BIA
Education
The Department of
the Interior: Indian Affairs website is loaded with information about the Indian
Nation and America relations. The site contains historical documents as well as
current issues. However what I found most interesting was the FAQ part of the
site. In this section the question “what is the Bureau of Indian Education” is
asked. As we look at the history of Indian education, in the middle to late 19th
century its purpose was to Americanize and assimilate Indians into American
culture at an early age. We have learned that Native American children were put
into boarding schools where the children were taught in English, a language
they did not understand and they were forced into American customs—assimilation
by education.
However times have
changed and according to the Indian Affairs website their purpose “is to provide quality education
opportunities from early childhood through life in accordance with the tribe’s
needs for cultural and economic well-being in keeping with the wide diversity
of Indian tribes and Alaska Native villages as distinct cultural and
governmental entities.” BIE also boasts of the reform to come to their schools
since the Snyder Act such as including Indian Cultural Education to their curriculum. Legislations like the Snyder Act, the Indian Reorganization Act,
and The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act has given tribal
government a say in education, increased awareness, and provided addition
funding to tribal schools.
The
reformation in Indian education is proof positive that U.S. and Indian
relations have come along way since the BIAs boarding school system. However, is
the education in BIA schools as good as mainstream America? According to indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com (a site
ran and organized by native Americans) it will not be as long as the BIA
continues to mismanage the schools system “Since
the role of the BIA continues to be a major factor regardless of mismanagement
and corruption issues, Natives will have to work with them until true
self-determination is achieved.”
References
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com
I thought the BIA website was great too but very slanted. I thought the information was good and broad in many respects but even in the historical sections it portrayed the American Government as looking out for the Native population and doing the right thing. How must the Native Americans feel when they look at the web site?
ReplyDelete