Question: As isolated and poor as many Native American communities are, what hope do the children have of receiving a well-rounded education?

Answer: Native Americans reside primarily in rural communities, many on semi-isolated reservations scattered throughout the Southwest. And while the economic status of the population as a whole has risen in recent years due to increased land and property holdings, many families still remain below the federal poverty line. Rural housing standards being what they are, the number of Native Americans who qualify as homeless (i.e., families living in sub-standard dwellings, multiple-families in one house) is high. However, larger impediments to the education of Native American students have long been their isolation from mainstream culture and tribal distrust of white institutions.

An educational achievement gap has always existed between Native American children and white children. Based on performance in traditional classrooms, Native Americans continue to lag behind white students on academic achievement tests. Genetically, the intellectual and learning capacities are no different between the two races; however, social milieu has a significant influence on how knowledge is gained and applied. Until recently, educators (who traditionally have been overwhelmingly Caucasian) overlooked or ignored the importance of culture in the learning process. Rather than validate non-traditional ways of knowing, thinking, and behaving and incorporating their students' societal customs and relevance in their pedagogy, teachers relied on broader examples from their own culture, those more familiar and non-threatening to them (and their white students) but abstract, contradictory, and confusing to Indian students. This approach is traceable to historical practice, white-based education having once been used to assimilate Native American children by neutralizing their language, religion, and culture and ensuring their conformity to the American way. Perhaps this accounts for the large dropout rate within this student population; to succeed in such a skewed learning environment, Native American students must choose-consciously or unconsciously-between mainstream education and their own cultural heritage.

Recent technological advances in education are helping span the cultural divide. Distance learning offers Native American students a way to negotiate between the dominant white culture and that of their people. Recognizing that values and conduct are shaped and advanced by societal expectations, that white society currently holds the keys to educational and financial success, and that cultural and religious teachings instill deep-seated convictions that often conflict with generic pedagogy, educators are increasingly turning to the Internet and specialized curriculum that enable Native American students to learn within their native environment. Seen as a solution to cross-cultural roadblocks, distance learning allows flexibility that was lacking in reservation-based classrooms by enabling students to work at their own pace, within their native environments, liberated from imposed or perceived white authority figures, and using a curriculum that is sensitive to their heritage. Concomitantly, students are free to electronically expand their educational world beyond the reservation, gather ideas and information from mainstream America and global societies, and assimilate the information within the context of their local society's values. Thus empowered, they are positioned to become mentor/teachers within the community, guiding others across the same bridge that they have traveled. Afforded this freedom and empowerment, Native American students-as well as their community-are less skeptical of education's aims and better able to incorporate their beliefs and experience with those of humanity in general. Educational models developed in cooperation with tribal governments ensure that coursework is presented in ways that are both culturally sensitive and culturally appropriate. Distance learning means that teachers can also break from traditional teaching models by learning how Native American history and unique cultural influences shape the educational process from both sides. By incorporating indigenous learning styles, upholding tribal customs, allowing Native American students to honor their society's values, and assimilating the best of both worlds, distance learning could represent the first real accord between white and Native American societies.

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Sources: www.jaie.asu.edu/v37/V37S3dis.htm www.seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~hogue/paper.htm www.seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~mcisaac/emc598geold97/Spring97/5/eshel5.htm