Harry A. Kersey and Neal E. Justin

ALTHOUGH the Seminole Indians of Florida have been attending federal and public schools for almost half a century, fewer than 150 have ever completed high school and only one has graduated from college. Most of the younger children are currently enrolled in school but the dropout rate is exceedingly high. In a recent report to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Indian Education, the Bureau of Indian Affairs stated that two-thirds of the Seminole children who entered the first grade in 1956 did not graduate from high school in 1968. This 67% dropout rate for Seminoles is higher than that for Indians throughout the United States.

Of the three Seminole reservations in south Florida, Big Cypress is the most isolated, its people are the least acculturated, and their educational attainment is the poorest. Many of the families still live in the traditional thatched-roof "chickee" without sanitation facilities, running water, or electricity. The average family income is well below the poverty level and a number of families subsist on some form of welfare. Under such adverse conditions, educational programs have met with very little success. Since 1940 the BIA has operated an elementary school on the reservation; however, attendance has been poor and student achievement negligible. The school staff has been forced to expend its major efforts in meeting the basic physical and social needs of the children. Consequently, the academic program has suffered, and the students are not prepared for the transition to public schools which comes in the fifth grade. After four years in the congenial environment of the reservation school the Indian child finds himself forced to rise at dawn and travel 45 miles—an hour and a half trip by schoolbus—to the town of Clewiston. The public school is an alien world to the Seminole child; ill-prepared for the academic demands of the curriculum, excluded from extra curricular activities, relegated to a position of inferiority, and often at odds with the values of the dominant culture, he rapidly loses interest. The result has been erratic attendance, low achievement, and alienation toward schooling. Furthermore, compulsory attendance laws do not apply to Indians, so they quit.

Obviously, the educational program at Big Cypress had to be revamped. Facing the situation squarely the Bureau of Indian Affairs sought the association of university experts in solving the problem. In the spring of 1968 a faculty team from Florida Atlantic University, under the direction of Dr. Harry Kersey, working with a grant from BIA, carried out a program of psychological and achievement testing, speech and hearing screening, and a survey of parental attitudes and home environment on the reservation. This was a necessary first step because there had never been a testing program at the reservation to assess the intelligence or achievement of the children; there were no usable cumulative record folders and many of the children didn’t even know what grade level they had been working at the year before. The data obtained by the FAU study was correlated with that from other Seminole reservations where the children were attending public schools. The analysis confirmed that the children from Big Cypress were operating on a low achievement level although as a group they displayed an average range of intellectual abilities and did not suffer from exceptional speech or hearing impairments. Somehow a remedial and compensatory program would have to be developed which would enable the children to compete successfully in the public schools.

Once it was established that these Seminole children possessed a normal range of mental and physical capabilities it became apparent that the problem lay elsewhere. The team focused its attention on the realm of socio-cultural factors. Discussions with Indians, their teachers, government agents, and others working for their improvement brought forth the following regarding the Seminole lack of education and socio-economic attainment. It was generally held that the Indian parents, lacking an education themselves, did not appreciate the need for schooling and therefore failed to stress it to the children. This, in turn, accounts for the fact that few parents took any active role in school affairs. Resentment toward an institution over which they have little control may also figure in this parental indifference. Others failed to see the connection between what their children were studying and what they needed to know for life on the reservation. In some cases there is conscious parental resistance to domination by the Anglo culture. This ethnocentricity manifests itself in several ways: speaking the native tongue, wearing traditional garb, and retaining tribal customs. This has often left the Seminole child caught between two cultures. Other factors considered were the Indian’s physical and cultural isolation from the main stream of American life, and problems of discrimination when they leave the reservation. Somewhere in these ideas lay the crux of the matter.

Recognizing these factors, the FAU team launched a three-phase attack to upgrade the quality of education offered in the reservation school. Two formal educational programs were developed: 1) To improve the language skills of the Indian children, and 2) to enhance the ability of the school staff to meet the needs of the students. In the first instance, students from the university were selected and trained to carry out a tutorial program on the reservation under the supervision of faculty members. The tutors work with small groups of Indian children, usually four or five, where emphasis is placed on the production of peer-produced reading materials and perceptual development. The in-serve training of the reservation school teachers and their bilingual Indian aides will be a year-long project emphasizing the skills and information needed to act as a coordinated classroom team. The bi-monthly sessions, conducted both on the reservation and at the University, will utilize the talents of many FAU staff members. As a third phase of the program, it is planned to have Indian parents attend as many of these sessions as possible to act as resource persons and to acquire skills in child development. This involvement of parents is crucial to the success of any education program. In the past there have been abortive attempts to establish a school board and PTA on the reservation, however, these have never materialized. It is hoped that this in-serve program will provide a vehicle for bridging the gap between the school and the Indian community.

Continuous evaluation of the FAU programs is being made to assure that mistakes are not duplicated and successful elements are not overlooked. The results of this project should open new educational avenues leading toward the main stream of national life. One thing is certain, the Seminole children of the Big Cypress are no longer forgotten Americans.

Editor’s Note: As of January 1970, Dr. Kersey commented that the program described here was beginning to show results in terms of reading materials produced by the Indian children. It was hoped that positive Increases in the reading achievement of the children would show by the end of the school year, with subsequent reports to be made.

Dr. Ham A. Kersey, Jr. is an associate professor of education at Florida Atlantic University. He did graduate work at the University of Illinois and was on the faculty at Indiana University. A native Floridian. Dr. Kersey has known the Seminole Indians and their problems intimately. In addition to his work with Indians, he has served as a consultant to various migrant education projects in the southeastern states. At present he has two contracts with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to develop compensatory programs for Seminole Indians.

Dr. Neat Justin is an assistant professor of education at FAU. His interest in minority group education stems from his work as an educator and legislator in Arizona. Dr. Justin’s graduate studies at the University of Arizona included research with Mexican-Americans and studies under Dr. John Chilcott, who is widely known for his work with the Navajos. Currently, Dr. Justin serves as a consultant to the Seminole Indian Education projects.