While conducting research for my first book Chalkboard Champions, I was surprised to learn a great deal about numerous types of schools that I had never heard about in the 36 years I had been teaching. I learned about industrial schools, soup schools, farm schools, normal schools, and specialist schools. One of the types of schools I was particularly interested in reading about was Indian boarding schools, and the controversies these facilities generated.
Indian boarding schools were created specifically for the purpose of educating Native Americans. American Indian children were sent to these facilities, sometimes involuntarily, because it was believed the only way Native Americans could ever succeed in a predominantly white society would be if they abandoned their tribal ways and adopted the lifestyle practiced by the dominant culture. Proponents believed that this assimilation could best be accomplished when the Indian children were very young.
Most Indian boarding schools were originally founded by church missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Later, some were established and run by the US government. Maybe the intentions were pure, but the results were disastrous. Some historians go so far as to assert these schools were institutions of cultural genocide.
The children, some as young as four years old, were taken away from their families, sent many miles away from home, and forced to give up their native languages, customs and religious beliefs, art and music, clothing, and even their names. These youngsters often found it traumatic when they were forced to cut their long hair, a symbolic act of shame and sorrow to many Native Americans. The highly regimented routine and military atmosphere of the boarding schools were harsh on the youngest ones. Exposure to diseases to which they had no natural immunities, coupled with homesickness and, in some locations, unsanitary conditions, led to a disturbingly high death rate. In despair, some of the youngsters ran away from their schools, freezing or starving to death trying to make their way back to their home reservations. Such a terribly sad thought for educators who care so much about kids and really believe in the liberating power of schools.
You can read more about these schools in the book Indian Boarding School: Teaching the White Man’s Way, available on amazon.com. You can also read about them in my book, Chalkboard Champions.
