Indian Education

Ernest Ventura

Professor Freedman

English 101

24 June 2004

Indian Education

Questions on Meaning

1.What overall impression does Alexie create of life on the reservation? Point to Specific EXAMPLES in the text that contribute to this impression.

2. Notice those places in the essay where Alexie describes how Native Americans face prejudice and negative stereotyping. What does this focus suggest about his PURPOSE?

3. The title “Indian education refers here more than just formal schooling. What are some other implications of the title?

4. Alexie refers to his hair in the opening sentence of the essay and in the sections of the second grade and twelfth grade. How, and of what, is his hair a SYMBOL?

Answers to Questions on Meaning

1. Although the worst were the last four of his seven years on the reservation, the life he had there was one not to cherish. He had a painful childhood memory. Alexie created an overall impression of life on the reservation and described it to be hopeless.

“I was always falling down: my Indian name was Junior Falls Down. Sometimes it was Bloody Nose or Still-His-Lunch. Once, it was Cries-Like-a-White-Boy…”

“… she said and had me stand straight for fifteen minutes, eagle-armed with books in each hand.”

“In third grade, though, I stood alone in the corner, faced the wall, and waited for he punishment to end. I’m still waiting.”

These are the specific words of Alexie quoted from the text that supports why his impression of the reservation was hopeless.

2. In his essay “ Indian Education”, Alexie mentioned two different places, the reservation, where he spent his grade school days wit other Indian boys and at farm town, an all-white school for his middle and high school. His purpose was to show that it doesn’t make a bi difference whether he was on reservation with the or at farm town. Discrimination is everywhere.

3. “Indian Education” refers here more than just formal schooling. It involves more of life of a Native American in particular. The essay does not tell us what the style of Indian education was all about. It revolves around the author’s life and his experiences being an Indian. The fact that the settings are schools may have something to do with why Alexie gave his essay such title.

4. His hair was short when he was in first grade and braided the next year. He graduated with very long hair. Maybe he used his hair to symbolize his life. From a radical point of view, short hair means hopeless and long hair means success. The length of his hair can be associated with what he is experiencing like the time when he described his hair to be very short was when he was being treated unjustly and the time when he graduated valedictorian, his hair was very long.