HOMELAND Teacher's Guide: Introduction
Welcome to the HOMELAND lesson plans. These lessons will allow students to examine the complex issues related to the treatment of indigenous peoples by those in a nation's dominant culture. Students will explore their own personal attitudes and historical documents in an attempt to reveal the "truth" about cultures in conflict. Speeches by government leaders in different countries will allow students to compare official positions among "white-ruled" nations and propose ways to make reparations.
These lessons are directed toward grades 6 through 12, for use in the following subject areas: history, social studies, multicultural studies, U.S. government, world government and language arts.
LESSON PLANS
LESSON ONE: Healing
A critical examination of the recorded history of the United States in its relationship with the Sioux Nation. For grades 6-12.
LESSON TWO: Addressing Housing Needs
A look at how to address the needs of a distressed society through an exploration of housing and homelessness. For grades 8-12.
LESSON THREE: Getting at the Truth
In order to answer the question of who should take responsibility for history, student will look at South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and debate the pros and cons of such an approach for the United States. For grades 9-12.
LESSON FOUR: Saying You're Sorry
Looking at Australia's Sorry Day, students will discuss apologies, exploring what they mean and examining how the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs has handled Native Americans throughout history. For grades 6-12.
About the film:
A legacy of broken treaties, cultural genocide and government neglect has created harsh realities on American Indian reservations nationwide. Filmed over the course of three years, the documentary HOMELAND follows four remarkable families on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota. HOMELAND presents an inside perspective on Lakota culture as the families strive to create a better future for themselves and especially for their children, despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
About the author:
Neale McGoldrick chairs the history department at Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn, New York. A teacher for 33 years, she has published a book on the history of woman suffrage in New Jersey (co-authored by Margaret Crocco) and contributed to a variety of journals. She spent summer 2000 in South Africa where she had the opportunity to observe the post Apartheid world first-hand and teach in two schools.
LESSON ONE: Healing
Topic
Healing: addressing the history of the United States in its relationship with the Sioux Nation
Age Group Grades 6-12
Introduction
The history of the Native Americans is so shameful that most Americans prefer to ignore it and most American History textbooks have a difficult time addressing the issue fully.
Learning Objectives
- To understand the major encounters between the Americans and the Plains Indians known as the Lakota Sioux.
- To understand the nature of treaties made, treaties broken and attempts to rectify past injustices.
- To recognize the limitations of textbooks in attempting to tell complex, often painful stories.
- To understand that the words we use convey values as well as factual content.
Overview
The history of the United States' relationship with the Plains Indians is not the only, nor perhaps even the worst of the encounters in American history, but it provides dramatic examples that students can consider in determining what, if anything, still needs to be done. Any American History textbook will discuss the most famous facts of this encounter - the battles of Little Big Horn and Wounded Knee. This is a good place to start.
Standards
This lesson addresses the following national standards, established by McREL: http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/browse.asp
U.S. History
Grades 7-8
Understands how early state and federal policy influenced various Native American tribes (e.g., survival strategies of Native Americans, environmental differences between Native American homelands and resettlement areas, the Black Hawk War and removal policies in the Old Northwest)
Understands interaction between Native Americans and white society (e.g., the attitudes and policies of government officials, the U.S. Army, missionaries, and settlers toward Native Americans; the provisions and effects of the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 on tribal identity, land ownership and assimilation; the legacy of the 19th century federal Indian policy; Native American responses to increased white settlement, mining activities, and railroad construction)
Grades 9-12
Understands shifts in federal and state policy toward Native Americans in the first half of the 19th century (e.g., arguments for and against removal policy, changing policies from assimilation to removal and isolation after 1825)
Understands influences on and perspectives of Native American life in the late 19th century (e.g., how the admission of new western states affected relations between the United States and Native American societies; leadership and values of Native American leaders; depiction of Native Americans and whites by 19th century artists)
Language Arts
Grades 6-8
Uses reading skills and strategies to understand a variety of informational texts (e.g., textbooks; biographical sketches; letters; diaries; directions; procedures; magazines; essays; primary source historical documents; editorials; news stories; periodicals; bus routes; catalogs; technical directions; consumer, workplace, and public documents)
Summarizes and paraphrases information in texts (e.g., arranges information in chronological, logical, or sequential order; conveys main ideas, critical details, and underlying meaning; uses own words or quoted materials; preserves author's perspective and voice)
Understands techniques used to convey viewpoint (e.g., word choice, language structure, context)
Differentiates between fact and opinion in informational texts
Evaluates own and others' writing (e.g., applies criteria generated by self and others, uses self-assessment to set and achieve goals as a writer, participates in peer response groups)
Uses content, style, and structure (e.g., formal or informal language, genre, organization) appropriate for specific audiences (e.g., public, private) and purposes (e.g., to entertain, to influence, to inform)
Writes expository compositions (e.g., states a thesis or purpose; presents information that reflects knowledge about the topic of the report; organizes and presents information in a logical manner, including an introduction and conclusion; uses own words to develop ideas; uses common expository structures and features, such as compare-contrast or problem-solution)
