Indigenous learner

Indigenous learners are members of sovereign nations, speakers of heritage languages, and members of diverse cultural groups. Indigenous learners include Australian aborigines, New Zealand Māoris, American Indians, and Alaska Natives as well as members of nearly 5,000 different indigenous groups from around the world. The field of curriculum studies recognizes indigenous learners as culturally and politically situated members of sovereign nations and diverse culture groups. Curriculum studies explores the relationship between school programs and the society and culture in which the school is located. Although the majority of these nearly 6 million indigenous peoples retain languages, social customs, economies, and spiritual beliefs and although individual indigenous learners demonstrate preferred learning styles, there is no single adequate description of the indigenous learner and no one way of describing classroom interactions with indigenous learners in terms of learning styles, cultural values, and teaching styles.

American Indians and Alaska Natives make up only 1% of the total U.S. population. They account for 50% of the different languages spoken in the United States. Although American Indian students enter kindergarten with significantly lower reading, mathematics, and general knowledge achievement scores than their mainstream peers, there is evidence that these indigenous learners learn best when they see their culture, language, and experience reflected in the curriculum. Native American children who learn their heritage language in the classroom learn English at about the same rate as their peers who are not enrolled in an indigenous language immersion program.

American Indians have a unique status as sovereign nations within a nation. The treaty rights guaranteed to American Indians in Article II of the U.S. Constitution are the foundation for federally operated schools that serve American Indian students. The majority of American Indian students, 624,000, attend public schools in urban settings or on Indian reservations. The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) operates 184 schools on 63 reservations representing 238 tribes. The BIE is one of only two educational systems administered directly by the U.S. government and the only federal educational system in the continental United States. BIE schools include boarding schools, high schools, border town dormitories, reservation dormitories, and day schools. Indigenous learners also attend tribal contract or grant schools that are managed by a local school board in accordance with the 1988 Indian Self Determination Act and the Tribally Controlled Schools Act. They may also attend public schools that receive federal impact aid funds as well as state tax revenue funds. There are also 35 tribal colleges that serve adult learners on or near Indian reservations.

The history of formal education for the indigenous peoples of the Pacific—New Zealand, Australia, and Hawai'i—parallels the history of education of the American Indian. In New Zealand, the Native Schools Act of 1887 made English part of all government schools. In Hawai'i, the Hawaiian language was banned in public and private schools between 1886 and 1986. In Canada, [Page 468]the Indian Education Act of 1876 began a policy of forced assimilation and separation from their families for indigenous learners. In the United States, in 1868, the Indian Peace Commission advocated the eradication of indigenous languages and the substitution of the English language. In each setting, efforts to revitalize the indigenous language come from an understanding of the history of formal education in colonial times as well as an understanding of the indigenous learner. Without this understanding of the history of education, indigenous learners are often faced with cultural replication models of schooling that lead to a false assumption that they must act White in order to achieve academic success.

...