For today's assignment, we were tasked with reading Indigenous resistance and racist schooling on the borders of empires: Coast Salish cultural survival by Michael Maker and respond to it. This piece's primary focus was to inform the audience about the history behind educational inequalities among indigenous populations in the region between Northwest Washington and British Columbia. This piece also describes how the indigenous tribes have addressed and dealt with this discrimination.
The author brings to light the fact that normal public schools and the schools created by the government for native North Americans suppressed the beliefs and history of the Coast Salish tribe. The assimilation schools that the government caused the young members of these tribes to loose touch with their heritage. This form of education built barriers between the tribes, even though they shared borders and histories.
I believe that this education system was flawed. First off, sending a specific group of individuals away to be educated away from their heritage is racist. Annexing away indigenous children creates an "us versus them" mentality in other school children. I was impressed to hear that the aboriginal communities of this region persevered through this discrimination, and are to this day able to educate their tribal youth about the importance of tribal traditions.
No comments:
Post a Comment