Grades 9-12
Uses reading skills and strategies to understand a variety of informational texts (e.g., textbooks; biographical sketches; letters; diaries; directions; procedures; magazines; essays; primary source historical documents; editorials; news stories; periodicals; bus routes; catalogs; technical directions; consumer, workplace, and public documents)
Summarizes and paraphrases complex, implicit hierarchic structures in informational texts, including the relationships among the concepts and details in those structures
Analyzes techniques (e.g., language, organization, tone, context) used to convey viewpoints or impressions (e.g., sarcasm, criticism, praise, affection)
Uses a variety of criteria to evaluate the clarity and accuracy of information (e.g., author's bias, use of persuasive strategies, consistency, clarity of purpose, effectiveness of organizational pattern, logic of arguments, reasoning, expertise of author, propaganda techniques, authenticity, appeal to friendly or hostile audience, faulty modes of persuasion)
Uses text features and elements to support inferences and generalizations about information (e.g., vocabulary, structure, evidence, expository structure, format, use of language, arguments used)
Evaluates own and others' writing (e.g., accumulates a body of written work to determine strengths and weaknesses as a writer, makes suggestions to improve writing, responds productively to reviews of own work)
Uses strategies to address writing to different audiences (e.g., includes explanations and definitions according to the audience's background, age, or knowledge of the topic, adjusts formality of style, considers interests of potential readers)
Uses strategies to adapt writing for different purposes (e.g., to explain, inform, analyze, entertain, reflect, persuade)
Writes expository compositions (e.g., synthesizes and organizes information from first- and second-hand sources, including books, magazines, computer data banks, and the community; uses a variety of techniques to develop the main idea [names, describes, or differentiates parts; compares or contrasts; examines the history of a subject; cites an anecdote to provide an example; illustrates through a scenario; provides interesting facts about the subject]; distinguishes relative importance of facts, data, and ideas; uses appropriate technical terms and notations)
Lesson One: Healing
Day 1 (40 min.): Provide students with a variety of American History textbooks (including middle and elementary school books) that discuss the nineteenth century. Have students use the table of contents and index to identify how much space is devoted to the encounters with Natives. This could include doing an estimated word count (by counting the lines). Students should decide just how much a picture is worth in relationship to text. (Is a picture worth a thousand words?)
Based on the data collected, students should place the books into three piles according to the quality, quantity and honesty of the information offered. If students are unsure on how to evaluate the quality, or honesty, this could lead to a good discussion of where the "right" answer might be found.
Day 2 (40 min.): Encourage students to use library resources and the Internet to supplement the information found in the textbooks (see resources listed below). Review the material on the HOMELAND website, http://www.pbs.org/homeland/, in the Timeline, and Reservation Yesterday sections. Then have students write their own improved version of one encounter. This could be Wounded Knee or Little Big Horn; it could also be the Cherokee or the Nez Perce, usually the four encounters that get the most attention in textbooks.
Look up the word "Treaty" in the index of the textbooks. Ask students to consider what difference it made that the Department of State made treaties with European and Asian nations, while the Department of the Interior made treaties with Indians (e.g., should white Americans have considered Indian tribes to be "foreign," because of their cultural differences, even though they lived on the same soil?).
Offer a prize to any student who can find any book that discusses Native Americans under "foreign policy." Discuss with the class why this is so difficult and what the meaning is.
Extending the Lesson
- Ask students whether they think the textbooks would end up in the same piles if they had been evaluated for their discussion of African Americans, women or other minorities. Why or why not?
- Ask students which of the following words would be appropriate in a textbook discussion of the treatment of Native Americans:
barbarous
betrayal
brutalizing
cowardly
dishonesty
ethnic cleansing
extermination
genocide
germ warfare
hate crimes
holocaust
human rights violations
inhumanity
racism
shameful
tragedy
treachery
war crimes
What other words should or should not be used to explain this encounter?
Should elementary school textbooks use gentler words? When are students old enough to learn the real truth?
Resources
HOMELAND Timeline and Reservation Yesterday sections http://www.pbs.org/homeland/
Timeline of Events Relevant to the Northern Plains Tribes http://www.hanksville.org/daniel/timeline2.html
History and Leaders of the Oglala Lakota Sioux http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3976/Leaders1.html
Battle of Little Big Horn http://www.artsednet.getty.edu/ArtsEdNet/Resources/Maps/battle.html
PBS Online: The West http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest
LESSON TWO: Addressing Housing Needs
Topic
Addressing the Needs of a Distressed Society
Age Group
Grades 8-12
Introduction
The film HOMELAND identifies many problems for the Lakota people including nutrition, health, alcoholism, gambling, lack of education and unemployment, but it focuses on housing. Is housing the bedrock for a society? If you were a congressman or a tribal leader deciding how to use funds in Shannon County, South Dakota, how would you prioritize them?
Learning Objectives
- To understand that economic choices require priorities and that not everyone can agree on which should come first.
- To understand the types of housing efforts that have been tried in the United States and elsewhere and to understand why not all solutions work for all people.
- To work as a group to find information and draw conclusions.
Overview
The film HOMELAND identifies a housing problem of crisis proportions. It becomes clear through those interviewed that "cluster housing" is not successful, although the alternatives are few and far between.
