Power and Place: Indian Education in America

Rating:
Summary: An impressive collection of sixteen essays
Review: In Power And Place: Indian Education In America, Vine Deloria, Jr. (a Standing Rock Sioux, history professor, and former executive director of the National Congress of American Indians) effectively collaborates with Daniel Wildcat (a Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma, co-director of the Haskell Environmental Research Studies Center, and American Indian Studies faculty member at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas) to examine a range of pertinent issues facing Native American students as they progress through school systems, colleges, and move on into the professions. The philosophic, practical, and visionary aspects of contemporary Native American educational experiences are laid out in an impressive collection of sixteen essays. Power And Place is concise reference that is especially recommended for Native American Studies reference collections, as well as reading lists for those directly involved with American Education Studies as related to Native American experiences and concerns.

Rating:
Summary: Sixteen thoughtful, informative essays
Review: Power And Place: Indian Education In America is a selection and compilation of sixteen thoughtful, informative essays by authors Vine Deloria, Jr. (a Standing Rock Sioux and a retired university professor of political science and history), and Daniel R. Wildcat (a member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma and an American Indian Studies faculty member at Haskell Indian Nations University). Both of these learned authors present their perspectives on Native American education from public school through college levels, the challenges presented by the modern educational system and the question of self-determination as it affects young minds and futures. A book of thoughtful and thought provoking observations, Power And Place is a highly recommended contribution to Native American Studies and American Educational History supplemental reading lists and academic reference collections.

Rating:
Summary: good
Review: That Native Americans are often treated as second class citizens is often due to the fact that they do not possess adequate educational, political and financial resources. Deloria and Wildcat analyze, in this eminently practical and thoughtful book, the causes and conditions that led to this state of affairs. They identify the European dialectic method as one of the key factors that alienate Native Americans. The problem, as they see it, is far from benign - dialectics as practiced in the academia not only champions a simplistic cause-and-effect reasoning which is far removed from the Indian tendency to view the world in a holistic, pan-theistic manner... it also produces isolated, self-absorbed individuals separated from their own bodies and their own society. Such separation is incomprehensible to the Indians, who view themselves primarily as members of a community and for whom individual achievements are largely meaningless without the context of the community support.

Another significant difference between the Native and Western educational approaches, say VD and DW, are that while the former stress personal growth from the early childhood on, the latter concentrate on factual learning during which the harmonious development of the personality takes the second seat to professional development. This produces what to the Indian seem deviant and psychopathic characters completely out of touch with their community and nature, focused as they are on making money and selfish personal advancement.

DeLoria and Wildcat offer several solutions which may aid native americans in navigating the perilous universe of disconnectedness that they face in the world-at-large while keeping to their values and worldviews. Even more, they identify how these values may actually aid them in becoming succesful without compromising themselves.

Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Starting with the wisdom of the ages
Review: Wildcat has given practical understanding to Deloria's chant that Indian education should honor the essential tenants that define American Indian approaches to learning. Where the book, Primal Awareness, looks at the psychology that underlies this approach, Power and Place seeks to convince decision makers about Indian education that to replace indigenous priorities about power and place with "western" priorities is to continue cultural genocide.