Volume 13 Number 3
May 1974

Lynn R. Osborn

IT ALL BEGAN in a very casual, informal and offhand manner. Yet, what evolved from a chance afterdinner conversation among a group including an hereditary Pawnee princess, the Italian-surnamed superintendent of a Bureau of Indian Affairs junior college, a Ph.D. candidate in speech communication and human relations, and a pair of university professors has proved to be one of the most enjoyable and rewarding academic experiences of this writer’s 22 years in the teaching field.

A summer institute for high school teachers of Speech Communication to American Indian pupils, held at the University of Kansas during the summer of 1968, had just concluded with a final banquet on the campus of Haskell Indian Junior College, and the previously mentioned individuals were discussing its conduct and implications. The Pawnee lady, a teacher of many years’ experience in Bureau of Indian Affairs schools, observed that the program just completed had been extremely valuable to those who participated in it but that "the surface had only been scratched" insofar as Indian and non-Indian communication was concerned!

It was this passing comment that initiated the planning and development of the course, Intercultural Communication: The American Indian, first as a joint curricular offering of Haskell Indian Junior College and the University of Kansas and later at Central Washington State College. From the outset, it was determined that any attempt to identify, examine, and at least partially resolve some of the problems of communication between Indian and non-Indian individuals and groups must of necessity be bi-cultural in nature. To succeed, it could not be merely another class in which non-Indians blithely discuss "The Indian Problem." Nor could it fail to take into account the wide divergencies in social organization, religious belief and practice, language acquisition and usage both of the native tongue and English, family and clan structure, and the multitude of other factors which help to dispel the myth of "The American Indian."

The following excerpts from the foreword to Culture Shock: A Reader in Modern Cultural Anthropology, edited by Philip K. Bock, summarize many of the concerns voiced, and rationales developed, in the initial stages of planning for the course herein described:

Since its inception, Intercultural Communication: The American Indian has been predicated upon two of the bases articulated by Bock: first, that ". . . direct confrontation with another society (in this instance that of the American Indian peoples) is the best way to learn about alien modes of life . . ."; and second, that ". . . Its value (that of the course) lies in the liberation and understanding that can come from such an experience. . ."

Several months of careful consideration of input from a variety of communities, formal and informal, preceded the actual making of decisions with regard to class size, format of learning, choice of textbooks and supplementary materials, and the like for the initial offering of the course. These communities included the student bodies at the University of Kansas and Haskell Indian Junior College, faculty and administrators—Indian and non-Indian—from the two schools, members of the Intertribal Council representing the reservation-dwelling Iowa, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, and Sac and Fox tribes of northeastern Kansas (and more recently, representatives of the Yakima Nation in Central Washington), and urban Indian populations.

Based upon a synthesis of information from all of these sources, the following decisions were arrived at: 1) An adequate balance of Indian and non-Indian students would be maintained by controlling enrollment totals on both the Haskell and University of Kansas campuses. 2) Class sessions would be held on both campuses in an alternating fashion. (Busing arrangements and exchange library privileges facilitated this practice a great deal.) 3) Students from Haskell Indian Junior College would be exempt from the payment of out-of-state fees at the University of Kansas and would receive elective credit for the course on their programs at the Indian school.

4) The structuring of the class sessions would be flexible and allow for maximum dyadic and group interaction among the Indian and nonIndian students. 5) Textbooks and other instructional materials would be as objective as possible in presentation of encounters between Indian and non-Indian cultures and, whenever available, the thinking of Indian scholars and educators would be featured. 6) Maximum possible input from Indian scholars, artists, musicians, educators, and tribal leaders would be an integral part of the conduct of the course.

In a typical semester (or quarter), enrollment has been held to approximately 30 students with from 5 to 15 of these being of American Indian descent. At the University of Kansas, with the Indian enrollment drawn primarily from Haskell Indian Junior College, as many as 15 different tribes were represented at one time. The experience thus far at Central Washington State College has been that the bulk of the Indian enrollment has been from the Yakima Nation, with an occasional Colville or members of other Northwest tribes taking part.