Standards
This lesson addresses the following national standards, established by McREL: http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/browse.asp
U.S. History
Grades 7-8
Understands interaction between Native Americans and white society (e.g., the attitudes and policies of government officials, the U.S. Army, missionaries, and settlers toward Native Americans; the provisions and effects of the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 on tribal identity, land ownership and assimilation; the legacy of the 19th century federal Indian policy; Native American responses to increased white settlement, mining activities, and railroad construction)
Understands how different groups attempted to achieve their goals (e.g., the grievances of racial and ethnic minorities and their reference to the nation's charter documents to rectify past injustices, local community efforts to adapt facilities for the disabled)
Grades 9-12
Understands influences on and perspectives of Native American life in the late 19th century (e.g., how the admission of new western states affected relations between the United States and Native American societies; leadership and values of Native American leaders; depiction of Native Americans and whites by 19th century artists)
Understands the struggle for racial and gender equality and for the extension of civil liberties
Understands major contemporary social issues and the groups involved (e.g., the current debate over affirmative action and to what degree affirmative action policies have reached their goals; the evolution of government support for the rights of the disabled; the emergence of the Gay Liberation Movement and civil rights of gay Americans; continuing debates over multiculturalism, bilingual education, and group identity and rights vs. individual rights and identity; successes and failures of the modern feminist movement)
Civics
Grades 6-8
Understands how politics enables people with differing ideas to reach binding agreements (e.g., presenting information and evidence, stating arguments, negotiating, compromising, voting)
Understands major ideas about why government is necessary (e.g., people's lives, liberty, and property would be insecure without government; individuals by themselves cannot do many of the things they can do collectively such as create a highway system, provide armed forces for the security of the nation, or make and enforce laws)
Understands competing ideas about the purposes government should serve (e.g., whether government should protect individual rights, promote the common good, provide economic security, mold the character of citizens, promote a particular religion)
Knows major conflicts in American society that have arisen from diversity (e.g., North/South conflict; conflict about land, suffrage, and other rights of Native Americans; Catholic/Protestant conflicts in the nineteenth century; conflict about civil rights of minorities and women; present day ethnic conflict in urban settings)
Knows ways in which conflicts about diversity can be resolved in a peaceful manner that respects individual rights and promotes the common good
Knows conflicts that have arisen regarding fundamental values and principles (e.g., conflicts between liberty and equality, conflicts between individual rights and the common good, conflicts between majority rule and minority rights)
Grades 9-12
Understands how politics enables a group of people with varying opinions and/or interests to reach collective decisions, influence decisions, and accomplish goals that they could not reach as individuals (e.g., managing the distribution of resources, allocating benefits and burdens, managing conflicts)
Understands some of the major competing ideas about the purposes of politics and government (e.g., achieving a religious vision, glorifying the state, enhancing economic prosperity, providing for a nation's security), and knows examples of past and present governments that serve these purposes
Understands how the purposes served by a government affect relationships between the individual and government and between government and society as a whole (e.g., the purpose of promoting a religious vision of what society should be like may require a government to restrict individual thought and actions, and place strict controls on the whole of the society)
Knows examples of conflicts stemming from diversity, and understands how some conflicts have been managed and why some of them have not yet been successfully resolved
Knows why constitutional values and principles must be adhered to when managing conflicts over diversity
Understands issues that involve conflicts among fundamental values and principles such as the conflict between liberty and authority
Behavioral Studies
Grades 6-8
Understands that each culture has distinctive patterns of behavior that are usually practiced by most of the people who grow up in it
Grades 9-12
Understands that cultural beliefs strongly influence the values and behavior of the people who grow up in the culture, often without their being fully aware of it, and that people have different responses to these influences
Understands that the difficulty of moving from one social class to another varies greatly with time, place, and economic circumstances
Understands that heredity, culture, and personal experience interact in shaping human behavior, and that the relative importance of these influences is not clear in most circumstances
Understands that family, gender, ethnicity, nationality, institutional affiliations, socioeconomic status, and other group and cultural influences contribute to the shaping of a person's identity
Lesson Two: Addressing Housing Needs
Day 1 (40 min.): Discuss housing and land ownership issues as they relate to your students. Ask students to express their perceptions of different types of land use: leases, communes, reservations, private property. Explain that the nature of housing on the reservation is different for several reasons. Review the material on the HOMELAND website under The Reservation Today: Housing. http://www.itvs.org/lakota/today3.html While the government does not "own" the land, the tribe typically regulates it and individuals are not free to sell or even mortgage their land. Students surely have a notion of what "homeless" people look like. The film may change that view.
Vocabulary
mortgage
cluster housing
Day 2 (60 min.): Show the film HOMELAND, particularly the segments that relate to housing: Marian White Mouse's description of land ownership; the Little Boy family awaiting the arrival of their house; Thurman Horse discussing cluster housing. Depending on the age of the students, stop the film frequently to check for understanding, particularly when information is explained in text printed on the screen that may pass too quickly for students to read.
- Why would a family prefer to live in a tent rather than in a cluster house?
