Resources

American Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many

Narrated by Charla Bear

Read or Listen to Full Article here

Source: Charla Bear. “American Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many.” May 12, 2008. National Public Radio (NPR)

Boarding schools were seen as a way to assimilate Native American students into the dominant culture and teach them western values. Usually, little emphasis was placed on education, and students often were abused and lived in unsanitary conditions. In contrast, some students who attended boarding schools had positive experiences. In the present day, schools like Sherman are a far cry from original boarding schools. Native culture is now an integral part of the curriculum and Native American students feel a sense of kinship with other students like them.

Unseen Tears: The Native American Boarding School Experience in Western

Short Documentary

Native American families in Western New York continue to feel the impact of the Thomas Indian School and the Mohawk Institute. Survivors speak of traumatic separation from their families, abuse, and a systematic assault on their language and culture. 30min, 2013 | 13+

Carlisle Indian Industrial School: Indigenous Histories, Memories and Reclamations

The Carlisle Indian School (1879–1918) was an audacious educational experiment. Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt, the school’s founder and first superintendent, persuaded the federal government that training Native children to accept the white man’s ways and values would be more efficient than fighting deadly battles. The result was that the last Indian war would be waged against Native children in the classroom.

More than 8,500 children from virtually every Native nation in the United States were taken from their homes and transported to Pennsylvania. Carlisle provided a blueprint for the federal Indian school system that was established across the United States and also served as a model for many residential schools in Canada. The Carlisle experiment initiated patterns of dislocation and rupture far deeper and more profound and enduring than its founder and supporters ever grasped.      

Carlisle Indian Industrial School offers varied perspectives on the school by interweaving the voices of students’ descendants, poets, and activists with cutting-edge research by Native and non-Native scholars. These contributions reveal the continuing impact and vitality of historical and collective memory, as well as the complex and enduring legacies of a school that still affects the lives of many Native Americans.