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From: DR. DEAN CHAVERS
Date: 22 Feb 2004
Time: 13:46:54 -0500
Remote Name: 172.149.39.95
EDUCATION FADS DON'T WORK FOR AMERICAN INDIAN STUDENTS From: Dr. Dean Chavers,Director of Catching the Dream Date: 15 Feb 2004 Time: 20:35:53 -0500 Remote Name: 172.146.39.93 Comments The following excerpts are from the above copyrighted essay published in the January 22, 2004 Carolina Indian Voice. As Director of Catching the Dream, Dr. Chavers receives calls every day from American Indian students who have been cheated in their education aspirations. Most American Indian people, according to Dr.Chavers, are in powerless positions - not positions as superintendents, principals, teachers and counselors, only 8% according to the total number of people in these positions. In most educational systems, American Indians tend to be aides, tribal education directos with little influence in the schools, parent committee members, and people without degrees. As a result, American Indian educators have little control over the fate of American Indian children are are at the hands of non-Indian decision makers. In most of the school districts with American Indian student populations, educators and schools fail to recognize the genius of the Native intellect. As a result of this negligence, dumbing down occurs due to the paternalistic attitudes of non-Indian teachers and a willingness to settle for the second best for Indian students. Dr. Chavers advocates that American Indian students should be taught in their Native languages, that Native languages should be preserved in spite of the repetitive threats to extinction. Dr. Chavers also supports the preservation of the Indian way of life and the preservation of Native culture. While preserving Native language and Native culture, American Indian student should be educated to perform to their highest ability and potential. Rather than pushing students to become medical assistants, they should be encouraged to become veterinarians. Rqther than counselors advising Native students to go to vocational schools to learn how to be supermarket checkers and beauticians, they should be encouraged and assisted in pursuing business administration and management carrers. The college going rate of American Indian students is a major threat in the future of American Indian communities. In the United States, 67% of high school students go on to college, but Indian country sends only l7% of Indian graduates on to college after high school graduation. American Indian parents want their children to go on to college but this gap remains enormous in the college-going rate. The situation worsens with the rate of American Indians earning college degrees. Only l8% of Indian college students earn a degree while 56% of non-Indians earn college degrees. For every Indian colleg graduate there are 20 non-Indian college graduates, per unit of population. The situation today has worsened from that of 25 years ago when there was one Indian college graduate for every l5 non-Indian college graduates. According to Dr. Chavers, many people in Indian schools may not know the facts, but they know in general that Indian students are not doing well. The most frustrating thing is that while people know the situation they do nothing to try to improve it. While some acknolwedge that things are bad in Indian schools, they try to something about it but choose to do the wrong thing. "Wrong," according to Dr. Chavers, is trying something that does not work and trying it for the wrong reason. It is the "fads" according to Dr. Chavis that do not help make progress for Indian student, but rather hold our children back in educational achievement. Dr. Chavers admits that these fads have good intentions, and right intentions, but few of them work to actually advance students toward higher academic achievement for student advancement...a goal that should drive academic goals. A major concern expressed by Dr. Chavers is that "people adopt programs, techniques, and fads for some reasons other than student academic achievement, including peer approval, things to look sexy, things that are hot at the moment, things that parents or teachers think should be done, and so on." When student academic advancement is the goal, all new programs should be tested and if a program does not work, it should be removed and new approaches adopted. Dr. Chavers reviews the following eight programs that have been supported in Indian education over the past 30 years. Success for All has been hailed as an exemplary program in the past two years at Umonhon Natiuon and in Lapwaii, ID, but it has often fialed at other places as it is very expensive to start and to maintain and sustain over time. Accelerated Reading (AR) is another touted reading program but one that has shown little improvement in reading levels. It is a highly complicated, computer-based and uses insructional technology but in too many situations it has been too watered down. Tribal Departments of Education, an initiative started by the late Pat Locke, has focused too much on laws, regulations, education codes and similar mechanics, but external evaluation of the process at Rosebud after 20 years revealed that students were no better off than they were ten years earlier. Test scores had not improved, attendance was abysmal, and drop out rates were still over 50%. Success for students, according to Dr. Chavers, will occur through working with students, not applications of laws, rules and regulations. Native Language Instruction is a well-intntioned program helping to preserve Native languages. Unofrtunately, according to Dr. Chavers, Native language instruction is at best a stepchild in schools and has littl effect, prestige or power. It is very important in supportive educational and cultural needs of Indian children, but it needs to combine basic academics - reading, writing and math for a comprehensive and integrated approach. Native history instruction, something many of us have advocated for 35+ years, to help correct inaccuracies in Native history, has done little or nothing to help improve academics. Like language instruction, it needs to integrate basic academics into the curriculum. Tutoring is by far the most popular approah to improving Indian education according to Dr. Chavers' review of Indian education programs. Tutoring is more successful when it is only one element in a much more comprehensive curriculum that focuses on student advancement and academic achievement. Left-brain/right brain models, according to Dr. Chavers, is a misguided form of racism that asserts tht the brains of Indian children are different from non-Indian children. Nothing could be further from the truth but many educators have been sidetracked by believing in this theory of instruction. The Teacher Lesson Design model, designed by a UCLA professor, has been profitable but has done little, if anything, to improve academic achievement for American Indian children. What Works? According to Dr. Chavers, the most effective and best practices in promoting academic advancement and student achievement for American Indian students if (l) making sure that students are in school every day/ (2) getting American Indian students to read, and (3) assigning homework and checking that homework with feedback and guidance for improvement. Kudos to Dr. Chavers for this overview of what is happening in Indian Education projects and in classroom serving American Indian students in public and federal schools across the Nation. It would serve us well to evaluate how we can strive to close the achievement gap as well as maximize available resources to meet the challenges of educational opportunity and academic excellence. Last changed: 02/15/04