- While cluster houses don't look crowded from an urban point of view, why might they appear that way to a Lakota?
- What can you learn by feeding chickens and slopping hogs? Why would a grandmother want that for her grandchildren?
Day 3 (40 min.): Review the material on the HOMELAND website in the Reservation Today section. Have the students work in groups to make a list of all the problems that are faced in this community. Have the students group the problems into three categories - most serious, somewhat serious and less serious. What makes a problem most serious? Are these the life and death issues?
Have the students make a list of possible solutions, including those that they see being tried in the film.
Finally, have students identify those solutions that are most likely to help this community.
Ask groups to compare their lists.
Extending the Lesson
- Research and compare efforts to meet the needs of the homeless in urban as opposed to rural areas.
- Have the students draw pictures of the ideal Lakota home as best they understand it from the film.
- Discuss the fact that the government has suggested promoting tourism as a source of income. What would be the positive and negative effects of tourism on this community?
- Have students write or act out conversations between a grandmother and her natural child about whether they are "ready" to take their children back.
- On May 16, 1998, President Clinton welcomed Bureau of Indian Affairs schools into the world of cyberspace with Native American Net Day. How could the Internet be used by the next generation of Native Americans to take on the many challenges faced by their communities?
Resources
HOMELAND Reservation Today http://www.pbs.org/homeland/
Internet Maps of South Dakota http://fermi.jhuapl.edu/states/maps1/sd.gif
An impressive bibliography http://puffin.creighton.edu/lakota/biblio_al.html
Oglala Sioux Pine Ridge Profile http://www.mnisose.org/profiles/oglala.htm
The Little Big Horn tapestry with questions http://www.artsednet.getty.edu/ArtsEdNet/Resources/Maps/battle.html
Oglala Lakota College Links: http://www.olc.edu/olc/reference.html
Timeline http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jamarcus/index.html
Reservation Controversies http://www.pvhs.chico.k12.ca.us/~bsilva/ushist/am_mem/agent_resource.htm
Related government and private organizations
Habitat for Humanity Woihanble Yuwita http://www.habitat.org
Support the Kili Radio station, which broadcasts to an area larger than the state of Delaware in both English and Lakota. http://www.lakotamall.com/kili/
Mennonite assistance http://www.mcc.org/workbook/1998/B22E.html
Bureau of Indian Affairs http://www.doi.gov/bureau-indian-affairs.html
Pine Ridge Agency http://www.doi.gov/bia/aberdeen/areatribes/pineridge/pine%20ridge.htm
Walking Shield American Indian Society http://www.walkingshield.org/home.htm
LESSON THREE: Getting at the Truth
Topic
Getting at the Truth: Who should take responsibility for our history?
Age Group
Grades 9-12
Introduction
None of us were living when the land was taken away from the Indians or slaves imported into the United States. Can we agree that nevertheless we all benefit from the country that was forged with the resources of that stolen land and the work done by that stolen labor? Can we agree that the government we praise as one of the best democracies in the world has done some terrible things "in the name of the people"? If we can recognize the injustices of the past, what, if any responsibility do we share?
Learning Objectives
- To learn what American leaders have said about our treatment of Native Americans.
- To learn how other countries have faced painful events in their own past.
- To consider what options are open to American citizens as individuals, in groups, and as a collective nation.
- To consider the problem of righting all the various "wrongs" of history including injustices not only to Indians, but to women, the handicapped, African Americans, animals, forests, etc.
- To learn history through primary source materials.
- To research recent history on the Internet.
- To develop debate skills.
Overview
How do we imagine today's Germans learn about Hitler's concentration camps or today's South Africans try to understand apartheid? How much do Americans need to know about the treatment of Native Americans? Should children in schools be taught facts that show their government making mistakes or treating people cruelly? Other nations have tried some of these strategies to address the problems they recognize in their own past. If they can do it, could the United States? Should we? Is it too little? Is it too late?
When the white president of South Africa let Nelson Mandela out of jail and began to negotiate for a new government which, for the first time would represent all the people of South Africa, many people cheered, but many also worried. If the repressive government of South Africa, which represented less than 20 percent of the people, suddenly offered freedom to the 80 percent, which had been so horribly treated under apartheid, what would happen? Would there be were years of anger and resentment? Where would that anger go? Would the blacks force the whites to leave the country as they have in other African nations? During the painful years of apartheid there had been violence and bloodshed on both sides. Who should be punished?
After serious deliberation the South African government came up with the concept of a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" to study this issue. The goal of the commission was to find out the truth and to try to find a means to reconcile former enemies. Those who had battled on both sides (some as terrorists and others as policemen) were told to come forward and to admit their crimes. In exchange, if they were genuinely truthful, the government said, they might be forgiven. Not everyone came forward, and not everyone told the whole truth. Not everyone was forgiven, but in the process or these hearings, which played on South African television day after day, the South African people came to feel that at least some of the pain they had endured had been recognized.
Of course those who were involved in the violent encounters with American Indians or slaves are no longer here to tell their stories, but would an historical "truth and reconciliation" commission serve a purpose? What if all the facts about battles for Indian Land and all the facts about slavery were portrayed on television night after night? Would anyone watch? Would anyone feel better?
