Employees/Extending the reach of the Bureau

This photo was taken from the book titled "Rapid City Indian School"
The superintendants were the school's public face. They were the most publicly visible members of its staff. They represented the school to Rapid City residents, businesses, and civic organizations, spoke to reservation officials, corresponded with parents and traveled to reservations to meet prospective students. It spoke of the reputation of Chauncey Yellow Robe, a native american, who graduated from Carlisle Indian School. He was employed at the Rapid City Indian in 1904 as an industrial teacher and was later advanced to disciplinarian. Mr Yellow Robe represented both the Indian past, rooted rooted in political and economic dependence, and one possible future, economic and social assimilation. He told of his struggles to maintain his employment status along with raising his two daughters as a single father. He was an excellent role model for the make students at the school, over the superintendents.
There were a total of 31 employees at the Indian School attending to a total of 250 to 300 children. Work at the school was year round; as a government institution with a stable budget, the school offered its work force, whites and Indians alike,, a level of job security unknown in the private sector. Nine of the thirty one employees were Indians. The titles held in these positions were: seamstress, assistant positions, shoe and harness maker, industrial teacher, cook, baker, laundress, financial clerk, the physician, matron and four teachers. Superintendent House not only avoided hiring women with children, but also preferred not to employ parents who had children attending the school. "Parents naturally want to exercise authority over their own children, and resent in a measure the authority exercised by a school, if same is done in their immediate presence", he stated to the commissioner of Indian Affairs. It is quite frequent to run into problems between the parent and the other employees when they come into contact with their children.
The employees most successful at the school were those who internalized the value and mission of the school.

When Rapid City Indian School opened 1898, Indian children attended day schools, reservation baording schools, and off reservation schools under threat of force, represented by reservation superintendents and Indian police. Hostile to Indian cultures adn suspicious of Indian parents, neither officials in Washington nor BIA employees in the field trusted Indian parents and children to see the value of government education. Rather than address Indian concerns, educators enforced their conviction that they knew what was right for Indians with the disciplinarian's strap and the school and agency jails.

Dollars, No Sense

Cycles of Days and Years/Discipline, punishment and violence

This picture is taken from the book titled Rapid City Indian school. In this section of the book, it talked about the different types of events that take place in and around the school that the children and their families are allowed to take part in. On June 25, 1904 Indians from reservations in South Dakota and Montana began arriving at Rapid City for the "Council of Nations," a political and social gathering of northern tribes meeting under the guise of celebrating the Fourth of July. The celebration was a fine day for Indians and towns people alike which begin with a grand parade in the morning, with students of the Rapid City Indian school leading the way. The afternoon festivites included games for all ages with prizes (gifts) donated by businesses houses and others. Although Indians and whites alike participated in the fourth of july, they did not always agree on the celebration's meanings. For the whites, the day celebrated nationhood adn the achievements of their state and municipality. For the indians, it provided an opportunity to voice the concerns of the gathered tribes and remind whites of their treaty obligations and to call on them to share the wealth flowing out of the Black Hills.

The school year began on a variety of schedules. Children typically worked a half day at tasks that the BIA defined as vocational training but were in fact routine work necessary to keep the school running and attended academic classes the other half day. The daily routine resembled that of a basic training in the military. The students rose early to the sound of a bell, in between rising and breakfast they made their beds, washed up, dressed and brought their beds, lockers, and clothing to military standards of perfection. Students with early morning duties, such as milking cows or working in the mess hall, rose earlier and had less time to prepare before going to work. After breakfast, students had a few minutes to return to their dormitories before going on work details or going to class. By lunch time, the student' day was nearly over as they switched activities in the afternoon, and those who studied in teh morning went on afternoon work details. Only after a late supper did students have time to themselves, when they could catch up on shining shoes, repairing clothes, and all other "personal maintenance." The school offered sports for the children to take part in such as, basketball, football, which also brought about team competition with surrounding schools. Most but not all of the Rapid City students had summer vacations. All had the opportunity to go home at government expense at the end of their three year terms of enlistment at the school. Those runaways were forced to stay through the summer as a form of punishment.
Some of the methods of punishment might have been taken from army practice. Running away was also physically dangerous for the students as most were too far away from their home reservations to venture out in the prarie by themselves. The winters were to dangerous as it brought about dangers such as frost bite and sickness so severe that caused amputation.
The "real dangers" of military descipline lay in the disrupted lives of students who did not flourish under the system.
The school's harsh discipline and inadequate supervision had lifelong consequences.

