Assimilation and Redefinition of Identity

The two papers written by alumni proposed two different ways of American Indian’s cultural transformation. As indicated in the Phoenix Indian School yearbook, the school tried to assimilate American Indians into white American culture by imposing American education, which educates Indian people to shed off their Indian culture and to be “civilized”. In the picture of yearbook, Indians are at the bottom of hierarchy, indicating that their culture is inferior to the American culture. Despite of Collier’s intention to be culturally sensitive, Navajos perceived him simply as “someone belonging to a new group of nationalists that were intending to assimilate Indians in to a new, dominant, modern culture”. Thus Collier failed to assimilate Indians’ identity.
On the contrary, Ms. Stock, a teacher at the Theodore Roosevelt School (TRS) achieved to make the Apache people redefine their cultural identity. By letting Indian students to create a fantasy Apache family and come up with ways of teaching them to be “healthy and happy”, students unconsciously modify their perception and stimulate new ideas for the Apache race—that is, Apaches cannot be healthy and happy without being educated properly. Also, the creation of a new discourse on discipline is designed to “prescribe a ‘cure’ to the perceived ‘problems’ of the Apache race. As a result, students are imprinted with the idea that the Apaches are inferior, possessing undesirable traits people.
I think Ms. Stock succeeded in modifying students’ perception toward Apaches and redefining their identity as Apaches in American civilization because she adopted a “good” teaching method, which is not a banking system of education, nor DI method, but is an education allowing students to think and create by themselves—although the direction is well manipulated by Ms. Stock. I think children are more likely to believe the outcomes attained as a result of own thinking. Thus, students naturally believe that Apaches are inferior and has to be changed because such idea is obtained as a result of own thinking. Education which allows students to think by themselves seems good, but the direction of thinking can be easily manipulated by the instructor’s hidden intention and the study materials.