Standards
This lesson addresses the following national standards, established by McREL: http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/browse.asp
Language Arts
Grades 6-8
Uses reading skills and strategies to understand a variety of informational texts (e.g., textbooks; biographical sketches; letters; diaries; directions; procedures; magazines; essays; primary source historical documents; editorials; news stories; periodicals; bus routes; catalogs; technical directions; consumer, workplace, and public documents)
Understands techniques used to convey viewpoint (e.g., word choice, language structure, context)
Uses content, style, and structure (e.g., formal or informal language, genre, organization) appropriate for specific audiences (e.g., public, private) and purposes (e.g., to entertain, to influence, to inform)
Writes expository compositions (e.g., states a thesis or purpose; presents information that reflects knowledge about the topic of the report; organizes and presents information in a logical manner, including an introduction and conclusion; uses own words to develop ideas; uses common expository structures and features, such as compare-contrast or problem-solution)
Grades 9-12
Analyzes techniques (e.g., language, organization, tone, context) used to convey viewpoints or impressions (e.g., sarcasm, criticism, praise, affection)
Uses a variety of criteria to evaluate the clarity and accuracy of information (e.g., author's bias, use of persuasive strategies, consistency, clarity of purpose, effectiveness of organizational pattern, logic of arguments, reasoning, expertise of author, propaganda techniques, authenticity, appeal to friendly or hostile audience, faulty modes of persuasion)
Uses text features and elements to support inferences and generalizations about information (e.g., vocabulary, structure, evidence, expository structure, format, use of language, arguments used)
Writes expository compositions (e.g., synthesizes and organizes information from first- and second-hand sources, including books, magazines, computer data banks, and the community; uses a variety of techniques to develop the main idea [names, describes, or differentiates parts; compares or contrasts; examines the history of a subject; cites an anecdote to provide an example; illustrates through a scenario; provides interesting facts about the subject]; distinguishes relative importance of facts, data, and ideas; uses appropriate technical terms and notations)
Civics
Grades 6-8
Understands how politics enables people with differing ideas to reach binding agreements (e.g., presenting information and evidence, stating arguments, negotiating, compromising, voting)
Understands major ideas about why government is necessary (e.g., people's lives, liberty, and property would be insecure without government; individuals by themselves cannot do many of the things they can do collectively such as create a highway system, provide armed forces for the security of the nation, or make and enforce laws)
Understands competing ideas about the purposes government should serve (e.g., whether government should protect individual rights, promote the common good, provide economic security, mold the character of citizens, promote a particular religion)
Knows major conflicts in American society that have arisen from diversity (e.g., North/South conflict; conflict about land, suffrage, and other rights of Native Americans; Catholic/Protestant conflicts in the nineteenth century; conflict about civil rights of minorities and women; present day ethnic conflict in urban settings)
Knows ways in which conflicts about diversity can be resolved in a peaceful manner that respects individual rights and promotes the common good
Knows conflicts that have arisen regarding fundamental values and principles (e.g., conflicts between liberty and equality, conflicts between individual rights and the common good, conflicts between majority rule and minority rights)
Grades 9-12
Understands how politics enables a group of people with varying opinions and/or interests to reach collective decisions, influence decisions, and accomplish goals that they could not reach as individuals (e.g., managing the distribution of resources, allocating benefits and burdens, managing conflicts)
Understands some of the major competing ideas about the purposes of politics and government (e.g., achieving a religious vision, glorifying the state, enhancing economic prosperity, providing for a nation's security), and knows examples of past and present governments that serve these purposes
Understands how the purposes served by a government affect relationships between the individual and government and between government and society as a whole (e.g., the purpose of promoting a religious vision of what society should be like may require a government to restrict individual thought and actions, and place strict controls on the whole of the society)
Knows examples of conflicts stemming from diversity, and understands how some conflicts have been managed and why some of them have not yet been successfully resolved
Knows why constitutional values and principles must be adhered to when managing conflicts over diversity
Understands issues that involve conflicts among fundamental values and principles such as the conflict between liberty and authority
Lesson Three: Getting at the Truth
Vocabulary
apartheid
reconciliation
Day 1 (40 min.): Assign students to research the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the responses to it in South Africa. Some people believe the Commission's work is just "window dressing" and that it made South Africa look better in the eyes of other countries, but didn't change things at home.
Web site on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission http://www.truth.org.za/
Encourage all students to begin on this site which has tremendous primary source material and links to further sites. Also direct students to the PBS Facing the Truth website http://www.pbs.org/pov/tvraceinitiative/facingthetruth/index.html about the legacy of apartheid.
Day 2 (40 min.): Review the material on the HOMELAND website in the Timeline and Reservation Yesterday. Debate: The United States government should invest in an historical "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" campaign to publicize the injustices it made in the past and to educate Americans about why it is necessary that we never forget. (Depending on the curriculum, this debate could be limited to just truth about Indians, or broadened to include slavery and other issues.)
Homework: Students write their own conclusion about the value of such an historical commission.
