The Schooling of Oglala Sioux in American Schools

In 1959 and 1960, the author and his team taught at a summer school workshop for Native American undergraduate students. The community that was created, one which valued and aspired to education, seemed a posteriori extraordinary; moreover, it created a whole generation of leading Native American politicians. Presenting the consequent research on education on Native American reservations, the author considers the methods used and the contents studied. He shows the difficulties encountered by an “inexperienced” researcher trained at the University of Chicago in the fifties, brings to light important aspects of the social dynamics of educational systems; and finally, from the schooling of the Oglala Sioux, outlines ways student behavior at school should be studied. By highlighting educational issues in an extreme situation, significant aspects in the structuring of schools emerge, that would otherwise remain unexposed because they are an integral part of social life. In most societies in the past, most instruction was carried out under immersion teaching conditions, but this fieldwork on reservations can become an example of experiential instruction.