The course is divided into five primary experiences contexts. These are:

1. Lectures and Audiovisual Presentations—Lectures by the instructor and guest speakers are utilized to introduce considerations of the barriers to optimal Indian and non-Indian communication. These barriers are examined in terms of their educational, economic, lingual, philosophical, and social ramifications. Early in the course, the instructor presents several of the currently-held misconceptions about the American Indian peoples and attempts to clarify these in the minds of both Indian and non-Indian students. Among these misconceptions are: "The Vanishing American" (population statistics reveal growth in the American Indian population, rather than declining, is increasing at a rate more rapid than that of the general population in Canada, at a rate three times that of the general population!); "The Indian Language" (dispelling the myth that all Indian peoples spoke the same language or variations of a single mother tongue and pointing out the fact that literally hundreds of Indian languages and dialects still are spoken north of the Rio Grande today); "The Rural Indian" (bringing to mind the fact that today rapidly increasing numbers of Indian citizens live in urban settings). He also provides an introduction to the literature concerning the American Indians, including that written about, for, and by Indian peoples.

Guest speakers in the past have included artists such as Dick West (Cheyenne), head of the Art Department at Haskell Indian Junior College, and Larry George (Yakima), staff art consultant for the Center for the study of Migrant and Indian Education on the Yakima Reservation; Elmer Blackbird, a dancer and musician of the Omaha tribe; J. L. Rogers, an educator of Indian ancestry and relative of the famed Cherokee humorist, Will Rogers; Robert Jim, Chairman of the Yakima Tribal Council; Allen Quetone (Kiowa), former director of Interagency Programs, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Washington, D.C.; Dale Kinkade, anthropologist and Indian language scholar; and Wallace Galluzzi, Superintendent of Haskell Indian Junior College, to name only a very few.

Several of the more accurate and authentic films on traditional and contemporary Indian life are viewed at appropriate times during the course. Exemplary of these films are: Discovering American Indian Music, produced under the direction of Louis Ballard, the eminent Cherokee-Quapaw composer and musicologist; The Child: An Indian Approach to Education, depicting the educational programs undertaken by the Yakima Nation; Legends of the Sioux, a beautiful and touching representation of some of the major legends of the Dakota people; and The Navaho Moves into the Electronic Age, recounting the experience of that tribe and the General Dynamics Corporation in establishing a major electronics facility on the reservation.

2. Group Task Force Projects—Soon after the class commences, the students are divided into mixed Indian and non-Indian groups of from 5 to 10 each. The purpose of this project is twofold: First, it provides an opportunity for each group to undertake an in-depth consideration of some aspect of Indian and non-Indian communication mutually agreed upon by the members; second, and perhaps even more important, it places the group members, Indian and non-Indian, in a task-oriented situation where they actually will be faced with many of the intercultural communication problems they have been discussing. They will be confronted directly with the necessity of resolving differences in concepts of time, motivational factors, sense of competition, and goal-achievement procedures. (Many students report this to be one of the most difficult, and yet at the same time, one of the most valuable experiences of the entire course!)

At the conclusion of the course, each task force group presents a two-hour summary report in which they relate the procedures of choice, examination, and resolution of the particular problem area of Indian and non-Indian communication selected by the members for study. Flexibility is the guideline in the presentation of these reports to the rest of the class and the instructor. They take a variety of forms: panel discussion, demonstrations, film or videotape, slides or original art work, proposed new models of Indian and non-Indian communication, craft displays, and the like.

A positive "spin-off’ of the task force groups is found in the informal activities of their members which occur during the course of their interaction while carrying out the group projects. Parties, picnics, exchange dinners, home visits, non-structured "rap sessions," and other cultural experiences on a one-to-one or small group level exert a strong influence in breaking down barriers and destroying preconceived stereotypes held by members of both races.