Alternative Assignment: For students who do not have time for research or do not have Internet access, here is a portion of a speech by Desmond Tutu, the highly respected South African minister who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation commission.
Excerpts from Desmond Tutu's Address to the First Gathering of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, December 16, 1995
Everyone is aware that we have been assigned a delicate task whose execution, successful or otherwise, will have critical and far-reaching consequences for our land and nation. It is an awesome responsibility.
... Absolutely central to our concern in the work of our Commission is helping our land and people to achieve genuine, real and not cheap and spurious reconciliation. Some view the Commission with considerable misgiving and indeed suspicion and even hostility because they have convinced themselves that the Commission is going to degenerate into ...a witch-hunt...
...We are a wounded people because of the conflict of the past, no matter on which side we stood. We all stand in need of healing. We on the Commission are no superhuman exceptions. We too need forgiving and to forgive. I hope that our churches, mosques, synagogues and temples will be able to provide liturgies for corporate confession and absolution.
... It is not dealing with the past to say facilely, let bygones be bygones, for then they won't be bygones. Our country, our society would be doomed to the instability of uncertainty - the uncertainty engendered by not knowing when... another skeleton would be dragged out of the cupboard.
We will be engaging in what should be a corporate nationwide process of healing through contrition, confession and forgiveness. To be able to forgive one needs to know whom one is forgiving and why. That is why the truth is so central to this whole exercise.
But we will be engaging in something that is ultimately deeply spiritual, deeply personal. That is why I have been appealing to all our people - this is not something just for the Commission alone. We are in it, all of us together, black and white, coloured and Indian, we this rainbow people of God.
Web site with Desmond Tutu's entire speech http://www.truth.org.za/media/prindex.htm
Extending the Lesson
- Research the work of the International Court in The Hague, Netherlands, the one which intends to try Slobidan Milosovic. If the Sioux Nation cannot find justice in American courts, should it take its case to International Court in The Hague.
- Teach the concept of the "statute of limitations" and ask students to discuss why some crimes have short limits, and some crimes, like murder, have no limits. Should crimes that are more than 100 years old be considered past a "statute of limitations"? Why or why not?
- In 1980 the Supreme Court was asked to consider the claims of the Sioux Nation in a case known as United States v. Sioux Nations. The court determined that this United States was at fault for breaking treaties. Justice Rhenquist dissented. Here is the final paragraph of his opinion.
Justice Rhenquist (dissenting)
"That there was tragedy, deception, barbarity, and virtually every other vice known to man in the 300-year history of the expansion of the original 13 Colonies into a Nation which now embraces more than three million square miles and 50 States cannot be denied. But in a court opinion, as a historical and not a legal matter, both settler and Indian are entitled to the benefit of the Biblical adjuration: "Judge not, that ye be not judged."
- United States v. Sioux Nations (1980)
Do you agree that we dare not judge? What does it mean for a judge in the Supreme Court to suggest that we should "judge not"?
Resources
HOMELAND Timeline and Reservation Yesterday http://www.pbs.org/homeland/
United States v. Sioux Nations (1980) http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=448&invol=371
Native American Law http://resource.lawlinks.com/Content/Legal_Subject_Index/Native_American_Law/native_american_law.htm
PBS Online: Facing the Truth with Bill Moyers
http://www.pbs.org/pov/tvraceinitiative/facingthetruth/index.html
LESSON FOUR: Saying You're Sorry
Topic
What does it mean to say you are sorry?
Age Group
Grades 6-12
Learning Objectives
- To consider the importance of apologies as part of the normal interaction among members of a community - a family, a school, a community, etc.
- To learn that even political officials have chosen to apologize for actions, even actions for which they were not directly responsible.
- To learn about the history of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
- To learn about Australia's noteworthy attempt to involve an entire nation in saying it is sorry.
- To compare and contrast two speeches for content and style.
Overview
What would happen if the President woke up one morning and went on television to give a speech saying he or she was personally sorry for all the bad things that had been done by the American government in the past? What if we told criminals that they would not have to go to jail if they were willing to admit what they did and say they were truly sorry? Does it mean anything to say "sorry" for wrongs that happened one hundred years ago? Is it insincere for us to put up a monument to remember Crazy Horse or Chief Joseph? Why did we put Sacajawea on the American dollar?
The Bureau of Indian Affairs, which was once a part of the Department of War and is now part of the Department of the Interior, is the formal link between the United States government and Indian nations. Recently a spokesman for the Bureau made a speech apologizing for past wrongs committed by the Bureau.
