Graham Hurlburt, Eldon Gade, and John McLaughlin

For nearly two decades in most regions of Canada a trend has developed where Native schools have been increasingly controlled by local Indian bands and tribal councils. One of the reasons for this trend is the perceived failure of Indian education under the control by non-Natives. A federal government paper on Indian education (Munroe, 1982) found that generally Indian students achieved at levels lower than provincial norms because teacher expectations for Indian students were low and parents were uninvolved. Munroe’s study reported that Indian band education authorities had constantly stressed that only the Indianizing of the curriculum would turn around the dismal results in student achievement. The study concluded that a fundamental aim of education for Indians is the realization of each individual’s potential. This realization may occur more successfully in Native-controlled schools. Bryde (1971) stated that nothing makes the average Indian angrier than his perception of the White’s use of the words "integration," "assimilation," or "acculturation," words which are interpreted as attempts to force them to become non-Indian. One difference between Native and non-Native school curricula, Bryde concluded, was that Indians had a different view of science - that time, money, and science won’t conquer nature and solve everything. Indians feel that the non-Native teaching emphasis upon the acquisition of knowledge through scientific models has tended to minimize human values and forget the person.

With the increase in local control of Indian education and the graduation of more Native teachers, there are more Native staff teaching in Native schools. Martyn (1984) wrote that it is considered very important to increase the number of Native teachers in Native schools and attack many of the basic problems of Indian education, especially the massive drop-out rate, the low academic achievement, improving the self-image, and the adjustment problems of Indian children. Boudreaux (1979), however, cautioned that Native awareness programs cannot compensate for poor academic preparation or lack of academic skills, and he concluded that Indian education should be culturally pluralistic so that Indian students can function in both cultures.

How do Indian children learn? Wildcat (198 1) observed that traditionally the education that Native parents give children from their first years emphasizes early lessons in attitudes of self-reliance, respect for personal freedom, generosity, and respect for nature and wisdom. There is some evidence that Native Indian learning styles do not fit in with contemporary non-Native schools. Scaldwell, Frame, and Cookson (1984) reported that teaching methods used with Native children must be modified to more closely fit their learning style which emphasizes observation, manipulation of "real" examples, and "visual interpretation of presented materials" rather than verbal, sequential, and structured methods used in many classrooms.

Mickelson and Galloway (1972) found that Indian children on a reserve in Vancouver Island followed the hidden curriculum of the poverty home where they practiced adult avoidance and were passively resistant or withdrawn in the face of a task that they construed as adult imposed. The children resisted authority, followed directions submissively and observed activities passively. In the classroom, many children seemed to depend on someone else to provide direction or they marked time through seemingly aimless, random responses to stimuli. Mickelson and Galloway concluded there was value in a structured educational program that uses material and social reinforcement to modify behavior patterns of Indian children.

Kirkness (1986) stated that Indian teachers are cautious about the realization of quality education for the Indian people. She reported that Indian parents want qualified Indian teachers. Ninety-one to 95 percent of Native students said that White teachers did not like Indian people. Kirkness felt it was apparent that Indian teachers who are products of similar experiences and environments would relate with greater ease to Indian parents and students. She concluded that the Indian teacher and the Indian student should readily match in teaching and learning style and that the most successful teacher with Indian students is one who is actively demanding, yet friendly and warm.

Cook, Leeds, and Callis (1951) have suggested that the attitudes of a teacher are the key to the problem of predicting the type of classroom atmosphere he/she will be able to maintain.

It was the purpose of this study to examine the attitudes toward teaching and learning of Indian student teachers enrolled in a university faculty of education program.

The sample consisted of 52 Indian college students enrolled in three off-campus, University Northern Teacher Education (BUNTEP), community based Brandon Centers in the Province of Manitoba. The students in the study included 37 women and 15 men. Thirty-eight of the students were treaty Indians and 14 were non-status Metis. Two-thirds of the sample were Saulteaux speakers and one-third were Cree speakers, although all the sample had been educated in English. Forty-one of the students had no prior teaching experience. Only one of the students with teaching experience had been a teacher for more than two years. The students were enrolled in a four year Bachelor of Education Program operated in the local communities by Brandon University. University courses were delivered by traveling professors and administrators, and counseling for the students was provided by a coordinator who lived in the community but was a member of the Brandon University Faculty.

One of the authors administered the Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory (MTAI) (Cooks, Leeds, & Callis, 195 1), and the Survey of Study Habits and Attitudes (SSHA) (Brown & Holtzman, 1967) to these students on a voluntary basis during their class period with permission from the program coordinator.

The MTAI measures teacher attitudes, and high scores on the scale represent teachers who prefer to maintain a state of harmonious relations with their pupils characterized by mutual affection and sympathetic understanding. High scorers prefer to work in a social atmosphere of cooperative endeavor and with a feeling of security growing from an atmosphere of freedom for all to think, act, and speak one’s mind with mutual respect for the feelings, rights, and abilities of others. A class should be characterized by group solidarity resulting from common goals, common understandings, common efforts, common difficulties, and common achievements. On the other hand, low scorers on the MTAI scale prefer to dominate the classroom and they tend to think in terms of his/her status, the correctness of the position he/she takes on classroom matters, and the subject matter to be covered rather than in terms of what the pupil needs, feels, knows, and can do. The norms of the MTAI have been established on over 1000 undergraduate education majors at the University of Minnesota. Reliability coefficients for the scale range between .88 and .93.

