Boarding schools and Ojibway education

¶ … Native American boarding schools of the Ojibway tribe. Native American schools (Indian Schools) were a way of life for Native American children in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These schools, made mandatory by the government, kept children and parents apart and attempted to remove any traces of Native language and customs from the children. For most young Native Americans, the boarding schools they attended gave them nothing but bad memories and emotional scars.

The Ojibway Tribe is one of the biggest and spread out bands of Indians in North American, with over 150 bands, mostly in the Northeast and Canada (Editors). They are known by a variety of names, as one historian note, "The various tribal names in use include Chippewa, Ojibway, Ojibwa, Ojibwe, Anishinabe, and Anishinaabe" (Child 117). They first lived on the East Coast of North America, but later migrated to their current tribal lands, largely in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Another historian notes the origin of the tribal name. She writes, "There are several explanations for the derivation of the word 'Ojibwa.' Some say it is related to the word 'puckered' and that it refers to a distinctive type of moccasin that high cuffs and a puckered seam" (Roy). Like most Native Americans, the Ojibway people were forced to send their young people to boarding schools, located far from the reservations. Author Roy continues, "Federal policy toward Native education emphasized Native American assimilation into U.S. society. Consequently, instruction in vocational skills was promoted over the teaching of Native traditions. In fact, Native traditions and languages were forbidden in the educational context provided by the government and mission schools" (Roy). These boarding schools became a contentious part of Ojibway life for decades, and their educational model ended centuries of Ojibway culture, traditions, and lifestyle.

Boarding schools prepared the children for life in white society, usually in some kind of service or trade, and few of the teachers were Native American, so the children quickly lost their traditional language, culture, and belief systems. The schools tore families apart, and this was especially difficult for the Ojibway, who traditionally lived their lives according to the seasons, especially the seasonal harvesting times. Another author notes, "The routine of boarding school life presented problems for Ojibwe students and their parents whose lives had long revolved around seasonal and natural rhythms. School administrators grew frustrated because those students who did return home for a vacation stayed away from school until tribal celebrations were over in the summer" (Child 52). Families also harvested wild rice together, since they relied on their children to help with the harvest, and since the rice was a major part of their diet, they baulked at sending their children off to school before the harvest was completed. Another author notes, "Truancy, a direct result of population movements, emerged as a contributing factor to the creation of Indian boarding schools in the twentieth century. Clearly, Ojibway families were inclined to let nothing stand in the way of traditional harvests" (Vennum 155). These harvests could last until October, and many boarding school directors simply waited until the harvest was over to begin the school year (Vennum 154).

Most of the students at these Indian boarding schools did not enjoy the experience. In fact, running away was a common occurrence for the schools. Author Child notes, "For many Indian children who lived and worked at boarding schools, often enduring many unhappy years before they again saw their homes or families, running away became a common occurrence, indeed even a universal thread that united boarding school students through the decades" (Child 6). There are stories of parents being charged with kidnapping because they kept their child home from the government-mandated schools (Child 5), and many boarding school letters home indicate just how unhappy the children were at being separated from their families. One boy writes, "I do not like the food and we have to pay for everything we do. I am going home so you must not be sorry I will get there some day if you send the money. I have to pay 15.00 dollar to go home if you send it I go home right away" (Child 87). And another young girl wrote to her family, "A young Ojibwe girl from the Red Lake Reservation offered a simple explanation after she and an accomplice broke out of Flandreau late one Saturday night: 'We wanted to go home because we were just sick of this place'" (Child 89). Visits home were frowned upon and discouraged, and most Indian families could not afford to pay for the long journey home from the schools, so children remained there year-round until their schooling was complete in many cases.

However, many families did see the worth of a formal education for their children. Author Child notes, "Still, many Ojibwe parents, persuaded of the importance of an education or learning a trade for their child's future, would have agreed with the North Dakota father whose son and daughter attended Flandreau when he expressed his desire for their success in school and wish to keep them there, 'as much as we can stand it'" (Child 54). These parents often hoped their children would receive an education, but also learn a trade, so they could make their way in the world as adults. In theory, children attended school for half the day, and then learned a vocation the other half. However, often, this did not occur. Author Childs states, "The rest of the school day was devoted to vocational training, which consisted primarily of labor at the school. Prior to the 1930s, students who arrived at Flandreau were disappointed to find that formal instruction in the manual trades was sadly lacking" (Child 73). In fact, most of the boys worked on the school's farm as their vocational training, and many of the girls were hired out to local families as maids and servants.

One of the most tragic results of the boarding school experience was the loss of cultural, religious, and lifestyle traditions that occurred in the children. Another author notes, "[D]uring the six years they had attended reservation boarding school and resolved to reacquaint them with Anishinaabe ways. Having been separated from their mother for six years, only the oldest daughter retained any knowledge of the Anishinaabe language and translated conversation for all the others" (Meyer 117). The entire intent of the boarding schools was to "civilize" the Native children, and in doing so, they turned them into Christians who no longer remembered their Tribe's traditions, celebrations, and folk tales, and it has taken some Tribes decades to recapture these lost traditions.