Standards
This lesson addresses the following national standards, established by McREL: http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/browse.asp
U.S. History
Grade 6
Understands elements of early western migration (e.g., the lure of the West and the reality of life on the frontier; motivations of various settlers; Mormon contributions to the settlement of the West; differences in the settlement of California and Oregon in the late 1840s and 1850s; routes taken by settlers of the Western U.S.; interactions between settlers and Native Americans and Mexicans in the western territories)
Understands contemporary issues concerning gender and ethnicity (e.g., the range of women's organizations, the changing goals of the women's movement, and the issues currently dividing women; issues involving justice and common welfare; how interest groups attempted to achieve their goals of equality and justice; how African, Asian, Hispanic, and Native Americans have shaped American life and retained their cultural heritage)
Grades 7-8
Understands how early state and federal policy influenced various Native American tribes (e.g., survival strategies of Native Americans, environmental differences between Native American homelands and resettlement areas, the Black Hawk War and removal policies in the Old Northwest)
Understands characteristics of life on the western frontier in the 19th century (e.g., cultural interactions between diverse groups in the trans-Mississippi region, how the Mormons established the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and their communities)
Understands interaction between Native Americans and white society (e.g., the attitudes and policies of government officials, the U.S. Army, missionaries, and settlers toward Native Americans; the provisions and effects of the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 on tribal identity, land ownership and assimilation; the legacy of the 19th century federal Indian policy; Native American responses to increased white settlement, mining activities, and railroad construction)
Understands how different groups attempted to achieve their goals (e.g., the grievances of racial and ethnic minorities and their reference to the nation's charter documents to rectify past injustices, local community efforts to adapt facilities for the disabled)
Grades 9-12
Understands shifts in federal and state policy toward Native Americans in the first half of the 19th century (e.g., arguments for and against removal policy, changing policies from assimilation to removal and isolation after 1825)
Understands significant religious, cultural, and social changes in the American West (e.g., the degree to which political democracy influenced social and political conditions on the frontier, cultural characteristics of diverse groups, the impact of the Second Great Awakening and religious revivals on Mormon migration to the West, the lives of women in the West)
Understands influences on and perspectives of Native American life in the late 19th century (e.g., how the admission of new western states affected relations between the United States and Native American societies; leadership and values of Native American leaders; depiction of Native Americans and whites by 19th century artists)
Understands major contemporary social issues and the groups involved (e.g., the current debate over affirmative action and to what degree affirmative action policies have reached their goals; the evolution of government support for the rights of the disabled; the emergence of the Gay Liberation Movement and civil rights of gay Americans; continuing debates over multiculturalism, bilingual education, and group identity and rights vs. individual rights and identity; successes and failures of the modern feminist movement)
Language Arts
Grades 6-8
Uses reading skills and strategies to understand a variety of informational texts (e.g., textbooks; biographical sketches; letters; diaries; directions; procedures; magazines; essays; primary source historical documents; editorials; news stories; periodicals; bus routes; catalogs; technical directions; consumer, workplace, and public documents)
Summarizes and paraphrases information in texts (e.g., arranges information in chronological, logical, or sequential order; conveys main ideas, critical details, and underlying meaning; uses own words or quoted materials; preserves author's perspective and voice)
Understands techniques used to convey viewpoint (e.g., word choice, language structure, context)
Grades 9-12
Analyzes techniques (e.g., language, organization, tone, context) used to convey viewpoints or impressions (e.g., sarcasm, criticism, praise, affection)
Uses a variety of criteria to evaluate the clarity and accuracy of information (e.g., author's bias, use of persuasive strategies, consistency, clarity of purpose, effectiveness of organizational pattern, logic of arguments, reasoning, expertise of author, propaganda techniques, authenticity, appeal to friendly or hostile audience, faulty modes of persuasion)
Uses text features and elements to support inferences and generalizations about information (e.g., vocabulary, structure, evidence, expository structure, format, use of language, arguments used)
Civics
Grades 6-8
Understands how politics enables people with differing ideas to reach binding agreements (e.g., presenting information and evidence, stating arguments, negotiating, compromising, voting)
Understands competing ideas about the purposes government should serve (e.g., whether government should protect individual rights, promote the common good, provide economic security, mold the character of citizens, promote a particular religion)
Knows major conflicts in American society that have arisen from diversity (e.g., North/South conflict; conflict about land, suffrage, and other rights of Native Americans; Catholic/Protestant conflicts in the nineteenth century; conflict about civil rights of minorities and women; present day ethnic conflict in urban settings)
Understands the impact that other nations' ideas about rights have had on the United States (e.g., natural rights in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, social and economic rights in the twentieth century)
Understands the impact that current political developments around the world have on the United States (e.g., conflicts within and among other nations, efforts to establish democratic governments)
Grades 9-12
Understands how politics enables a group of people with varying opinions and/or interests to reach collective decisions, influence decisions, and accomplish goals that they could not reach as individuals (e.g., managing the distribution of resources, allocating benefits and burdens, managing conflicts)
Understands some of the major competing ideas about the purposes of politics and government (e.g., achieving a religious vision, glorifying the state, enhancing economic prosperity, providing for a nation's security), and knows examples of past and present governments that serve these purposes
Understands how the purposes served by a government affect relationships between the individual and government and between government and society as a whole (e.g., the purpose of promoting a religious vision of what society should be like may require a government to restrict individual thought and actions, and place strict controls on the whole of the society)
Knows examples of conflicts stemming from diversity, and understands how some conflicts have been managed and why some of them have not yet been successfully resolved
Knows why constitutional values and principles must be adhered to when managing conflicts over diversity
Understands issues that involve conflicts among fundamental values and principles such as the conflict between liberty and authority
Behavioral Studies
Grades 6-8
Understands that each culture has distinctive patterns of behavior that are usually practiced by most of the people who grow up in it
Grades 9-12
Understands that cultural beliefs strongly influence the values and behavior of the people who grow up in the culture, often without their being fully aware of it, and that people have different responses to these influences
Understands that heredity, culture, and personal experience interact in shaping human behavior, and that the relative importance of these influences is not clear in most circumstances
Understands that family, gender, ethnicity, nationality, institutional affiliations, socioeconomic status, and other group and cultural influences contribute to the shaping of a person's identity
Lesson Four: Saying You're Sorry
Day 1 (40 min.): Engage the class in an age-appropriate discussion of apologies, what they mean, why we do them, and what purposes they serve. Ask students to think of times when they have received apologies that seemed insincere or inappropriate. If a child breaks another child's toy is it appropriate for the mother to offer an apology? If your dog ruins the neighbor's garden, should you apologize? Can a drunk driver apologize to a family for killing their son? Is it ever too late to apologize?