Curriculum

I retrieved this image from google images. The photo is the girls' basketball teams at the 1929 tournament at the Rapid City Indian School. The Bismarck Indian school team is front and center in the white sweat shirts, witht he Rapid City team above them in the top two rows. The teams on the left and right are the Pine Ridge and Pierre Indian School teams, but it is not clear which is which.
Language was a critical issue at federal indian boarding schools. First and foremost, the BIA wanted indian children to be taught the english language. The Commissioner J.D.C Atkins stated " the first step to be taken toward civilization, toward teaching the Indians the mischief and foly of continuing in their barbarous practices, is to teach them the English language." He concluded by saying that the content of American civilization and citizenship could not be transmitted through Indian languages but only through English.
The school employed two teachers, one instructing young students and one the older students. The school had an enrollment of 80 students. The curriculum consisted of what was called the half and half schedule. This is where the students and teachers had a half a day to cover material that took a full day in the public schools. The schedule seriously retarded laerning. Any added time needed for instruction was to come out of the students' free time. The meriam report called for the outright elimination of the half and half schedule for the first six grades. To provide the indian children with opportunities at least comparable to the white children, they needed full time schooling with time for play and recreation through age fourteen. Unfortunately the elimination of the half and half schedule could not be eliminated due to the lack of funding, time and little or no support of the BIA; Rapid City Indian school remained on the half and half schedule. Student labor was up and running with the other half of the school day being spent learning hands on instruction. The instruction included sewing for the girls and shoe and harness making for the boys. Because students spent much of their time doing such "productive" labor, they learned far less than they might have in their academic subjects.

Providing for the children

I found this photo of the Rapid City Indian School on google images.
This section of the book went into full detail on how the children's needs were met. It discussed the the kinds of food they were given and how many mouths there were to feed. They fed anywhere from 250 to 300 children at every meal with the help of the girls in the kitchen and the boys in the bakery. Such large quantities of food didn't necessarily mean that the children ate well. The food was divided among so many mouths, that it was not always well prepared. The kids use to get pretty hungry as they were only given such a small amount of food. It wasn't until 1929 that the food menus showed considerable improvement in variety and the use of dairy products.
Health care for Indian students remained the most pressing need at the Rapid City Indian School. The indian populations were coming in contact with a variety of diseases such as smallpox epidemics, measles, influenxa and worst of all, tuberculosis. When an epidemic spread through the school, the staff could only nurse the sick and hope for their recovery. When time did not favor recovery, as when students wasted away from tuberculosis, schools often granted families wishes and sent the children home to die. Students received care from a full time nurse, assisted by students, and a local physician employed part time by the school. Poor health conditions became the norm at the Rapid City Indian School. The school's greatest failing was its inability to provide adequate health care for students, a problem directly attributable to inadequate appropriations. By the mid 1920's, the Rapid City Indian School was not a healthy environment for children.

Many Roads to Rapid

I retrieved this photo of the book from flikr.com
I am reading The Rapid City Indian School by Scott Riney for our Foundations of American Education class. I chose this book as I feel that I have more of a personal connection due to the fact that Rapid City is located near the Cheyenne River Reservation which is where I am from. I thought that it would be neat to learn about what it was like for the children of the reservations to be taken to Rapid City and put in boarding schools away from their parents. Honestly, I did not realize that there was a boarding school located in Rapid City, but as I opened the book, it suddenly all became clear to me. This first chapter along with the introduction tell about the location of the school. The Indian School existed from 1898 until 1933, which at this time closed down to make way for a tuberculosis sanatorium also known as Sioux San.
Some students attended unwillingly,poverty forced others from their families and for some it was an opportunity to gain an education, to meet students from other tribes or to follow in the footsteps of other family members. For Indian children from the reservations of Wyoming, Montana and western South Dakota there were many roads to Rapid.
A superintenden by the name of Collins did a lot of the recruiting of students from Pine Ridge, Shoshone Agency of Wyoming, and the Cheyenne River Agency of South Dakota. He took them to the school in wagons driven cross country in cold weather that was hard on the children and the superintendent alike. Recruitment was also done by sending out enticing catalogs describing the school and it's many opportunities and advantages.
I found myself deeply involved as I continue to read and am looking forward to taking a journey down the path that my anscestors once took.

"I Could Always Plow a Pretty Straight Line" - Chapter 3

One of things in the chapter that I learned and outraged me, was that the children were more-or-less forced into manual labor.

