Celebrating 500 years of Indian Education: A New Smoke Signal

Howard Rainer
Native American Educational Outreach Programs
Brigham Young University

© 2005 by Brigham Young University,
Division of Continuing Education
All rights reserved.

How far have Native American people advanced in 500 years of Indian education? For centuries our Indian people effectively taught and instructed their children in tribal values, morals, survival skills, philosophy, civic responsibility, organization skills, beliefs, spirituality, and reverence of the power of Mother Nature and the Creator God.

Indian education was a daily activity that took place by:

• Observation and personal application
• Hands-on learning
• Experimentation
• Reciting
• Practice under pressure
• Learning from the wisdom of the experienced
• Instruction by the master teacher

Our grandfathers earned their degrees from "courage under fire." Their children attained their diplomas learning "tenacity amidst hardship" and our grandmothers deserved honorary doctoral degrees in "surviving at all costs!"

The days of mission schools and federally operated boarding schools are fading in America. Presently, most of the Indian population under the age of eighteen are now attending a public school, private school, tribal school, or contract school somewhere in America.

Today, Native American men and women are making significant personal and financial sacrifices to attend colleges and universities across this country. The impact of their attaining a college education is profound! They want to come home and serve their people!

Those who have acquired professional skills and training are now operating the thirty Native American colleges spanning North America. College students are being instructed with traditional learning along with non-Native skills that will equip hundreds of Indian men and women to be functional in both worlds.

Perhaps I should make a comment on the challenges some of our Indian young people are encountering in attempting to succeed in education. Despite the hurdles, frustrations, failures, and disappointments experienced by many, there are many more who are wanting, striving, and sacrificing to finish high school and preparing for college. Perhaps those who succeed will be the future teachers and administrators to change the course of those now leaving school disillusioned.

In my travels I am hearing the valiant voices from those daring young people who have big dreams and lofty aspirations. They are talking boldly of becoming a successful business person, an educator, a doctor, scientist, political leader, international consultant, author, screenwriter, or tribal attorney.

But I must ask here, where is Indian or Native education headed into the twenty-first century? Will this generation limp far behind or be running first place in the race for economic, political, and social opportunity? What lies beyond the horizon of the year 2,000 for Indian people? As we celebrate and commemorate what many Native Americans have accomplished and achieved in education, let me ask this bold question:

CAN TECHNOLOGY HELP NATIVE AMERICA THRIVE, SURVIVE, AND BRING US TO THE CUTTING EDGE?

It is estimated today that 35 per cent of all households in America have a computer for family or business use. In education, 55 percent of all new freshmen entering a college or university in America are now "computer literate" or have access to a computer.

Where does this national trend leave the Native American in the United States? Our Indian people are at diverse levels of educational development and attainment.

Today in every tribe and community in North America we have the doomsayers and skeptics who strongly believe that Indian people should resist the use of the computer and that the white man's technology will eventually destroy Native American culture and tradition.

We as educators and advocates for Indian progress need to teach, educate, and enlighten Indian people of all ages that technology and the computer can and will play a powerful role in preserving and enhancing our Native culture, tradition, and rich heritage.

I would like to share some exciting possibilities for the use of technology that perhaps some visionary Indian people are already undertaking to help our elders, traditionalists, tribal leaders, and educators reap the benefits of computers and technology in this country.

Imagine for a moment how one compact disk could store and preserve priceless documents of traditional languages for this generation and beyond. Indian children would have access to hear, read, write, and interact with Native elders and master teachers of a particular tribal language. Students could sit in an individual station and be instructed as if they had a personal instructor who could teach and make a tribal language come alive. There is even the possibility of animation-created stories to generate creativity with the student.

I did not know myself how much traditional and cultural information can be stored on one hard drive, floppy disk, or CD-ROM. I caught the vision! Today tribal elders can translate and share between 6,000 and 8,000 pages of documents on a single 650 megabyte CD. Entire tribal collections and records of Indian tribes can now be easily preserved. Copies could be instantly made for archival and family use, and for Indian museums.

Indian young people and children could learn the fundamentals of Native American singing and dancing from Indian experts utilizing the use of the computer. Songs could be heard and recited in time. Images of the functions and reasons for particular dances could be seen and activated on screen. There is no longer an excuse not to have Indian children learn and gain understanding of tribal dancing, singing, and the significance of these important aspects of Indian culture. We can now have our culture emulated and eat the cake of positive validation too!

Tribal elders and traditionalists now have the potential to teach accurate Native American history or tribal history through the use of computerized graphics, illustrations, historical tribal documents, and imagery from the past. Hundreds of photographs could be incorporated into their presentations to generate interest and learning for tribal history by a student. Imagine non-Indian teachers finally having ACCURATE information to teach their students on Indian history on our terms!

