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The Progressive Educator and Native Americans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Ronald K. Goodenow
Ronald K. Goodenow*
Affiliation:
Trinity College
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Abstract

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Type
Essay Review III
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , Summer 1980 , pp. 207 - 216
Copyright
Copyright © 1980 by History of Education Society 

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References

Notes

1 Lupe, Ronnie, cited by Chadwick, Brace A. in “The Inedible Feast,” p. 131 in Bahr, Howard M., Chadwick, Bruce A., and Day, Robert C., Native Americans Today: Sociological Perspectives (New York, 1972). Several individuals provided materials and ideas helpful to the preparation of this review. I would like to acknowledge the assistance of McClary, Glen, Belok, Michael and, especially for his information on intercultural education, Nicholas Montalto. For additional commentary representing my perspective on progressive education and matters of race and ethnicity in the Depression, see Goodenow, Ronald K., “The Progressive Educator, Race and Ethnicity in the Depression Years: An Overview,” History of Education Quarterly, 25 (Winter 1975): 365–394; “Racial and Ethnic Tolerance in John Dewey's Educational and Social Thought: The Depression Years,” Educational Theory, 27 (Winter 1977): 48–64; “The Progressive Educator on Race, Ethnicity, Creativity and Planning: Harold Rugg in the 1930's,” Review Journal of Philosophy and Social Science, I (Winter 1977): 105–128: “The Progressive Educator as Radical or Conservative: Counts, George S. and Race,” History of Education (London), 7 (Winter 1977): 45–57; and “Paradox in Progressive Educational Reform: The South and the Education of Blacks in the Depression Years, Phylon: The Atlanta University Review of Race and Culture, 39 (March 1978): 49–65.Google Scholar

2 See. U. S. Senate, Special Subcommittee on Indian Education, Indian Education: A National Tragedy—A National Challenge. Hearings, 91st Congress 2nd Session (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1969).Google Scholar

3 Szasz and other historians of Indian education in the United States face a difficult challenge. If Indians have enjoyed the dubious benefits of considerable anthropological and sociological study and a long-established place in our popular historical literature and culture they have virtually no status in the historiography of American education. See Brooks, I. R., Native Education in Canada and the United States: A Bibliography (Calgary 1976) and Szasz's bibliography for sources. There has yet to be written a satisfactory history of Indian education. Adams, Evelyn C., American Indian Education (New York, 1946) is sketchy and uncritical and Ryberg, Robert F. and Belok, Michael V., Explorations in the History and Sociology of American Indian Education (Meerut, India, 1973) suffers from brevity and unfortunate editing. For an historical overview of Indian education in one state, See Hendrick, Irving, The Education of Non-Whites in California (Palo Alto, California, 1977). It would be impossible to represent completely recent new literature which provides either cross-disciplinary insights or historical information. I found the following stimulating and of assistance: Vogel, Virgil J., The Indian in American History (Chicago, 1969); Fuchs, Estelle and Havighurst, Robert J., To Live on this Earth: American Indian Education (New York, 1973); Bodner, Bruce, “Indian Education: Tool of Cultural Politics,” The National Elementary Principal, 50 (May 1971): 22–30; Prucha, Francis Paul, Americanizing the American Indians: Writings by the “Friends of the Indian”, 1880–1900 (Cambridge, Mass., 1973); Wax, Murray L., Indian Americans: Unity and Diversity (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1971); Mardock, Robert Winston, The Reformers and the American Indian (Columbia, Missouri, 1971); Parman, Donald L., The Navajos and the New Deal (New Haven and London, 1976); Chamberlin, J. E., The Harrowing of Eden: White Attitudes Toward Native Americans (New York, 1976; Walker, Deward E. Jr. The Emergent Native Americans: A Reader in Culture Contact (Boston, 1972; Steiner, Stan, The New Indians (New York, 1968); Hunter, William H. A. (editor), Multi-Cultural Education through Competency-Based Teacher Education (Washington D.C., 1974); and Roberts, Joan L. I. and Akinsanya, Sherrie K., Schooling in the Cultural Context: Anthropological Studies of Education (New York, 1976); For statistical information on Indian Education see the annually published Statistics Concerning Indian Education (Washington D.C., n.d.) Another helpful tool is reference information paper no. 61, “Vital Statistics in the National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1973.Google Scholar

4 Prucha, , Americanizing the American Indians.Google Scholar

5 Bodner, , “Indian Education,” p. 26, discusses this issue.Google Scholar

6 Beatty, Willard, in Indian Education, No. 24 (February 1, 1938): 1–33.Google Scholar

7 There is a file of letters and internal memoranda on Beatty's efforts to get funding, examples of materials produced by his office, and information on the PEA commission at the Rockefeller Archive Center, Hillcrest, Pocantico Hills, Northern Tarrytown, New York. See General Education Board Mss. The Center's staff and the State University of New York Research Foundation provided me with generous assistance.Google Scholar

8 See “John Dewey Among the Navajos,” Chapter 8, pp. 193–216 in Parman, , Navajos and the New Deal. Parman does not suggest that Dewey was interested in Native Americans but that John Collier tried to apply Dewey's progressivism. Although Par-man's view of progressive education is a reasonable one insofar as he understands child-centered education and some of progressive education's communitarian impulses, the chapter title is somewhat misleading. Otherwise, the chapter is excellent.Google Scholar

9 See Boyd, William and Rawson, Wyatt, The Story of the New Education (London, 1965 and Rawson, Wyatt (editor), The Freedom We Seek: A Survey of the Social Implications of the New Education (London, 1937), for information on the publications and conferences of the New Education Fellowship. This organization and its influence on the early years of UNESCO, especially through the work of its members, needs considerably more research and critical evaluation. Likewise, the involvement of the Institute of Education at the University of London and Teachers College, Columbia University in the construction of educational systems in the Third World begs for sophisticated scholarship. Although Martin Carnoy's Education as Cultural Imperialism (New York, 1974) is flawed in its use of historical data on black education in the United States and Freire's, Paolo The Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York, 1971) suffers somewhat from its circular logic and polemical style, both offer radical interpretations which show a need for historians to get a much firmer conceptual grip on the world-wide aspects of “development” and “modernization” and how they relate to minorities policies and progressive education. There are signs that the field of comparative education is moving in new and helpful directions. See, for example, Grant, Nigel, “Educational Policy and Cultural Pluralism: A Task for Comparative Education,” Comparative Education, 13 (June 1977): 139–150 and other articles by Holmes, Brian and Broadfoot, Tricia in this same special issue on the present state and future prospects of comparative education. Another valuable publication is the Comparative Education Review, 21 (June/October 1977). It, too, surveys the state of comparative education and provides a number of theoretical and bibliographical perspectives of importance to the educational historian.Google Scholar