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.
That is so sad that children were put to work rather than focusing on their studies. I really like the picture you have of the basketball team. (:
ReplyDeleteMemoree -
ReplyDeleteI cannot imagine a school system that incorporated a half and half schedule with only two teachers. Education advocates have certainly made appropriate demands to ensure that today's children have smaller classroom and teacher to student ratios. Although, I have heard of classrooms that still have over 30 children enrolled per grade level.