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Категория: Английский язык
In the colonial era, efforts to educate American Indians were undertaken by religious groups and societies. It should be pointed out that such educational efforts by Europeans involved a certain degree of Europeanization or Westernization. Tribal education
involved vocational training as young men learnt to hunt, fish and trap. Young women learned their duties from their mothers. Through the inculcation of the religious rituals young people were brought into participation in tribal life.
Essentially, tribal modes of education were designated to perpetuate and transmit the culture heritage of the particular tribe.
In the Mississippi Valley French missionaries, especially Jesuits, were accompanied by the explorers, fur traders, and soldiers attempting to create New France in the North America continent. The missionaries sought to convert the Indians to Catholicism. They also brought with them the French language and culture.
In the southwest, which was controlled by Spain, Franciscan missionary priests attempted to alleviate the exploitation of Indians by the Spanish landlords. The Franciscans established missions to protect the Indians and some of the Indian children learned religion, reading and writing in mission schools.
In the English colonies some schools were established by Church of England missionaries. English missionary and educational activities among the Indians never took place on a large scale.
In the late nineteenth century the federal government pursued the policy designated to assimilate Indians into the larger white society. An important agency for assimilationist education was the boarding school. In these schools, Indian children were separated from their parents and taught industrial skills. The language of instruction was English.
For much of the nineteenth century, Mexican-American children attended Roman Catholic parochial schools. Once public schools were established in the western states, Spanish-speaking children received instructions only in English. Only in the mid-twentieth century bilingual and bicultural educational program were established.
Free blacks had attended school in some northern states long before the Civil War, southern states had prohibited the teaching of black children, whether slave or free.
In 1865, Congress created the Freedmen's Bureau to help former slaves adjust to freedom. The Bureau continued to function until 1872. Under the leadership of General O. Howard, the Freedmen's Bureau established schools throughout the South. In 1869 these schools enrolled some 114,000 students. The schools followed a New England common school curriculum of reading, writing, grammar, geography, arithmetic and music. The schools were usually staffed by northern school teachers, who brought with them their values, educational ideas and methods. Education in the 1960s and 1970s paid greater attention to tribal integrity and traditions. At the same time, Native Americans showed increase in attendance and completion of secondary schooling. In the 1960s and 1970s the development of bilingual and bicultural educational programs was a response to the educational needs of Hispanic Americans as well.
The civil rights movement was part of a general trend, following World War II, to extend full educational opportunity to more and more Americans. The trend began with the 1994 passage of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act to reintegrate the returning servicemen and women into American domestic life. This act provided federal funds to veterans to continue their education. The effect was to double the nation's population of college students. It ushered in the era of rapid growth of colleges and universities that would continue until the early 1990s.
