Native American Children Research Paper

Understanding Children and Adolescents in Selected Cultural Groups:
Native American Children in the United States
Cassidy Krauskopf
Adrian FarruggiaCaitlin Anderson
Texas Tech University
Abstract
To be successful in teaching Native American students it is critical that teachers find ways to raise students’ self-esteem. Starting with several ways, including expecting all of your students to succeed, emphasizing strengths, having a comfortable classroom, giving students respect and always holding a relationship with your students, while also including Native American literature, art, culture, values and activities in the curriculum and making sure they maintain pride within their heritage. A major challenge that is faced is the historical
effect of education that is resulting in the loss of culture and is an opportunity for racism to be introduced. Another problem faced is that effect of peer pressure on culture while these Native American children are in a setting where they are the minority. With this peer pressure on their culture, there is also the racism factor that is still very real within society and children of Native American descent face this everyday because of their differences. Stereotypes of the Native American father being the lazy one of the families is something that has changed along with many other factors and the roles within these families have become more equal with them spending their time on their plantation. The stereotypes and racism are still something we see in todays society but as they begin to change their ways and diversity within this culture begins to become more acknowledged prejudice will begin to decrease.
Native Americans were the first individuals to live in America.
As soon as settlers came they pushed Native American out of their land in order to control it as their own. Native Americans tried to fight back but this was a very difficult task because they were unarmed and didn’t have the weaponry that the English had. Native Americans were killed and were also forced to work for the English. The Native American population was decreased dramatically due to the brutal treatment from colonist along with different diseases they brought overseas like small pox. Native Americans lived all across America and would move from place to place after their land and homes were colonized. Native Americans are heavily populated in the Colorado and Oklahoma areas but nonetheless still have a population that has decreased dramatically over the years. In areas like Mississippi, West Virginia, and Kentucky there is not a large population of Native Americans. In today’s society many Native Americans live on Reservations which are areas of land managed by Native Americans under different polies set by the United States. On this land Native Americans are able to make their own rules to follow to a certain extent. Native Americans allow gambling which makes a lot of money for the reservations because gambling is not legal in the United States. These reservations are located in abundance in the Colorado and Oklahoma
areas.
There are many stereotypes with the Native American population including children in the United States. There is a big issue with different sports teams and mascots that has been causing a major controversy. The biggest one right now is the fight to get the Washington Redskins, an NFL team, to change their name because it is seen as very offensive to the Native American community. Native American feels it demoralizes their cultural identity and associates them with other mascots which more often than not have to do with animals. The football team is fighting back and saying this team name should be associated with pride and history and that Native Americans are just being sensitive. Another stereotype involving Native American children is assuming that all Native Americans live in tipis. Different cultures and tribes had their own styles of homes, some of which included tipis, but in today’s society many of them have regular homes just like any other American. Although some might live in tipis it is false to think that all Native Americans do. One of the major misconceptions of Native Americans comes from an animated movie “Pocahontas”. After seeing that movie we are led to believe that she was an Indian princess who saved an Englishman because she was in love with him, then after ran off with him. In reality she was captured by the English and forced to marry an Englishmen and convert to Christianity. Another big stereotype is believing that all Native Americans wear loincloth and feathers. Native Americans dress differently by tribe just like different American cultural groups dress differently.
Gender roles for Native American’s in the colonial era involved women farming, doing housework, and being the caregivers to their children. Men had one job, to hunt. When the English came to America and witnessed these gender roles, they viewed Native American men as being extremely lazy. They saw that all they did was hunt while the women did everything else and criticized that. Native American women did differ from European women though because they were extremely powerful. These women owned all family possessions and could demand for a divorce at any time leaving the men with nothing. Today, just like society as a whole, Native Americans have torn down these sexist gender roles and began splitting duties evenly and providing care for children together. Although some household are still sexist, they have changed drastically over time. In today’s society many Native Americans live on reservations and make and spend their money there. The average income for a Native American is 33,762 dollars. Only 25% of Native Americans are employed. 76% have at least a high school diploma. In the Native American household no man has authority over his wife. The women are respected in their families and children grow up to learn respect and value their culture. Families are extremely close. Most of the time women control the households and they have more authority than men. Religion varies by tribe; many tribes pass down their religion to each generation. Religion is commonly expressed through different dances and sacrifices. Native Americans may believe in many different gods or a combination of different religions. In today’s society Native American’s more often than not speak English. Other ways Native American’s can speak is through art. Most Native American tribes have unique paintings and crafts that symbolize things that are unique to their tribe.
Native Americans were the first people on this land and the fact that there are still many Native Americans around is an achievement in itself. Native Americans can be seen as not very populated in colleges and not very successful in the professional world but this is a bit misleading. Many Native Americans prefer to stay on their reservations and go to college there. It is a much different setting and style of learning but since so much of the population does do this, they appear in universities around the country less. There has been a push to change that, more scholarships and grants are being awarded to persuade Native Americans to go to college in America outside of a reservation. Native Americans and the professional world is also something that is similar, Native Americans enjoy staying on the reservations they grow up in and staying with their families so they may appear less in the “regular” community.
