Elementary School History

1202 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Multiculturalism in schools

In my early years of Elementary School I was in a neighborhood with a lot of children who were from different cultures. When I was in third grade I moved to the next town over and went to a different elementary school. This elementary school was completely different considering it was out in the country and only white children attended this school. At that age I was used to Hispanics, Latinos, African-Americans and Asian Americans. When I changed schools, it was almost frightening to see all white students. Even though I went to a school with children that I looked similar to, I did find out that we were all different in our own way. In this school we had a lot of different socio-economical classes present. Fortunately for my family, we have …show more content…

When I was in third grade I called them Indians and didn’t know much about them. I knew I was part Indian but I didn’t know what exactly that meant. I remember sitting on the gym floor with the rest of the third grade class as he talked to us. He explained how they are not called Indians they are Native Americans. In our book ‘Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians but Where Afraid to Ask,’ the author explains that “The word Indian comes from a mistake: on his first voyage to the Americas, Columbus thought the Caribbean was the Indian Ocean and the people there were Indians” (Treuer, 2012, p. 7). The man explained the same thing about how it was actually a mistake. This man was very interesting to listen to. He had a lot of knowledge and dressed as a traditional Native American. This man brought artifacts that Native Americans would have used back when only they, and not the Europeans populated America. The man explained that he is apart of one tribe and that other tribes are different. Treuer also connects this mans knowledge back to our text, “Each tribe had its own culture and customs around gender, and the degree of variance between customs was significant” (Treuer, 2012, p. 22). This man decided to hold our own personal Powwow for our school. He danced around a fake fire and had certain classes hit the drums. He included a lot of students and we learned a lot from this man about the culture of Native Americans. This experience really showed me what it meant to be part Native American and why I should be proud that it is in my

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Daniel Richter's 'Facing East From Indian Country'

    1405 Words  | 3 Pages

    The other author to provide readers with a different historical perspective is Daniel Richter. Richter’s book Facing East from Indian Country allows readers to see the story of coming to America from the Native American perspective. An interesting point that Richter makes in his book is “Perhaps the strangest lesson of all was that in the new nation whites were the ones entitled to be called “Americans” Indians bizarrely became something else” . In early America when the first Europeans arrived to America they mistakenly referred to the natives as “Indians”. Even people today use the term “Indian” when referring to the Native

    Read More

  • The White Man's Indian Summary

    1505 Words  | 4 Pages

    In The White Man’s Indian, Robert Berkhoffer analyzes how Native Americans have maintained a negative stereotype because of Whites. As a matter of fact, this book examines the evolution of Native Americans throughout American history by explaining the origin of the Indian stereotype, the change from religious justification to scientific racism to a modern anthropological viewpoint of Native Americans, the White portrayal of Native Americans through art, and the policies enacted to keep Native Americans as Whites perceive them to be. In the hope that Native Americans will be able to overcome how Whites have portrayed them, Berkhoffer is presenting

    Read More

  • First Peoples: A Documentary Survey Of The First People By Colin Calloway

    771 Words  | 2 Pages

    The depiction of Native Americans to the current day youth in the United States is a colorful fantasy used to cover up an unwarranted past. Native people are dressed from head to toe in feathers and paint while dancing around fires. They attempt to make good relations with European settlers but were then taken advantage of their “hippie” ways. However, this dramatized view is particularly portrayed through media and mainstream culture. It is also the one perspective every person remembers because they grew up being taught these views. Yet, Colin Calloway the author of First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History, wishes to bring forth contradicting ideas. He doesn’t wish to disprove history; he only wishes to rewrite it.

    Read More

  • The Native Americans' Lack of Materialism

    610 Words  | 2 Pages

    People have been living in America for countless years, even before Europeans had discovered and populated it. These people, named Native Americans or American Indians, have a unique and singular culture and lifestyle unlike any other. Native Americans were divided into several groups or tribes. Each one tribe developed an own language, housing, clothing, and other cultural aspects. As we take a look into their society’s customs we can learn additional information about the lives of these indigenous people of the United States.

    Read More

  • Susan Cloud Discrimination

    789 Words  | 2 Pages

    The systematic racism and discrimination in America has long lasting effects that began back when Europeans first stepped foot on American soil is still visible today but only not written into the law. This racism has lead to very specific consequences on the Native people in today’s modern world, and while the racism is maybe not as obvious it is still very present. These modern Native peoples fight against the feeling of community as a Native person, and feeling entirely alone and not a part of it. The poem “The Reservation” by Susan Cloud and “The Real Indian Leans Against” by Chrystos examine the different effects and different settings of how their cultures survived but also how so much was lost for them within their own identity.

    Read More

  • A Southwestern Indian Culture Among Us Today: The Hopi Indians

    1993 Words  | 4 Pages

    Did you know that the Ancient Indian people of the Southwestern United States have dated back to the year 10,000 BC? First appearing toward the end of the last Ice Age, they were the first “Americans.” (Noble, 1998) When Christopher Columbus arrived in the America’s in 1492 and seeing the people of this land for the first time, he thought that he had landed in India, thus giving them the name “Indians.” (Noble, 1998) However, he was nowhere near India, or that region of the world. Because the Ancient Indians were nomadic people, (people who wondered the lands with no permanent home) through the years they developed, separated, and re-located their clans, developing into what we know today as the American Indian. One group or tribe, are the Hopi Indians. Although the Hopi are still a tribe today, mostly living in Arizona, their population, traditions, skills, and crafts have dwindled throughout the years. Let us sit back, relax, and explore the ancestor’s of the Hopi tribe and learn about their traditions, skill, and crafts.

