old age of nerves."

Clarke believed that boys in adolescence would withstand six hours of schooling a day and occasionally as much as eight. Girls should be limited to four and never exceed five.

More time spent studying contributed to the puny, unhealthy population Clarke was treating in his practice. The brain and the body were at war, and the brain was too often winning.

Halifax

To buttress his observations, Clarke told of a recent trip to Halifax. There he noted that boys of 11 grew as tall and broad-shouldered as a 16-year-old from Massachusetts. And the young girls? "Girls of 10 or 11 were there who looked almost like women - that is, like ideal women - simply because they looked so calm and undisturbed."

At civic functions on his Canadian trip, Clarke noted, he was surrounded by healthy and happy men and women. The reason, he concluded, was that Halifax had no public schools.

Controversy

Clarke's presentation caused quite an uproar. He would research further and publish his theories in book form in 1873: Sex in Education: Or, A Fair Chance for the Girls. In the book, he added research from Europe that argued girls flourished when they dropped out of school as adolescents and pursued their studies more leisurely at home. Clarke then visited the National Education Association in 1874 to deliver his findings.

Clarke's own life may have driven his thinking. He was a studious but sickly youngster, too sick to attend his graduation exercises. He also suffered from maladies of his digestive system throughout his life. Clarke died in 1877 - just four years after he published his book on education for girls.

Nevertheless, his book had influence that lasted long after his death. The book went through 17 printings. The American Association of University Women, founded in 1883, spent decades funding research to debunk Clarke's theories.
This story about Edward Hammond Clarke was updated in 2021.
American Association of University Women, Catherine Beecher, education, Edward Hammond Clarke, Emma Willard, Halifax, Harvard, Harvard Medical School, health, lecture, medicine, NEA, New England Women's Club, public high school, publishing, suffrage, women's history

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Edward Hammond Clarke and the Chance for Girls - New England Historical Society

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Education was a hot topic in the 1870. How much education should one have and who should get it? Edward Hammond Clarke sought to put the debate into a new perspective - before too much education made everyone sick. By the 1870s, there was an established consensus that for boys education should extend well beyond [...]

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What title IX meant for Women's education 

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What title IX meant for Women's education 

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Equality, sports, and Title IX - Erin Buzuvis and Kristine Newhall

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Female teachers still deal with pay inequalities 

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Female teachers still deal with pay inequalities 

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L'éducation est internationalement reconnue comme l'outil le plus puissant pour la promotion des femmes et des jeunes filles et pour la protection de leurs droits. Investir dans leur éducation peut transformer, et même sauver des vies : les vies des femmes et des jeunes filles, mais aussi celles de leurs familles et de leurs communautés. C'est l'un des moyens les plus efficaces pour obtenir un changement positif et durable pour tous à travers le monde.

C'est un cercle vertueux : l'éducation apporte aux femmes et aux jeunes filles savoir, compétences, confiance en elles et capacités, améliorant ainsi leurs perspectives d'avenir ; et à son tour, une femme instruite porte plus d'attention à l'alimentation, l'accès aux soins et l'éducation des membres de sa famille. L'éducation permet à une femme de prendre sa vie en main et de participer aux prises de décision, lui donnant la capacité de contribuer socialement et économiquement au bien-être de sa communauté et de sa famille.

Pourtant, aujourd'hui, des millions de femmes et de jeunes filles dans le monde vivent dans la pauvreté et sont privées de leurs droits à l'éducation ; les deux tiers des adultes analphabètes dans le monde sont des femmes.

" L'expérience a montré que lorsque les femmes ont la liberté de prendre leurs propres décisions économiques et sociales, les chaînes de la pauvreté peuvent être rompues ; les familles sont renforcées ; les revenus sont utilisés à de meilleures fins ; les maladies sexuellement transmissibles régressent ; et il est plus probable que des valeurs socialement constructives soient transmises aux plus jeunes. "Madeleine Albright, citée dans Women Empowered, de Phil Borges.

Même lorsque, en théorie, l'éducation est gratuite, le coût des uniformes, des manuels ainsi que du transport, reste prohibitif pour les femmes et les jeunes filles les plus pauvres. D'autres obstacles, comme les traditions, les attentes et les attitudes culturelles, notamment le fait que les filles et les femmes se doivent de s'atteler aux tâches ménagères et de s'occuper de leurs familles, peuvent être des freins à leur accès à l'éducation.

Soutenez l'éducation des femmes et des jeunes filles grâce à Women's WorldWide Web

Ensemble, nous pouvons renverser la tendance et révéler les énormes bénéfices potentiels pour tous, d'une accélération de l'émancipation des femmes et des jeunes filles à travers l'éducation.

Votre don peut avoir un impact énorme et changer, voire même, sauver des vies !