Many schools consider the Native American culture in their teachings. For example, Native Americans value the friendship and relations of others over material goods, so teachers fulfill this need of relationships by allowing them to work within groups so they can get to know one another. Now for the material goods, some teachers may put the children in economic counseling because they do not understand why the child does not have an income. Also, the other children may find the Native American children weird because they don’t care about material goods other than their own concrete needs to survive. For Native Americans, their spirituality is very prevalent in their everyday lives, so in school, teachers allow them to express themselves however they want as long as it is not a disruption. Native Americans also highly value family, therefore within schools they let their family be involved on certain occasions. Also, because Native Americans strongly believe they need to make every answer correct even if it takes them longer to answer questions which makes the teacher have to have patience with the students.
They have to speak English in school and the government has taken away many of the language immersion schools that have helped them keep their language from disappearing.
Currently, the new provisions to the No Child Left Behind Act have created difficulties for these language immersion schools. In these schools they are trying to fight against the requirement of children having to take their tests in English. Also, in these schools they do not usually introduce English until 5th grade, therefore these schools are being penalized because they don’t test well during their students early ages. Because of this, and the new version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, it makes it very to expand their school past elementary school. Another reason that it is hard to expand is because the school has to hire qualified teachers that speak well in both languages and be able to teach all of the subjects because at this point, they only have one teacher in these lower grades. They also have trouble with grades because the parents of these children don’t make them take English tests because they want their children to keep their
language.
For teachers to keep a consistent feeling of positive self-esteem and to incorporate cultural identities into the classroom they have to be very aware of holding a level of respect with all their students regardless of economic status and race. Something important to keep in mind is teaching units of Native American history as well as American History and so on, teaching many different heritages helps students understand the many different dynamics. A position that could be taken as a teacher to instill in the children would be that of a “new generation” and that the factor of assimilation is something that does not need to be enforced. Teachers can point out success stories and stress the importance of students doing their homework and passing with acceptable grades, being able to provide students with a variety of experiences gives the student a very high chance of possessing a good level of pride to function in both the classroom and outside of school. So by teachers fostering confidence in the students it is a very good base start with their overall success and esteem, the children need to be proud of their Native American heritage. You need to be able to get to know your students, learn what they like to do and build relationships with each and every one of them. You want to be able to challenge Native American students, as well as all other heritages, who may be at a lesser advantage than other students. By truly knowing your students you can allow enough time for each student when asking them question because it takes students time to get to know you as a teacher and develop trust so if they are realizing that they are able to answer these questions their level of confidence will continue to grow. By successfully showing concern, being sincere and showing that you care about them will help by them developing that initial feeling of comfort and they won’t feel timid to participate and excel despite their differences among other students. Your main intentions as a teacher is to make sure that different cultures are being recognized for the students to see and not to ever feel singled out because of differences they may possess, you want them to constantly be working towards getting better at anything they do and remain positive about school and it will carry out into what they do out in the real world.
Stereotypes of Native Americans are everywhere, in the media, in history books and in literature and it is the teachers job to provide accurate instruction not only about history but as well as the contemporary lives of Native Americans. Stereotype is a difficult issue to define in any culture and especially in the Native American culture and it needs to be realized that not all Native American communities have had the same historical experiences. There are many different ways to tackle this issue, starting with geography lessons you could easily provide the children with a chart which contains 5 states in the United States where they compare the largest Native American Populations and color those selected states in on a given map, you are introducing a geography lesson while incorporating the Native American heritage. You could use the same chart and convert it into a math lesson where the students have to list the different states in order from largest to smallest by population, different tribes could be described as being in different states as well. This would give every student, no particular race, a look into a different heritage with still learning the math lesson. The heritage of Native Americans can be incorporated into all subjects, continuing with science, you could research a tribe that lived in an area with volcanoes or some type of natural disasters even such as tornadoes and hurricanes and have the students do a lesson over different volcanic rocks and such. The Native American history does not stop within those subjects, language and writing is an awesome opportunity to learn about Native American tales that are told, a story could be read aloud to the students and they could develop their own tale and refer back to the tales read aloud in class. Research papers can be written, art related projects, the list goes on for incorporating Native American history into the activities done in the classroom and while many of these strategies would be effective with non-Native American students as well, it is important to note the benefit with Native American students and proves the similarities shared between students. You always want to encourage the parents to work with the students so that learning is not lost once the child leaves school, also tying back into the factor of self-esteem, if the lesson is not incorporated once the child goes home they are less likely to feel confident to participate out loud within the classroom. Never hold back on using different forms a media for learning and always have the best interest of the students and the lessons will be a success.
Not only do actions need to be taken between the teacher and the child one-on-one but there also needs to be an understanding and collaboration between the teacher, student, and parents as well as input from the entire district. Support can start from providing a curriculum that deals with different heritages including Native American history, government and culture. This awareness can also be spread community wide and have there be parent engagement efforts through parent teacher meetings, workshops and training sessions for the teachers. You want there to be positive interactions and relations within the school community and it is always positive to encourage schools to host parent nights and incorporate diversity and different cultures, or having a celebration of certain heritages during certain months, for example Native American parents night. Promoting the diversity is such a positive key and promoting collaborative opportunities with local tribes and the school district makes these children feel more comfortable in the classroom as well as the parents and helps create more communication between the parents and teachers and ensures an open relationship. The key to establishing and strengthening relationships is an overall of promoting shared partnerships.