Matthew R. Collins
Kaitlin McClanahan
English 102
12 March 2015
Defective Education System in Native American Reservation and Its Impacts
Native Americans have suffered through many issues since they lost their lands to the U.S. government. Especially the Indian teenagers, they are not only losing their traditional culture, but also a proper environment for them to get education and be prepared for life. In Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, he uses two teenagers’ scope to describe the life in Native American reservation in Spokane. The two boys, Victor Joseph and Thomas Builds-the-Fire, tell the stories of conflicts with family members and struggles among their peers. In Indian education, Victor narratively tells the fights, discrimination and confusion he and his friends went through. High rate of violence, substance abuse and mental health problems appear among Indian students in the reservation schools. It is clear that the defective education system and school environment in Native American reservations leads to those severe issues.
Violence is one of the key issues that appear in Native American reservation schools. In Indian Education from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, the main character Victor witnessed a fight between Randy, the new Indian kid, and Steve. Randy was transferred from a white town. Within an hour after he first arrived his new school, Steve Flett picked on him by calling him names. Many students gathered around in the playground to witness the fight. During the fight, Steve kept demanding Randy to throw the first punch and eventually evoked Randy. Randy pinched a ball and broke Steve’s nose; the students are in awe for such behavior. Victor said Randy “taught me the most valuable lesson about living in the white world: Always throw the first punch.”[1] It is clear that Victor and other students have come to agreement that violence resolves issue. “Throw the first punch” earned Randy respects not only from the white boy but also the Indian teenagers. Such expression creates a negative impact among the group. The violent behaviors are reflected in their later age as described in Every Little Hurricane. Victor’s uncles, Adolph and Arnold, got into a fight that has destructive power like a little hurricane. It not only traumatizes their relationship but also the children who witness it. Those Native Americans who suffered from being bullied may also learn from this lesson and use “punches” to protect themselves. However, Native American teenagers are still in disadvantage even they use violence as a weapon. Physical trauma is on the surface of this issue. When Indian students are exposed to violence, they are often not justified because of the discrimination of teachers. The failure of teachers on addressing this issue subsequently leads to physiological trauma among Indian students. Dropping out school and substance abuse become a solution for them to hide themselves from the real world.
In Poverty and Health Disparities for American Indian and Alaska Native Children, the authors explore how inequalities impact American Indian and Alaska Native children. They mentioned that “American Indian and Alaska Natives are especially likely to experience a range of violent and traumatic events involving serious injury or threat of injury to self or to witness such threat or injury to others. Of all races, they have the highest per-capita rate of violent victimization, whereas children between the ages of 12 and 19, in particular, are more likely than their non-Native peers to be the victims of both serious violent crime and simple assault.”[2]This quote provides us objective information from surveys that Native Americans teenagers have a higher chance of become victims of violence. Being exposed to violence at an early age has substantial impact on one’s life. Expect home, children from 12 to 19 are mostly in school where they interact with non-Native American most often. Therefore they are most vulnerable and easily insulted because they cannot be protected by family members in school. In short term, teenagers may learn from peers and use violence as a shell. In long term, this behavior becomes a habit and is reflected in family life. Therefore the next generation becomes victim of violence and such impact carries.
Violence is always associated with other issues among teenagers. In Native American reservation schools, high dropout rates appears to be another concerning issue. When Victor graduated high school, he went “back home on the reservation, my former classmates graduate: a few can’t read, one or two just given attendance diplomas, most look forward to the parties, the brightest student are shaken, frightened, because they don’t know what comes next.”[1] Victor pictured a group of Native American teenagers who are graduating high school but have no expectations for life. Some of them receive no knowledge from high school education, parties and alcohol is the only things they look forward to. The remaining students who received diploma are frightened because they know knowledge is not sufficient for them to survive. High school education supposed to serve the purpose of shaping students personality and direct them to a correct path of life. Apparently, reservation schools have not fulfilled such purpose. The rough high school experiences don’t inspire Indian students to pursue education, and the direct consequence is high dropout rates. High school dropout is usually leads to drug abuse. From several researches, we can see that substance abuse has become a severe issue among Indian students. “The rates of drug use among dropouts are higher than that found in schools, and with American Indian dropout rates that averages around 50%; the levels of drug use in the age cohort represent a highly serious and significant community problem.”[3]This data is collected from Trends in Drug Use among American Indian Students and Dropouts, 1975 to 1994. The author provides many numerical data in his journal to explanation of the correlation between school attendance and drug abuse. One story happened when Victor is in second grade high school shows how his teacher fails to educate a student. Betty Towle, the teacher, gave students a spelling test one time and Victor spelled all the words correctly. However, she did not encourage Victor but demanded him to eat the paper and cut his braid. Such acts make students who lost interest in school and dropout; what comes after are usually unemployment and poverty because the lack of technical and social skills. Those two factors usually lead so substance abuse, especially alcoholism among Indian teenagers. Drinking becomes the second method for them to paralyze themselves from life problems. The only way to tack this issue is through early stage psychological intervention in schools. Apparently many young Indians are experiencing mental health issues. However due the incomplete school system and limited resources, those students can hardly find professional to seek help.
The biggest problem, which leads to all other issue is the mental trauma caused by teachers in reservation schools. One scene in Sherman’s book reveals such issue: “Betty Towle, missionary teacher, redheaded and so ugly that no one ever had a puppy crush on her, made me stay in for recess fourteen days straight. 8. ‘Tell me you're sorry,’ she said. ‘Sorry for what?’ I asked. ‘Everything,’ she said and made me stand straight for fifteen minutes, eagle-armed with books in each hand... ‘Indians, indians, indians.’ She said it without capitalization. She called me ‘indian, indian, indian.’”.[1]This is good example of neglect and misclassification that happens on the reservation schools. Victor drew a picture of her riding a broom with a scrawny cat on the back and the teacher takes it personally and uses Victor’s identity to against him. Later, she set Victor “aside and gave him a test designed for junior high students” while Victor is an high school student.
Mcshane has discovered a correlation between education failure and misclassification in his An Analysis of Mental Health Research with American Indian Youth. “For a multitude of reasons, cultural and linguistic minorities in North America are at greater risk for educational failure, mental illness and economic disability. This also means, therefore, that they are referred, evaluated, and diagnosed more often, and consequently are at very high risk for experiencing misclassification.”[4] The author investigates mental illness among American Indians and the causes, and one main cause is inappropriate teachers. Teachers in reservations school are aware of issue among Native Americans. However, they tend to be passive on this issue instead of providing help or counseling to Native American students. From what we learnt in Sherman’s book, the teachers hold no respect or trust towards those students. They stereotype the Indian students as alcoholic therefore shows no sympathy towards Victor when he went through seizure and was sent into hospital because of diabetes.[1] The story reinforces the fact that Native American teenagers need attention particularly on their health status. While most families does not have the ability to provide help, school, as the other pathway is also blocked due to the discriminations that are hold against them and the unequal treatment they received from peers and teachers. The issue has gone so severe that Native American students choose suicide or drug abuse as a solution to resolve their mental health issue. A proper education system should be form in reservation area to prevent such vicious circle.
Overall, we could see Native American students are mistreated in school both by their peers and teachers. The unpleasant or somewhat humiliating experiences they receive from school leads to high drop out rate, mental illness and substance abuse. Other researches also indicate such conclusion. Early interventions should be used to stop such cases and education system within reservation should be reform to serve the purpose of education.