Larry D. Foreman, Oklahoma State University

THE need to convince others that one particular view of life is more correct than another or that a particular way of living is better than another seems to be inevitable in the arena of human events. One has only to review any period of world history to see that struggles to persuade others in these matters is not a recent phenomenon. Some of the most vivid examples of these struggles to be found in recent history can be seen in the schooling of American Indian youth.

Missions established throughout many regions of America during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were intended to serve many purposes. Among them were economic and political goals and, of course, the more commonly stated religious goals. Regardless of how goals were stated or what priority guided their occurrence, the overarching goal of all missions was to shape local Indian populations to a different set of values and develop a new lifestyle for them.

In the latter part of the same period, seventeenth century colonial schools were reflections of a society dominated by Puritan religious beliefs and subsequent lifestyle. And, once again, local Indian populations fell subject to efforts intended to change them to the expectations of transplant Americans whose aim was to "civilize" them by any and all means possible.

One means which was designed to accomplish this goal was the boarding school approach which separated Indian children from their families and tribes. This approach was initiated by the Reverend John Sargeant in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, along with another means known as the outing system (U.S. Senate Special Subcommittee on Indian Education, 1969). This system augmented the boarding school approach by placing Indian youngsters in Puritan homes during vacation periods when school was not in session, thus further separating them from their families. Obviously, both plans reflected the same notion, the best way to cause American Indian children to lose their sense of heritage and change their value system was to remove them from the source of those things, the family.

There certainly was nothing hidden about the belief that American Indian people had very little of significance to offer anyone, even their own children. This belief could easily be seen in the methods employed and the results intended by their use. These beliefs and the activities engendered by them, however, were not limited to American Indian people. They seemed to be applied to any person or group of persons who, for whatever reason, did not fit the pattern of what was considered by many to be the ideal American.

Throughout American history, evidence can be seen of forces intended to homogenize persons inside its borders. George Washington argued for public education at higher levels because, "The more homogeneous our citizens can be made, the greater will be our prospect of permanent union" (Tyack, 1967). Thomas Jefferson expressed the same goal for an American school system that would "educate men to manners, morals, and habits perfectly homogeneous with those of the country" (Tyack, 1967).

A major goal of American schooling throughout history has been to shape learners to fill particular needs of society and to fit into patterns preconceived by others. This includes the inculcation of values and beliefs which emerged from various groups at different times in the past. Countless numbers of American Indian students have been caught in these struggles, and one has only to examine a few school districts to view the results. Drop-out rates, grades, attendance, and discouragement by Indian students present a very real dilemma for educators, schools and the communities served by them. Proposed solutions very often take the form of reworking the same ideas that have been tried time and time again with only minor changes and disappointing results. A void seems to exist in areas that examine ways by which American Indian values and world-views might be incorporated into educational designs appropriate for the age of self-determination.

When the point is finally reached where American Indian people are able to choose a path for their educational programs to follow, some very crucial questions will need to be considered. The most obvious question probably will be, who will make the choices that will shape educational design? In all likelihood, many persons will be involved in the decision-making process and some will, no doubt, exert more influence than others. Common sense tells us that this part of the process is not likely to change, and can be considered significant only within the context of purposes and outcomes of self-determination legislation.

Basic purposes of self-determination legislation clearly place the responsibility for educational design in the hands of Indian people. Basic purposes of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act as stated in United States Statutes at Large (1976) are:

So, within fairly broad guidelines, and overlooking the mythical nature common in legislative comment, the first question is easily answered. American Indian people, themselves, will make the choices.

The next question that will need to be considered is much more complex and requires much greater thought to reach any real degree of understanding. How much freedom will Indian people have when considering educational design to be implemented into their educational process? The amount of freedom built into legislation and allowed by funding always has been restrictive, and there seems to be no reason to believe that this will change in the near future. It is very possible, however, that American Indian people will restrict themselves much more than legislation, regulations, or other groups will restrict them.

A greater lack of freedom may be found within ourselves than can be found written into legislation and may be totally unknown to us. Freedom, in this sense, includes not only freedom from others, but most also include freedom from ourselves.

Many beliefs and values that we learned from society and its schools may give us far less real freedom to choose than we realize. In his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire (1970) warned that a major danger of any successful revolution results from the oppressed becoming oppressors when they assume positions of power. Only the names and faces of those who now have power have changed. For some reason or reasons, many systems resist change and seem able to shape persons more than the other way around. The system of education has shown this tendency. If this principle holds true, self-determination may amount to nothing more than a change of names and faces of those who decide how and what will be learned by American Indian youth.

Most persons who design educational programs are products of the same process which they now propose to redesign and, therefore, will tend to recreate the same process understood best by them. A tendency may exist in many educators to ignore known facts, discoveries, or beliefs about learning potential in American Indian students and rely exclusively upon that which is familiar, traditional, or comfortable.

Will decisions which shape educational design for Indian students be made by Indian people whose thoughts are as authentic as possible or will they be made by Indian people who simply recreate designs of the past? Henry Giroux (1984) suggests that educators should examine their own perspectives, ideologies, and values critically "so as to understand how society has shaped them as individuals, what it is that they believe, and to structure more positively the effects they have had upon students and others" (39).

Politicians, captains of industry, mainstream educators, and others whose view of the world was very different from traditional Indian views laid out the plans and strategies of most past educational designs. A system of values very different from those values in American Indian cultures was built into the design. Ways of learning, not familiar to Indian people, were part of the educational system. Only recently has the extent and nature of this particular element begun to be understood.

