American Indian Education

I feel like I’m learning new definitions of “learning” every time I do readings for this class. Reading the two articles by Szasz and Ryan and Fera-Segal, I thought American Indians were learning the meanings of socially constructed symbols. I found it particularly interesting that Carlisle School utilized Man-On-The-Bandstand (MOTB) to “educate” the students. Students were taught “to dress, talk, behave, and think like white Americans” (p.101, Fear-Segal). In other words, students were learning what clothes, the gestures, and all the socially constructed objects and situations mean in the school. They called it acculturation. The presence of MOTB was to intimidate and arouse guilt in students to enhance desired behaviors from the students. However, the effectiveness could not be expected unless students understood how to interpret such presence. According to Fear-Segal:

“the gaze of authority, as envisaged by Bentham, might be intimidating to them, but it would fail to trigger the personal remorse and guilt deems essential for inner transformation. At the Carlisle school, therefore, inspection would have little effect unless it was accompanied by an interpretive voice that was able to furnish this inner narrative for Indian children” (p. 111).

Hence, the “transformation” of Indian students into “white American” was not only about materials, but also regarding internal change.

I wonder whether such domination was necessary. When I went to China, a lot of places were under construction because the economy was rapidly developing. However, one of the problems was the loss of traditional Chinese architecture and cultures. I feel like China was in a similar situation in which culture and socially constructed meanings are changing to become more “westernized.” It is important to learn different cultural values but domination is something different. I want to think more about it.