Ensemble, tissons le Women's World Wide Web, et instruisons les femmes et les jeunes filles pour un monde plus pacifique, plus juste et plus prospère !
Grâce à un programme de soutien à l'éducation, ces jeunes femmes ont pu poursuivre leur éducation supérieure dans différents domaines, dont l'enseignement, le travail social, les technologies de l'information et dans le management. Ces filles ont toutes grandi dans les bidonvilles de Cebu City aux Philippines et sont les premières diplômées universitaires de leurs familles et leurs communautés. Leurs mères, grands-mères et arrière grands-mères sont nées dans la pauvreté du bidonville. L'éducation de ces jeunes femmes est le début d'un cercle vertueux, pour elles ainsi que pour leurs familles et toute la communauté.
W4 est une association loi de 1901. Les dons effectués au profit de Women's WorldWide Web ouvrent droit :

Pour les particuliers, à une réduction d'impôt sur le revenu, égale à 66% du montant de votre don dans la limite de 20% de votre revenu imposable. Lorsque le montant des dons excède 20% du revenu imposable, l'excédent est reporté sur les cinq années suivantes.

Pour les entreprises, à une déduction fiscale de 60% du don sur votre impôt sur les sociétés dans la limite de 0,5% du chiffre d'affaires. En cas de dépassement, l'entreprise peut reporter l'excédent sur les cinq exercices suivants.

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W4 : L'éducation des femmes et des jeunes filles

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L'éducation est internationalement reconnue comme l'outil le plus puissant pour la promotion des femmes et des jeunes filles et pour la protection de leurs droits. Investir dans leur éducation peut transformer, et même sauver des vies : les vies des femmes et des jeunes filles, mais aussi celles de leurs familles et de leurs communautés.

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Afghan Women, Banned from Education, Secretly Study Online

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Women denied the right to attend university in Afghanistan are defying the Taliban to continue their studies online

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Education is for everyone given by God. Let the Afgan girls and women study. Empower women. https://t.co/f8wdUAJTiC
— CL (@CLClekha) September 19, 2021

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Educate Us! is a new INEE podcast series about women's and girls' education in humanitarian crises. The series features a range of stories and perspectives on women's and girls' education in emergencies, and explores the gains made in girls' education and the slip backwards caused by the pandemic. This series is a broad and intimate invitation for listeners to hear the stories behind the statistics, from the women and girls who live them.

Episodes center on the unique challenges and opportunities women and girls experience while living and learning in humanitarian contexts. Building on momentum generated by the 2018 Charlevoix Declaration on Quality Education and the 2021 Declaration on Girls' Education, this is a timely and needed look into where we are and what still needs to be accomplished. We hope you'll listen.

Episodes
Episode 1: Motivated
In this first episode, we introduce some of the key challenges affecting women and girls' education in crisis-affected contexts. We'll hear from two women and a young girl on their experiences with education in Kenya and Malawi, and why education is important to them.

We'd like to thank Global Affairs Canada, World Vision Canada, the Jesuit Refugee Service, and the UN Girls' Education Initiative, for their support with this episode.
Episode 2: Married Young But Fighting For Education
In our second episode, we'll discuss the pervasive issues of early marriage and early pregnancy and how communities are supporting girls to return to school post-pregnancy. We'll hear from a Somali woman in Kenya on her experience being married and having children at a young age and how that impacted her education.

We'd like to thank Global Affairs Canada, World Vision, and Girls Not Brides, for their support with this episode.
Episode 3: I Have A Disability, I'm Not Disabled
In our third episode, we'll discuss the specific challenges girls with disabilities face in learning during crises. We'll hear from disability and inclusive education activists Nujeen Mustafa and Nafisa Baboo about their experiences and why inclusive education is important not only for students with disabilities, but for all students.

We'd like to thank Global Affairs Canada, Education Cannot Wait, and Light for the World, for their support with this episode.
Episode 4: Periods
In our fourth episode, we'll learn how periods can be a barrier to education for women and girls around the world. We hear from Sesame Workshop and World Vision Zimbabwe about how they use their beloved characters to help young women navigate puberty and remove the stigma around menstruation.

We'd like to thank Global Affairs Canada, Sesame Workshop, World Vision Zimbabwe, and Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health for their support with this episode.
Episode 5: Not Safe To Learn
In our fifth episode, we learn how gender-based violence affects women and girl's lives and education. We speak with feminist leaders from Myanmar about the extreme conditions women and girls are facing and how they are fighting for their rights and their communities.

We'd like to thank Global Affairs Canada, Together for Girls, the Triangle Women's Organization and the Karen Women's Organization for their support with this episode.
Episode 6: Teachers - The Backbone of Education
In the final episode of season one, we hear from teachers about how displacement has affected their work and their wellbeing and how they're supporting their students and fellow teachers to succeed against all odds.

We'd like to thank Global Affairs Canada, World Vision Canada, Plan International, and Education Cannot Wait, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and Strømme Foundation for their support with this episode.

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Educate Us! Women and Girls on Learning in Humanitarian Crises

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Educate Us! is a new INEE podcast series about women's and girls' education in humanitarian crises. The series features a range of stories and perspectives on women's and girls' education in emergencies, and explores the gains made in girls' education and the slip backwards caused by the pandemic.