A lesson plan to teach kids about American Indians

Although the Chief is a science educator (teaching at a Native American school), he is also certified for teaching history and government. These suggestions for Gov. Rounds’ iniative for promoting education seem to hit the spot…unfortunately, probably TOO much to be actually implemented…but it’s nice to dream:

Teach our kids what government did to the American Indians. Under the guise of caring for them, they herded them on to the least-productive parcels of land in the country and packed their children off to boarding schools, where they were forbidden to practice their traditional religion, speak their native language, and were routinely beaten and abused. The lesson: the power of the government to do evil is infinitely greater than its power to do good.

Teach our kids that there was once a scientific and intellectual consensus that American Indians were sub-human. The lesson: Awful things happen when we give people the power to decide what categories of human life are disposable for the sake of convenience.

Teach our kids that the white invasion brought disease, massacre, starvation and alcoholism, but it also brought medicine, literacy, political equality for women, air conditioning and the Bill of Rights. The lesson: The white man brought both blessings and curses to American Indians.

Teach our kids that the Lakota were only here a couple of hundred years before white settlement. Just as we displaced the Lakota, they displaced other American Indian nations which were here 300 to 400 years ago. The lessons: Control illegal immigration and maintain a strong military.

Teach our children about our government’s broken treaties with the American Indians. The lessons: Don’t count on Social Security, and beware of people who speak of “living” or “evolving” historical documents.

Teach our kids to be proud of how the Plains Indians survived in a land with such wild swings in temperature and precipitation. Teach them how American Indians organized their society without lawsuits, Social Security, Oprah, and Anna Nicole Smith. The lesson: Our material abundance has made us soft, selfish and shallow.

Teach our kids about the heroic lives our white ancestors lived. They took incredible risks and sacrificed immensely to build schools, churches, ranches, towns, governments and roads. They gave their time and treasure to benefit generations they’d never meet. Shame on us for scolding them for being racist or imperialist. Shame on us if we don’t teach our children to respect them.

Now THAT is the framework for a course that the Chief would have fun teaching!