The Survey of Study Habits and Attitudes is one of the most widely used study skills instruments, and its norms have been established on the basis of more than 3000 college students enrolled in nine different colleges in the United States. Validity of the Survey of Study Habits and Attitudes with first semester college grades as a criterion, showed an average validity coefficient of .42 for men and .45 for women. Test-retest reliabilities over a 14-week interval ranged between .83 and .86 for the subtests of the Survey of Study Habits and Attitudes.

There are seven scales on the Survey of Study Habits and Attitudes:

Means and standard deviations were computed for each of the seven SSHA scales and for the MTAI score of the Indian students. A comparison between men and women was made using means, standard deviation, t values, and significance levels of the SSHA scales and MTAI score. The SSHA and the MTAI scores were converted to percentile scores and compared with the normative data reported in the inventory manuals.

The data in Table I shows that attitudes of the Indian education students toward pupils were only at the second percentile on the MTAI and showed a preference for dominance and high structure in classroom management.

TABLE 1
Comparison of Scores on the SSHA and MTAI
Between the Native American Elementary Education
Students and the Norm Group

Scores were at about the 30th percentile on the total score Study Orientation Scale of the SSHA. Delay avoidance and Work Methods were about average compared to the normative group, but Teacher Approval and Educational Acceptance Scores were only at about the 25th percentile.

A comparison of the means of men and women on the SSHA scales and the MTAI scores shown in Table 2 indicated that the men scored lower on all the SSHA scales than the women, but virtually the same as the women on the MTAI. The differences between the women and men reached or approached significance (p = < .05) on all the SSHA scales except Work Methods.

TABLE 2
A Comparison of Scores for Men and Women
on the SSHA and MTAI

In this study it was found that American Indian education students on the average scored low on the MTAI and tended to have dominant attitudes about classroom management.

The low Teacher Approval and Educational Acceptance scores of these Native student teachers, especially the men, may reflect their own personal educational experiences with non-Native teachers. Yet, even in a locally controlled school, Native students complain about the school regimentation of rules and regulations (Hurlburt, Henjum, & Eide, 1983).

The low scores on the Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory indicates that these future teachers tended to prefer a structured teaching style with strong teacher control and submissive learners. This type of teaching attitude seems contradictory to the needs of Indian students described in the literature. For example, Wildcat (198 1) described Indian student needs for personal freedom while Michelson and Galloway (1971) pointed out that Native children passively resist authority. Knight (1985), Coladarci (1983), and Geertsma (1977) have emphasized that Indian students need a warm student-teacher relationship to encourage academic motivation and scholarship.

The low scores on the MTAI also may reflect on personal school experiences. They may have internalized or modeled the dominating style of their former non-Native or Native teachers (Hurlburt, Henjum, & Eide, 1983).

The results showed men had less acceptance of teacher classroom behavior and general study attitudes. ‘Ibis finding is inconsistent with the normative data presented in the SSHA manual which combines the scores of men and women because of no apparent gender differences on the scores.

The low scores by the men on all the SSHA scales indicates weak study and test taking habits, poor time management, and unfavorable opinion of teacher classroom behavior and objectives of education. With these deficiencies how can these future teachers be positive role models for future pupils? However, on the positive side, their low scores on the Teacher Approval and Education Acceptance areas can be viewed as healthy signs of questioning the traditional teacher methods and traditional educational objectives which have often been inconsistent with the different learning styles of Native pupils and the Native goals for education. Even in locally controlled schools Native students complain about highly regimented rules and regulations (Hurlburt, Henjum, & Eide, 1983).

No norms are presented in either the MTAI or SSHA manuals for minority groups. This study is a start in providing this much needed data for use with Indian college education majors.

This study further suggests that traditional teacher education programs need to provide assistance for Indian college students in improving their study habits through study skills courses and tutorial help. We need future Indian teachers who are fundamentally strong in work habits and skills! The interpretation of the results of such inventories as the MTAI and the SSHA can also serve as a catalyst for lively debate about the current curricular offerings, instructional methods, and goals of Native elementary and secondary education.

Teacher education programs should reexamine the philosophy and pedagogy of Indian teacher education. Special courses on or units about the unique learning styles and the emotional and motivational needs of Indian students should be required for all education majors. Student teaching and field experiences under the supervision of successful teachers of Indian youth also seems crucial. Finally longitudinal research that focuses on the relationship of teaching styles to Indian student academic achievement should be supported.

The Indian education majors in the present study were low scorers on the MTAI indicating that their teaching attitudes tend to be dominating and not focused on the whole pupil. The study attitudes of the student teachers reflect a somewhat negative view of teachers and education which may be related to their own education by non-Natives. This is a topic which requires further investigation.