From the outside looking in…

I’m not really sure where I should start with this article. I’m going to try to do this without sounding too harsh or terrible, we’ll see how that goes… My gut reaction was to cringe and clench my teeth when the author was writing about how non-natives were harming their culture and basically should get out of their business. That’s because I am not a native. I have never been in that situation. One of the comments on the article said that culture is something that should be taught at home, and in some ways I agree with that. In elementary and highschool, my parents wanted me to learn from a Christian perspective, so they taught me at home. They also put me into a Christian school. I know this isn’t the same as the Native situation, but there are other ways of educating the children about their culture other than telling the non-Natives to “get out”. For the most part, I don’t think that the non-Native teachers are teaching to steal the Native culture or to put them down. There are other options. Culture can be integrated into the classroom, it can be taught at home, or if a family is particularly dissatisfied with the public school system they can homeschool. That is one of the great things about our country, our state is that we have that choice. I think that if the culture is integrated into the classroom it would be most beneficial if the Natives came into the classroom to teach, so that the non-Native teachers that are not familiar with Native custom and culture can learn as well.