The photo at the left came from the blog of Tom Benjey, and it shows the fields surrounding Chilocco.

The Chilocco theory was that every man needed a trade. The way they applied this was to essentially force the boys into manual labor.

They thought that Indian youth were a shy and timid people, that needed to be exposed to both people and tools. Perhaps the youth were less shy, and only intimidated by their non-native counterparts.

"The Fines' School on Earth" - Chapter 2

This photo came from a website titled: Chilocco Restoration (http://www.chiloccorestoration.com)

One of the things in this chapter that stood out to me was the references to Ms. McCormick, the students thought of her as a mother in many ways. She was able to share compassion while also, keeping order. Many of the personal relections of her, were of a positive nature.

Another amazing thing I learned in this chapter, was that the students prepared the food. Although, the meals were planned by Ms. McCormick, the students were charged with the preparation they were remarked as being "...bland and boring...".

Another thing that stood out to me in this chapter, was the hiring of the Matrons & disciplinarians. The matrons by today's standards were quite unqualified. With very little required to gain a position.

"They Called It Prairie Light" Chapter I

As simple as it seems, I felt that it was only appropriate that I insert of picture of my own family. In reading the story of the Chilocco Indian school, it brought about thoughts and emotions. Feelings of lonliness as I think of and miss my sister and brother and what it would be like to be seperated from them for an entire school year. An entrie school year away would feel like and eternity. I can not relate to the experiences of boarding schools, as I was raised at home and attended school at Cheyenne Eagle Butte schools all of my life. In reading about the school in general, my take is this: I could not imagine having ever been away from my family, as I was raised at home by my mom and dad and am proud to say that I come from a "tight Knit" family. Not to say that most of those who were placed in boarding schools did not come from good families. Each individuals' story is different and the circumstances vary. I know that the experiences differ as I hear stories; some good and some bad.
My dad attended the Cheyenne Agency boarding school for most of his life. My dad comes from a big family of five boys and five girls, all of whom have had boarding school experiences for most of their lives. He says that it was good, you got three meals a day, were always cleaning and learned to always fix your bed as soon as you got out of bed. He chuckles and says that to this day he gets up and instantly fixes his bed. He says that the only time they went home was during holidays, which happened to be twice a year. He was sent to live in the dormitories as his family lived too far out in the country and lacked the transportation needed to get to school on a daily basis. My dad says that you could talk to just about anybody and they will tell you about their dormitory experience. I truly believe that boarding school made and molded my dad to be the person that he is.
As I listen to my dad tell of his experiences, I wonder about what my grandparents at home and what they were thinking. Did they truly enjoy this time away from the children, did they miss them or what exactly were their thoughts? As a mother, I would not ever consider sending my daughter or my son away for the school year, as I feel that it is my obligation to get them through school and endure all of the hardships that may come along. I would feel cheated out of the many experiences as a mother; showing them the love and affection, helping them to overcome their fears, watching them grow, being capable of providing them with the proper medical care that they deserve, teaching them about our culture, helping them through when times get tough, and being a part of their education.

What purpose does education have in today's society?

My belief is that education's purpose in today's society is to educate and target mainly the younger generation in order to prepare them for reality that waits ahead. My reason for looking mainly at the younger generation is that all too often they are overlooked and thrown to the wayside and most times expected to already know all that there is to know in order to strive or survive. In my past experiences in working with the my peer's and older generation, I have observed that they are at a point in their life where no one is going to tell them the way that things should be done or a more appropriate way of approaching life in general. So many older people are so set in their ways that there is no resetting their frame of mind and the way that they see things as a whole. I feel that it is up to our generation to step up to the plate and educate the minds of our young and be consistent in hopes of molding and making them out to be productive citizens in the near future. The teachings were at one time generational, and somewhere along the way those teachings have been lost and slowly are dwindling. I cannot credit too many of my teachings to my grandparents or even my parents, alot of what I learned was on my own. I will in turn teach my own children in hopes of bringing about the generational concept once again.

Light of Eternity

Light of Eternity
Originally uploaded by Loci Lenar

I found this picture on Flikr.com that represents and aspect of me, can you guess what aspect that is? Good Luck! Laters

3 truths and 1 lie

Howdy Ya'll

One of the following four statements about me is a lie~decide which one is and then let me know why you chose that statement. See if you know me as well as you think you do! Thank ya much...Laters:-)

• I am the mother of four children of my own
• I am the middle child
• I am an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe
• I recently got married on 09-09-09