    Read More

  • Identity Essay: My Cultural Identity, Is Haitian American

    1240 Words  | 3 Pages

    I wanted to wear brand clothes/shoes they did, I wanted to do my hair like them, and make good grades like them. I wanted to fit in. My cultural identify took a back seat. But it was not long before I felt black and white did not mix. I must have heard too many comments asking to speak Haitian or I do not look Haitian, but more than that, I am black, so I always had to answer question about my hair or why my nose is big, and that I talked white. This feeling carried on to high school because the questions never went away and the distance between me and them grew larger. There was not much action my family could take for those moments in my life, but shared their encounters or conversations to show me I was not alone in dealing with people of other background. I surrounded myself with less white people and more people of color and today, not much has

    Read More

  • Native American Stereotypes Essay

    940 Words  | 2 Pages

    The history of Native Americans is often overlooked or just simplified. Native Americans are sometimes referred to as “American Indians,” This term is defined

    Read More

  • Treatment of Native Americans by Europeans

    3098 Words  | 7 Pages

    Native Americans have faced increasing encroachment by European and Euro-American settlers since the discovery of the Americas by Europeans in 1492. Beginning with the Caribs, mistakenly labeled as Indians by Christopher Columbus, continuing with the ‘Indian Wars’ waged by the U.S. government against such tribes as the Lakota and Apache, and lasting until today, native peoples have had to adjust and adapt constantly to survive. Native peoples have had to use and balance their ‘historical agency,’ or the ability of a people to affect the world around them throughout history, against the ‘structural forces’ set up by outsiders and foreign governments, which seek to limit their impact on the world. Both Andrew Fisher and Jeffrey Ostler have written about native groups, the Columbia River Indians and the Lakota, respectively, which have balanced historical agency against external structural forces over time. According to Fisher and Ostler, both the Lakota and the Columbia River Indians have used legal and illegal means to promote their historical agency. Both have a central cultural issue at the heart of their struggle against external structural forces. Ultimately, however, both groups have used the struggle between their historical agency and external structural forces to forge an identity that allowed them to adapt and survive into the twenty-first century.

    Read More

  • Native American Spiritual Beliefs

    2347 Words  | 5 Pages

    Like many Americans I initially grouped all Native Americans into one melting pot. During the Haskell Indian Nations cultural day, on June 21,st 2010, the speakers talked about how different tribes are not the same; they have different beliefs...

    Read More

  • Lame Deer Seeker Of Visions Summary

    796 Words  | 2 Pages

    We have all heard of broken treaties, but if you take the time to look at a map showing when and where land was taken from the Indians you will be shocked at the extent of it recurring not just a few times here and there, but countless times until the Indians essentially have no land left of value. Add to that the effect of deprivation of culture, character, and religion that their children being imprisoned in Indian Schools had on the Indian race. Here they were forced to abandon their language, culture, religion, clothing and long hair, in fact, anything that was Indian about them was stripped from them supplanted by white ways. Not only in the schools, but for adults on the reservations, it was made illegal for Indians to practice any religious rites or cultural ceremonies. Their white conquerors were so afraid of the Indians, even to see them dancing, that they basically made it illegal to be Indian. Despite all this the Indian Medicine Men, like Lame Deer, held safe their ancient and sacred way of life, by playing along with the white man in western shows like Buffalo Bill's Wild West. Let’s look now beyond this resilience into the depth of Indian culture that Lame Deer has

    Read More

  • Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The Danger Of A Single Story

    1013 Words  | 3 Pages

    This is because after elementary, I moved into an Asian dominated junior high and high school. In this environment, Asian stereotypes were not taken seriously and were more often told as jokes. For example, what do you call a Vietnamese person walking a dog? A vegetarian! (my favorite joke). However, though I got over the stereotypes, my elementary years still haunt me as of today. I am now more socially awkward and uncomfortable when I am the minority or I am around white individuals. It frightens me that when I am around people who aren’t the same color as me because I feel like the judgments and incomplete stories will start to erupt, and that the incomplete stories will lead to the development of stereotypes and thus once again reenact my elementary years. This environment and atmosphere is reenacted every Monday and Wednesday’s in the WMST dialogue, where I am the minority and feelings of anxiety start to come

    Read More

  • My Immigration to America Story

    699 Words  | 2 Pages

    On the first day of school, I was in culture shock. There were so many different races of people: from Whites to Asians to Hispanics to Blacks. This diversity was foreign to me and the only diversity that I was exposed to ...

    Read More

  • My Invisible Gay Culture

    2208 Words  | 5 Pages

    My high school was newly built school and had every modem accessory available. The school had an auditorium large enough to front a Broadway play and a swimming pool grand enough for the summer Olympics. What it lacked was diversity. My graduating class of 1988 had one African American and one Asian. That's it. No Hispanics or Native Americans. But, my sophomore year I discovered that within the walls of our school existed several "invisible others."

    Read More

  • What Is Multicultural Essay

    1130 Words  | 3 Pages

    Growing up I was used to just one culture and not really knowledgeable about any other. But going to school and interacting with other kids either on the soccer field or on the playground, I was surrounded by many different culture. Now as I get older and really think about what I want to do with my life I realize that I have to become a diverse person because in this day in age, our society is getting more diverse than ever. Since I have decided to study and eventually become I teacher, I need to learn about all kinds of culture because in my classroom I need to be able to accept and understand all the kids that I will be interacting with on a day to day basis. As a young women who inspires to help and educate the future, it is my job to make sure coming generations are open and willing to learn about different culture also accepting all cultures.

    Read More

More about Elementary School History

Open Document