In recent years, attention has been focused upon processes which seem pertinent to American Indian education. While some of these support the need for authenticity in designing educational form and purpose, others likely will serve as barriers to significant change. Research and dialogue centered upon the phenomenon of brain hemispheric functions may well provide support for authenticity in designs for American Indian education. On the other hand, some forces connected with the phenomenon of American schooling, frequently known as the hidden curriculum, may serve as barriers to change.

Allen Chuck Ross (1982) presented a strong argument for utilizing research delving into functions of right and left hemispheres of the brain when considering designs for American Indian education. Learning, as pointed out in the article, occurs in different ways for persons who are more dominated by left hemispheric patterns. And, as stated in the article, "It has been determined that traditional Native Americans are more dominant in right hemispheric thinking" (see Note 5).

Creativity seems to be an essential need to educational processes for Indian people. Not only the structure of the educational process, but the strategies within it should center upon creativity. One such strategy referred to by Dr. Ross is discovery learning. A major portion of educational design for American Indians should probably be centered upon this process. Learning by discovery implies that learning is a personal process which relates directly and exclusively to each learner’s experiences. It would, therefore, require a learning environment which facilitates learning from within. In this process, learning at any level centers upon natural curiosity in the learner and interest in what each person’s world, as he or she perceives it, is all about. Learning about someone else’s world or perceptions is most likely when it is relevant to some part of our own.

Educational designs which select one body of information to be presented to all students at a set time and at some forced rate can not possibly accommodate all these learners. Teaching strategies engendered by these designs will most likely lead to frustration and feelings of inadequacy by some learners. Frustration does not encourage a willingness to continue exploration and discovery. Feelings of inadequacy do not stimulate a healthy desire to learn. Many educators who have worked with American Indian youth have seen patterns of frustration and failure repeated many times, yet educators cling to the same forms of teaching and curriculum development as though nothing else were possible.

Much that has been said and written in recent decades voices strong dissent for present and past educational designs, but offers few real alternatives and little real change. Many current educational programs which claim to address cultural needs of American Indian students do little more than to string a few beads or draw pictures of horses and buffalo. Curricular change as superficial as this, however, well meant, surely cannot represent the extent to which self-determination will change American Indian education.

Educators who have worked within the system are not surprised when someone says that changing major designs of the educational process is not an easy matter. Developing a thorough understanding of instructional mandates from any one particular state is a sizeable undertaking in itself and represents only one part of the body of information to be presented to all students at a set time and rate.

When searching for an understanding of why extensive curricular change is difficult to find in American schooling, it seems worthwhile to examine some of the forces connected with the curricular phenomenon commonly known as the hidden curriculum. The hidden curriculum and those forces which brought it into being and seem to keep it in place, may possibly be the most viable but least understood force in American Indian schooling. Perhaps, this curricular phenomenon lacks understanding because it includes numerous elements related to American culture, American schools, and the seemingly countless number of entanglements within that relationship. Or, perhaps, it is because it lacks consensus among educators and others on many of its definitions, purposes, and outcomes.

Certain elements of the hidden curriculum, however, are fairly well agreed upon as are the purposes which brought them into being and sustain their existence. Competitiveness, docility, and an unquestioned acceptance of authority are common expectations of students taught by most schools. Yet these are seldom if ever entered into formal curriculum guides or classroom objectives. The process of grading is one example whereby competition becomes a major factor in classroom learning, and ways of making grades frequently take precedence over what is learned. Grading procedures seldom take into account such things as learner interest or the perceptual framework of the student.

Most elements of the hidden curriculum can be traced historically to periods in America’s past when particular needs were most evident in the social structure. Michael Apple and Nancy King (1977) state,

Do American Indian people now have the freedom to choose educational designs regardless of historical or contemporary precedence? Few persons knowledgeable about present or previous practices in the education of American Indian youth would agree that this freedom now exists. Francis McKenna (1981) stated succinct evidence for this position in his article entitled, "The Myth of Multiculturalism and the Reality of the American Indian in Contemporary America." Further evidence is available from numerous sources which provide historical documentation of inappropriate design, strategy, and outcome in American Indian education.

Freedom of choice is probably the greatest issue to be faced when considering future educational designs to serve American Indian youth. Included in this freedom is the ability to design programs which may never have existed in the past and may not exist in the present. Designs which are completely authentic in form and purpose should be accessible to the learning environment whenever the needs and goals of American Indian youth can best be served by them. When educators free themselves of as many constraints as possible, and let their imaginations delve into the countless alternatives available in strategies for learning, perhaps a new age of educational emancipation will have begun.

Apple, Michael W., & King, Nancy R. (1977). What do schools teach? In Richard H. Weller (Ed.), Humanistic Education; Visions and Realities (35). Berkeley: McCutchan Publishing Company.

Freire, Paulo (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder.

Giroux, Henry A. (1984). Rethinking the language of schooling. Language Arts, 61(1), 39.

McKenna, Francis R. (198 1). The myth of multiculturalism. Journal of American Indian Education, 21(l), 1-9.

Ross, Allen Chuck (1982). Brain hemispheric functions and the Native American. Journal of American Indian Education, 21(3), 2-5.

Tyack, David (1967). Turning points in American educational history. Waltham, Massachusetts: Blaisdell Publishing Company.

United States statutes at large, 1974 and proclamations. (1976). (Vol. 88, pt. 2). Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.

U.S. Senate Special Subcommittee on Indian Education. (1969). Indian education: A national tragedy—A national challenge. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.