Survival Schools (1978)

in Berkeley. The longest walk from the west coast all the way to Washington recently focused national attention on important Native American issues. One of these is a continuing need for sensitivity to Indian education needs. Reporter Wendy Blair spoke with several students from a Native American survival school. When I was little you know I went to a public school and every morning we got up and we had to see the Pledge of Allegiance with your hands on your hand on the heart. Justice for all and I was thinking justice for who? My people isn't getting justice. Susie Bellcourt, an Ojibwe Indian and Janice Banks at Chippewall both stopped going to public schools some time ago. They say because their experiences there were too traumatic. I attended a

public school north side of Minneapolis, Minnesota. One day we all went down to auditorium and there's this big you know band drum in the back and all these non-Indian kids they went back there and they grabbed that drum and they come out and start you know pounding it you know like the white way. Not the way that we pawned a drum and there was only three Indian kids in my class and they hired at us. They said hey you Indians come dance first otherwise we're going to beat you up. These girls are not typical Indian teenagers because their families have been leaders in the American Indian movement and their lives imbued with a high degree of Indian pride. Nevertheless their experience with non-Indian schools is probably not so different from that of many Native Americans. The Indian has to cope with the white system, white America and that's hard and it's hard being Indian and then trying to be coping with these white people. Why? Because the Indian is

one with Mother Earth. The Indian is really strong inside but when he goes to a city or a public school he becomes two people. The split personality. They brainwash you you know just wash out your heads and take away all your culture and put in the white culture because large numbers of Native Americans have felt the same feelings of conflict and loss. Indian parents began to set up their own alternative schools. Heart of the Earth and the Red School House Survival Schools were both set up in the Minneapolis area early in 1972. After Wounded Knee came the We Will Remember Survival School in South Dakota. Survival schools they teach you about your culture, your language and they also teach you your English and mathematics and health but our culture is slowly dying and our ancestors they want us to keep our culture going. Teach our children their culture and their language so that

they can teach you know their children it goes on and on. Now there are seven survival schools in the United States that are totally controlled by Indian parents and another dozen or so Native American programs within public schools. Center School in Minneapolis has one of these where the students 80% of whom are Indian can take special courses in Indian history and culture. These programs are all eligible for federal funding under Title IV of the Indian Education Act of 1972. We learn the songs honoring songs, Aimsong, Flakesong, Thunderbird song. So their first song ceremony songs, Sundance songs. We learn all that. We learn how to make our t-pies, make our sword lodges, our games and that. I never learned about Tip of Canoe until I went to this