Three typical projects selected by groups have been:

A. The Examination of the Indian Occupation of Mount Rushmore National Monument as a Communication Event. This group, composed of a Ph.D. candidate in speech communication and human relations, two Indian undergraduate students from Haskell Indian Junior College, and two undergraduates from the University of Kansas, applied for and received permission from the National Park Service to ascend the monument and interview the group of Indian citizens occupying it in November, 1970. They made the trip at their own expense, spent one night in an Indian home on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and another in a cave on top of Mount Rushmore with the Indian occupants. This was followed with on-the-spot interviews with a cross-section of citizens, Indian and non-Indian, in surrounding communities.

Major questions considered by the group were: "What is it that the Indians are attempting to communicate through their occupation of the monument?"; "Why was this particular form of communication chosen?"; "How effective has it been, both in the eyes of the Indians and non-Indians?"; "What major barriers to Indian and non-Indian communication were involved, and what new ones may have been created?"

The end product of this undertaking was an outstanding filmed and taped report in documentary form and the accompanying statement from the group that it had been the most valuable educational experience of the semester for each of the members!

B. The Study of Indian Art Forms as Modes of Communication of Native American Cultures. Another Indian and non-Indian group during the Spring of 1971, again at their own expense, arranged a tour of five Indian art museums in the Southwest as part of their study how American Indians communicate their cultures through and with painting, jewelry-making, basketry, and other media. With the operation and assistance of Dr. Dick West, head of the Haskell Indian Junior College Art Department (himself a world-renowned Cheyenne painter and woodcarver), interviews with Indian artists critics, and museum curators and viewing of major Indian collection were arranged.

C. A Comparative Study of Communication Problems Experienced by Indian Inmates in Two Washington Penal Institutions. During one recent quarter at Central Washington State College, a third mixed group of Indian and non-Indian undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the course chose to correspond with and personally visit Indian inmate groups and institutional administrators and staff members at the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla, as well as the Reformatory at Monroe. Their goal was the identification and exploration of communication problems between Indian inmates and the administration and with the non-Indian inmate population at the two prisons. Again, the final project report presented to the entire class was in itself an exceptional bit of communication.

3. Individual Projects—During the course, each student also chooses a subject for an individual project. This may, or may not, be related to the topic under consideration by his task force group. The end product may take the form of the traditional "term paper" or, depending upon the individual and his choice of topic, find its expression in original art work, photography, film, or tape. "Communication Problems in the Indian School," "Navaho Sand-Painting as Cultural Communication," "Indian Legends for the Elementary Classroom," "The Role of the Pueblo Storyteller," and "Radio and Television Commercials for the Indian Consumer" are but five of the subjects treated in these individual projects in past years.

4. Field Trips—During the course of the term, each student is required to make one trip into a specific segment of the Indian community, rural or urban, and write up his reactions in terms of communication variables such as information-exchange, dissonance, empathy, and the like. Usually, the field trip experience is taken care of by the task force groups with the Indian members in each group making appropriate arrangements within the community.

5. Written Examination—An open-book, take-home examination is distributed on the last day of regular classes each term. The examination is of the essay type, with practically and situationally oriented questions designed to allow creativity and original thought in the application of principles learned and procedures observed during the conduct of the course.

The course is offered for five hours credit with two two-hour classroom sessions each week and the fifth hour being allotted to the work of the task force groups.

Any teacher wishing to organize a similar cooperative course offering with a nearby Indian school, at either the secondary or higher level of education, is cautioned to proceed with care and ensure maximum input from the various communities concerned. Space does not permit a detailed consideration of the procedure involved, but the writer will be happy to correspond with those interested.

It seems most fitting to end this brief essay concerning the course, Intercultural Communication: The American Indian, by quoting a Native American prayer that has become almost an identifying theme of the classes: "Great Spirit, grant that I may not criticize my neighbor until I have walked a mile in his moccasins."

Lynn R. Osbom, Ed. D., is Professor of Communication, Central Washington State College, and former Director of Intercultural Programs for the University of Kansas Communication Research Center. Dr. Osborn holds memberships in several professional and scholarly organizations, including the National Congress of American Indians and the National Indian Education Association. His numerous writings concerning Native American speech communication have appeared in journals in both this country and Canada. This essay is based upon a paper originally read at a recent national convention of the Speech Communication Association.