Week Ten

I live on an Indian Reservation, my husband is full Penobscot Indian and my children are half Penobscot and half of their blood line from be is mixed with French, Irish, and English. I work at the school on the reservation and love were I live and work. The children in our school are for the most part not full-blooded Native Americans but we have seemed to forget about part of their culture. We want our children to be brought up with knowing all of their cultures and being proud of each of them. This has become very hard when they spend their day in a school that is so focused on just Native American culture and history. While having our children taught their Native American culture so strongly is great they are not taught the history of the rest of the world along with it. We have Native Studies that mostly teaches the culture and only that. The Social Studies books are out dated by 15 years and for the most part not used. Most classrooms use the newspaper in its place. This is great children are aware of the world they live in today, but are missing all that led up to it. Our students spend nine years from Early Childhood to eighth in a school of about 110 students and then after eighth grade they are sent off to a high school that they have been only partly prepared for. They enter high school with a limited knowledge of others history but with a strong knowledge of their own. We expect to our children to succeed but do not give them all the tools they will need.