Volume 11 Number 2
January 1972

MARJORIE T. DODGE

SOME OF THE basic questions and issues underlying the problems of Indian education are the lack of understanding of the instructional program by the professional educationists.

Most teachers everywhere come in contact with some children who have had an upbringing very different from their own. These differences may stem from social class, cultural background, or living habits of the parents. It is a part of enlightened self-initiative to attempt to understand and accept differences.

The questions of teaching personal and social Indian axiologies in the classroom by a non-Indian teacher to Indian children has been observed and is causing some concerns, so I will very vaguely attempt to give some of my personal views that may be of interest to the classroom teachers.

First of all, the word "value" is a difficult and elusive symbol with a multiple and complex meaning. The dictionary says that values are acts, customs, beliefs, and so forth, regarded in a favorable way by a people. In a broad sense, everything educates, and the learning process is an endless cycle throughout life. Some values change and others are lasting values. Some values are universal and others are personal or classed with certain groups of people. These values, I will classify under very broad terms of "Respect for Self" (personal), and "Respect for Others" (universal):

In a broad sense of the word, self would be the person’s self-image, self-identity and how he relates to himself, his school, and to his home or the social world. It is important for the teacher to know how the child feels about himself. The teacher, therefore, must build confidence and trust and let the child know that he is valued. This is the area of severe importance and many professional educationists as well as parents would just assume this responsibility be left at the home.

The teacher, whose total pattern of learned ways of behaving and maturing may be culturally different, has accepted a responsibility for guiding the child’s behavior in school so that it will be possible for him to achieve realization by his ultimate potential both in the social group whence he came and in the larger society into which he will unavoidably move.

If these are some of the expectations from the child, then, teachers also have to develop greater "self-awareness." The better understanding one has for himself, the better he is able to be objective about his own problems—to know which ones he can solve, which ones he cannot, and where he can get further help.

Many of the Indians have strong and complex tribal beliefs and strengths; therefore, many parents would object to the idea of the teachers imposing their values on the children whom they teach.

Actually, this would bring into focus my second term, respect for others. Whether we realize it or not, the classroom teacher is placed in a position where he is constantly, either unconsciously or subconsciously, influencing some behavioral expectations on the children. When we teach children to take turns on the swings on the playground, when we encourage cooperation with their classmates in organized study projects, when we ask for quiet in the library so that others can study, when we punish or discourage cheating on examinations, or when we challenge the quality of hillbilly music, we are making individual, minuscule, but collectively significant selections of what we want the children to prefer. We would assume that these are universal values which would apply in any classroom situation, because no matter what class of people we belong or identify with, some of these habits are actually a method of survival.

The teacher, then, is not considered a genuine guide to the young unless he assists the children in developing a sense of values. This means that choices must be made somehow, somewhere. And the classroom is the place where the teacher has some jurisdiction over the quality of such choices. The teacher is also in a position to be flexible in learning and accepting ways of behavior and maturing within a particular social group. He can establish many avenues of accomplishing the difficult tasks and responsibilities of educating the Indian child.

In conclusion, there are differences of opinion and nearly always, the negative attitudes seem to rule out the positive attitudes, but a lot has to be taken into consideration because there are actually no solutions that can be concluded. Many would still argue the point of leaving the teaching of values in the hands of the parents, but as previously mentioned, we as educators are constantly engaged in this problem as part of our responsibilities.

Education is a two-way approach. We have to accept the fact that an Indian child is first of all a child and secondly an Indian. Anyone who teaches accepts a child first because he is a child and then becomes aware of individual differences in ability and background. When a teacher does this with Indian children, his attitude is imitated by the children and an Indian child will more readily become comfortable, and a happy contributing member of the class.