Teaching English to American Indians.

Abstract

The education provided to American Indians by the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) over the last two centuries has received considerable justified criticism by both Indians and non-Indians. How-ever, it is important to realize that the BIA has also attempted to im-prove the quality of Indian education throughout its history. This pa-per details efforts within the BIA to improve Indian education, espe-cially in regard to the teaching of English. It concentrates on the use of the “object method ” at the end of the Nineteenth Century, the impact of Progressive Education in the 1930s and 40s, and the introduction of English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching methods in the 1960s and 70s. Many have heard horrible stories of Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and mission schools punishing students for speaking “Indian ” and the low academic expectations of these schools. Estelle Brown (1952), who started teaching in Indian schools in the 1897, wrote that teaching for the BIA “called for a belief in

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