Sherman School

The testimonies and stories shared by the Sherman high school alumni, faculty and staff provide the viewer with a very positive view on the school. The school provides opportunities that students would not have had on reservations, a community is developed and friends become family, and alternate histories are taught. Students, in recent times, are not dissuaded from embracing their own culture and we see in the valedictorian and salutatorian speeches that the students encourage each other to be proud of their identities. All of these accounts were the opposite of what I expected to see. Reading Fear-Segal’s essay on the Carlisle School, I expected to hear former students present their traumatic experiences and judge their Sherman experience with resentment. I expected the construction of the film to be centered around attacking the Sherman school because I couldn’t imagine someone praising an institution developed to take the Indian out of his “wild state” to redeem his race and praise the glory of god. Maybe because the cultural white-washing and militarization that is so evident in the formative years of the school are challenged in our seminar. Such things like the students living by the bell and constantly being kept busy, bodies being trained for labor and therefore becoming a part of society is not an occurrence we normally praise. But the alumni might argue that this actually taught them skills and a better life. It was actually these things that helped in creating a community. Common experiences, both positive and negative, unite people and this to me was one of the strongest elements of the film. The film provides a ground level view (of course edited and with an intention served) while many of our theorists discuss institutional, teaching, and the different ways in which we learn.