ABSTRACT
Summary: In this chapter some experiments to improve the education of American Indians are described. Many of these insist that funding be given directly to local Indian communities to run their own schools, while others seek to ensure that teachers are drawn from widely divergent cultures. Contract schooling has also been tried as a means of improvement by including Indian culture in the curriculum and encouraging parent, teacher, child and school board member interest in community schools.
Since the 1970s, US education policy has encouraged economic and educational development of American Indians by increasing self-determination. This policy hopes to open up possibilities for Indians to participate in the modern world while retaining their Indian identity. Many of the problems American Indians have in the US education system come from disharmony between their culture and that of the dominant society. Complicating this are differences in English language ability and a concomitant separation between school and community culture.
Following this account of directions in American Indian education policies, the chapter looks at specific suggestions derived from the author's research on the NW Coast of North America into the reintroduction as ‘cultures' of Indian languages no longer widely used for practical purposes. This concept of a ‘culture language’ which may be taught in the schools within a curriculum in the dominant language will be seen as a way to achieve both the aims of US education policy and those of the Indian groups, and to bridge the school/ community gap.
