Beyond Bleakness Summary

Books
1. Trafzer, Clifford E., Jean A. Keller, and Lorene Sisquoc. Boarding School Blues : Revisiting American Indian Educational Experiences. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2006.
Summary: This source is of viewpoints on the education of American Indians in boarding school. It delivers accounts on many different topics inside of these school systems, from the strict regimens, sports, religion, suppression of native languages, and the harsh punishments. Like in other books and articles not all of the descriptions are negative, there were some positive aspects that these students took away from their time at these schools. The first chapter titled “Beyond Bleakness” describes two articles written with a positive and negative outcome. …show more content…
It is stated that the beliefs and teaching of Native Americans highly differed from the European education system. A list of ten “values” of the European education system was given. An account of a Native American who went to a boarding school was given. He states that he attended the school for seven years. He recollects that during the first years attending the school many try to keep their Native American ways. He says that eventually after hearing that their beliefs are wrong year after year that they started to believe it too. They eventually turned on their own people and say them as inferior to the white man. The last part of the article surfaces the new thinking of the education system after Roosevelt gets involved. Even when the education of Native Americans changed, equality for Native Americans shifted …show more content…
Part 1 describes how these Indian boarding schools came about, through treaties and the individual Captain Richard Henry Pratt. Part 2 describes the mission schools and how the government at first provided annual funding for these schools. It is mentioned though that the funding slowly abated. Part 3 depicts the boarding schools, stating that whether the schools were on or off the reservations that they all had similar characteristics. These comparable features included a strict policy on the English language, a military routine, and an academic curriculum on vocational and academics. Part 5 includes positives and negative about these schools. Even with all the negatives stated there are positive testimonies from some of the student stating that even with these harsh conditions, friendships and even sometimes marriages came out of these boarding

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