Schools for Indians

Although western-style schools were established in most Indian reserves with the aim of accelerating assimilation, internments for Indians in the United States and Canada were also established. Children were expelled from their homes and often spent most of the year in nursing homes, where they remained until adulthood.

The goal was to "kill the Indian... and save man," according to the founder of the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. Students were forced to learn English, convert to Christianity, take Western classes, and reject their own clothes, languages, and religious beliefs. Although a small group adopted the white culture, the majority lost their confused cultural identity.

Indigenous students

Indigenous peoples were traditionally educated by listening to and observing their elders, and then collaborating with them in the tasks of daily life. Indian children sat at the feet of the narrators, whose accounts of warriors, peacocks, and other spiritual beings gave lessons of morality, philosophy, and religion. Afterwards, they began to assume responsibilities as adults, such as collecting and preparing food and medicinal plants, tracking tracks, hunting, and manufacturing clothing and tools.

Schools abandoned this traditional form of teaching. Both reserve schools and boarding schools, which separated children from their families for ten months a year, attempted to assimilate the Indian and Inuit peoples, disconnecting the kids from their traditional culture. Although the education policy of Indians is somewhat less rigorous today, most indigenous young people still attend public schools. Although education in these schools has little to do with the more flexible and individualized tribal method, the main problem lies in the fact that the state school system reflects the traditions and values of the dominant white society, which often contradict traditional teachings. As a result, many Indians leave school without the necessary preparation to develop properly both in their own culture and in that of the society that dominates them.

Some organizations such as the American Indian Movement have sought to establish model schools for Indians in recent years in order to offer education more sensitive to Indian traditions. The first survival school for indigenous peoples was established by the Minneapolis Movement in 1971 with the aim of helping young Indians adapt to white society without losing contact with their own culture. After that, native-run elementary and secondary schools were established. These native schools take into account traditional festivities and activities. For example, at the Nunamiut School in Anaktuvuk, Alaska, October classes are focused on the harvesting of strawberries, a traditional Inuit activity.

Native schools also have problems in higher education. There were no native universities until 1968. That year, he founded and led the first native university in the Arizona Navajo Reserve. Other tribal groups hurried to do the same. The American Indian Consortium for Higher Education (AIHEC) was founded in October 1972 by six tribal community universities. Currently, AIHEC has 30 members in the US and Canada. The AIHEC has become a very useful tool to help the economic development of Indians and to maintain the continuity of their cultural traditions. More than 20,000 Indian students are currently attending tribal universities, located in or near the reserves, and their programmes range from technical or vocational subjects to postgraduate courses. But his interest in Indian culture is the most important. At the Sioux Rosebud Reserve in South Dakota, there is a training in “Cultural Resource Management” that teaches indigenous youth to collect and administer oral tradition, as well as to find and preserve historical and archaeological heritage.