Native News Project 2006

     The Native News Honors Project is reported, photographed, edited and designed by students at The University of Montana School of Journalism. This is the 15th annual edition of the Native News project.
     Financial support for this project was provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, McCormick Foundation, and the University of Montana School of Journalism. The Davidson Honors College at UM and the Great Falls Tribune, Billings Gazette and Missoulian also contributed funds for the publication.
     The School of Journalism appreciates the advice and counsel received from educators Joyce Silverthorne, Tammy Elser and Rod Brod, multimedia pioneer Brian Storm, and photojournalists Amber D’Hooge and Betty Udesen.
     If you have comments about this series, we’d like to hear from you.
           
Write to:
Native News Honors Project
School of Journalism
32 Campus Drive
University of Montana
Missoula, MT 59812,
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Carol Van Valkenburg
Teresa Tamura

    Education is a vague word. Superficially it invokes images and sounds, from the scratch of No. 2 pencils in tiny ovals to the screech of a middle school trumpet player. Education, however, encompasses countless experiences.
     Indian education, the topic of this year’s Native News project by students in the University of Montana School of Journalism, is equally wide-ranging. Montana’s 16,500 Indian students are spread across the state and around seven reservations that together are larger than New Jersey. The term “Indian Education for All” has its genesis in Montana’s Constitution, and all public schools, in theory, are supposed to teach Indian history and culture.
     The term “Indian education” also references a painful history of boarding schools and cultural whitewashing. From the late 19th century into the mid-20th century Indian children were forcibly removed from their families and shipped to government boarding schools whose aim was to strip away native language and culture. “Kill the Indian and save the man,” was the motto of the founder of the country’s most famous Indian boarding school. Like so many injustices practiced on Indians, the memory of these boarding schools lingers.
     The stories in this tab explore many of the issues facing native education. On Rocky Boy’s Reservation, our reporter and photographer team looks at how the federal mandates of the “No Child Left Behind” program clash with teaching Indian culture. To the west, on the Blackfeet Reservation, our team investigates how another federal rule — the separation of church and state in public schools — affects teaching American Indian culture, and how parents and students seeking spiritual understanding are responding. On the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, our team explores the problem of truancy and parental apathy. In northeastern Montana on the Fort Peck Reservation, we profile three teachers struggling with whether to stay or to leave their jobs at a small town high school.
     There are problems, but there are also success stories. We head to the Crow Reservation to examine the success of women in education and to ask why the passion for education does not seem to extend to as many men. On the Fort Belknap Reservation, we track the progress of four students who won $20,000 scholarships to continue their higher education. And we spend time with several generations on the Flathead Reservation who are trying to preserve the language of their ancestors.
     The answer to so many questions is education. How can reservations create jobs? How can they battle poverty? How can they retain a strong knowledge of their culture?
     “How do you embrace an unknown future?” a member of an Arizona tribe asked recently. “By education. We can make change in our little world.”

     —Brian McDermott