Today there are thirty Native American colleges in this country. Each of these institutions now has the power to interact, correspond, and share instant information with other colleges in this country with large Native student populations by e-mail. We can keep in touch and informed of what is happening on Indian and non-Indian campuses by the touch of the keyboard, or the click of the mouse. (I am not talking about a rodent or a mousetrap; I am talking about computer terminology.)

Can you imagine how encouraging it would be for an Indian college student to receive e-mail daily from a concerned Indian parent, tribal leader, or spiritual leader who wishes to encourage an Indian freshman homesick and wanting to quit? Every evening there could be electronic personal communication by e-mail in the privacy of his dorm. Home-sickness will diminish substantially. Sweethearts and spouses can now be just a keyboard away!

Potential Indian historians, Indian authors, and blooming Native American writers could utilize the potential of the computer to generate volumes of contemporary Indian history compiled and shared by Indian elders and today's Indian leadership. With the availability of the laptop and desktop publishing, we no longer have to apologize and timidly whisper who we are and what we are all about! We can boldly proclaim our independence from others' speaking for us! Tribal leaders now have at their fingertips the ability to "surf" the Internet for instant access to needed information pertaining to any current Native American political and economic issue.

There is an abundance of governmental information that can be accessed to make sound decisions regarding land, water, and natural resource issues. Indian people can now engage in political, legal, and economic skirmishes that once were lopsided. The cellular phone, laptop, and fax machine are truly the contemporary tomahawks for taking coup!

It is exciting to envision how high tech will assist Indian tribes as they interact instantly with one another on pressing state or national Indian issues. Indian leaders and their legal counsel can now be alerted instantly on unfavorable state and Congressional legislation pertaining to tribal sovereignty. Small tribes can now send out a war cry of help through the Internet to larger tribes, if the bullies of vested interest, state intervention, and power brokers threaten them!

A case in point is the recent victory of Indian tribes over Senator Slade Gorton (R-Wash) and his failed attempts to attach measures 118 and 120 to a $113.8 billion appropriations bill for the Interior Department. Computer technology and high tech communications has become the new "smoke signal" for Indian tribes. Indian communities and tribes will now be able to generate an instant flow of public relations information on their terms with the outside media. If there is an Indian issue within a state that needs to be addressed by a tribe, the use of the laptop, fax machine, and e-mail to send commentary to a radio station or newspaper will inform the public and give needed background information from an Indian perspective that was never there before.

The Indian now has access to express his views and change public opinion! Gone are the days of jammed guns and broken bows; we now have the Web site as the new arsenal!

I look forward with great anticipation to the day when our spiritual leaders, and leaders of other religious faiths can join forces and have a nationwide healing and spiritual building broadcast by telecommunications. There could be a national prayer service for our young people and those who have problems. Spiritual instruction teaching the need for the rebirth of morals, beliefs, and faith in our Indian communities is now a reality. Can you imagine how many Indian people across this country could be strengthened from such presentations by satellite?

Tribal members who could not afford the luxury of attending a national Indian education conference will now be able to see the proceedings by satellite. An entire Native American community will no longer have to be left out in the dark of what is happening nationally with various Indian issues. So tribal leaders, beware in the near future! Your voters will be watching you behind the big screen!

We now have the instant capacity to invite or inform Indian parents of a school event. While getting off a plane in the Northwest, a Native American from a tribal school pointed his digital camera at me and took one image. When we arrived at the school he took a few more pictures while I was in the classroom. He then went to his computer and created a poster in a matter of seconds announcing a parent night with Howard Rainer.

The young people must have gotten these posters home to their parents. That evening we had a large attendance of parents. The new Indian runner or messenger is the digital camera and the computer.

Try to imagine what "distant leaming" will do for Indian education! Education and training will become more accessible to Indian people across this country. Those who do not want to leave their homes, communities, and jobs will have educational programs and college instruction brought right into their home by way of TV sets. Accredited courses will be taught through interactive communications courses where students are lectured by an instructor hundreds of miles away. Specialized training will be transmitted with ease. The possibilities are astounding to the daring innovator, the creative instructor, and the visionary educator.

I dream of many other exciting and innovative ways the computer and technology will help our people, our elders, our way of life stay alive and well. We can preserve our culture. We can voice our positions. We can transmit instant smoke signals of awareness and mobilization. We can now rewrite Indian history on our terms! If we hide in the darkness of ignorance and resistance, outside forces will surely take advantage of the uninformed, illiterate, and nonusers of technology. We have a choice in this!

If any of you think fast-paced technology is not advancing into Indian country, let me share with you in closing this one interesting observation.

I was attending a powwow and saw a traditional dancer suddenly stop in his tracks because his pager went off. He immediately left the arena and went to his seat where he picked up his cellular phone. He made his call and calmly went back to his dancing. Indian tradition and technology perhaps can be friends—what do you say about the new smoke signals rising in the sky?

Indian America, let us not leave our children and the next generation stranded along technology's superhighway!