In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Native Teacher Understanding of Culture as a Concept for Curricular Inclusion
  • Timothy Begaye (bio)

Introduction

Native culture is rapidly changing in the United States. As a result, the loss of language and culture is emerging as a primary concern in indigenous communities throughout the world today. The change or loss as it is described by many educators is potentially permanent and detrimental to the future and diversity of Native people. The changes manifest where tribes are no longer able to pass on traditions to the younger generation, who are the ones to preserve the heritage. Elders already express the loss of traditional ways of knowing, customs, values, rituals, religion, and other traditions historically passed on to their children. The ongoing, prevalent change has become a concern for all Native educators and leaders in the United States.

While change over time is inevitable in any culture, the colonial processes—destruction of lands and wildlife, genocidal extermination, subjugation, alienation and destruction of the family unit, forced relocation, assimilation, and termination—amount to an invasion that has resulted in loss of language and culture.1 Along with the long history of experiments and assimilation by the U.S. federal government, efforts have repeatedly failed to make the Indian like the mainstream.2 Nevertheless, by the same standard of "Kill the Indian, save the man," the pressure to assimilate Native people into mainstream culture has gradually evolved into success in other ways.3 [End Page 35]

Formal schooling in the Western tradition, according to many scholars, has been a successful, major weapon of colonialism and assimilation.4 Early experiments to educate Indian children by removing them from their families, culture, and original environment may have been deemed failures, but the latent effect of the experiments is evident today. In public schools, where the majority of Native children are educated, research shows they are more likely to remain academically behind other ethnic and racial groups of children. Research also shows that, when compared to other groups, Native children and adults have higher rates of being lured into antisocial behavior like drug use and crime, because of social and economic conditions on reservations.5

The experiments with Indian children and the attempts to acculturate them are manifested in society today at numerous levels. Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court John Marshall's original concept of Native nations as dependent domestic nations made a clear distinction between American Indians and the United States as two nations in a nation-to-nation relationship. Decisions subsequent to this 1831 ruling reveal an obvious redefining of this relationship, commonly referred to as sovereignty by many tribal nations. Sociologists and linguists concur that such assimilative policies together have caused the current endangered state of Native languages. In addition, researchers and demographers note Native families' migration from reservation lands to major cities. Yet, at the same time, there is evidence that the social and economic challenges that serve as racist barriers to Native peoples' success in the mainstream are diminishing, and many are succeeding in business and in the political arena.6

It can be argued that changes in Indian country have double-edged consequences: that Native language and culture have diminished and that changes such as past assimilation policies have prepared Native people for success in the mainstream. Indian tribes continue to undergo internal social, economic, and cultural changes that are deemed a "loss" by elders. But many tribes have endured and become successful in other ways. This study attempts to uncover some of the concerns raised by Native teachers about the direction Native communities are headed regarding the status of language and culture. The concepts that guide this exploration are whether language and culture is important to contemporary Native teachers, whether the development and understanding of the terms "language" and "culture" are useful in the classroom, and whether schooling can be recast as a tool to reclaim what has been lost.

Perspectives on Language and Culture and Their Roles in Native Society

That belief that culture consists not just of behaviors but "rather of shared information or knowledge encoded in systems of symbols" has been [End Page 36] proposed by many in the discipline of anthropology, including Clifford...

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