Introduce the Bureau of Indian Affairs (see HOMELAND website Timeline Bureau of Indian Affairs) and explain its function. Have the class read and discuss this recent apology by Kevin Gover, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior.
This is from a speech Gover made on September 8, 2000, at the 175th Anniversary of the Establishment of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
...I stand before you as the leader of an institution that in the past has committed acts so terrible that they infect, diminish, and destroy the lives of Indian people decades later, generations later. These things occurred despite the efforts of many good people with good hearts who sought to prevent them. These wrongs must be acknowledged if the healing is to begin. And while the BIA employees of today did not commit these wrongs, we acknowledge that the institution we serve did. We accept this inheritance, this legacy of racism and inhumanity.
And by accepting this legacy, we accept also the moral responsibility of putting things right.
I do not speak today for the United States. That is the province of the nation's elected leaders, and I would not presume to speak on their behalf. I am empowered, however, to speak on behalf of this agency, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and I am quite certain that the words that follow reflect the hearts of its 10,000 employees.
Let us begin by expressing our profound sorrow for what this agency has done in the past. Just like you, when we think of these misdeeds and their tragic consequences, our hearts break and our grief is as pure and complete as yours. We desperately wish that we could change this history, but of course we cannot. On behalf of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, I extend this formal apology to Indian people for the historical conduct of this agency.
Website with the complete speech by Kevin Gover, September 8, 2000 http://www.spiritualnaturalist.com/Current_Issue/BIA_Speech.htm
Have the class evaluate this apology in terms of its meaning, its sincerity and its purpose. Is he believable when he says he speaks for the agency? Is he believable when he says he speaks for 10,000 employees?
Day 2 (40 min.): Australia has had a similar history in its treatment of the local population whom they call Aborigines. In 1992 Australia's Prime Minister Paul Keating offered an apology and called for a commission to study the problems caused by ill treatment of the Aborigines. Here is a shortened version of the speech:
Prime Minister Paul Keating
In truth, we cannot confidently say that we have succeeded as we would like to have succeeded if we have not managed to extend opportunity and care, dignity and hope to the indigenous people of Australia ...
This is a fundamental test of our social goals and our national will: our ability to say to ourselves and the rest of the world that Australia is a first rate social democracy...
It is a test of our self-knowledge. Of how well we know the land we live in. How well we know our history. How well we recognize the fact that, complex as our contemporary identity is, it cannot be separated from Aboriginal Australia
...More I think than most Australians recognize, the plight of Aboriginal Australians affects us all.
We simply cannot sweep injustice aside. Even if our own conscience allowed us to, I am sure, that in due course, the world and the people of our region would not. There should be no mistake about this - our success in resolving these issues will have a significant bearing on our standing in the world.
That seems to me not only morally indefensible, but bad history.
We non-Aboriginal Australians should perhaps remind ourselves that Australia once reached out for us. Didn't Australia provide opportunity and care for the dispossessed Irish? The poor of Britain? The refugees from war and famine and persecution in the countries of Europe and Asia? Isn't it reasonable to say that if we can build a prosperous and remarkably harmonious multicultural society in Australia, surely we can find just solutions to the problems which beset the first Australians - the people to whom the most injustice has been done.
And, as I say, the starting point might be to recognize that the problem starts with us non-Aboriginal Australians.
It begins, I think, with the act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practiced discrimination and exclusion.
It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds. We failed to ask - how would I feel if this were done to me?
As a consequence, we failed to see that what we were doing degraded all of us.
... Perhaps when we recognize what we have in common we will see the things which must be done - the practical things.
...The message should be that there is nothing to fear or to lose in the recognition of historical truth, or the extension of social justice, or the deepening of Australian social democracy to include indigenous Australians.
There is everything to gain.
There is one thing today we cannot imagine. We cannot imagine that the descendants of people whose genius and resilience maintained a culture here through 50,000 years or more, through cataclysmic changes to the climate and environment, and who then survived two centuries of dispossession and abuse, will be denied their place in the modern Australian nation.
We cannot imagine that.
We cannot imagine that we will fail.
I am confident that we will succeed in this decade.
Web site with the whole speech, a little long, but very readable http://apology.west.net.au/redfern.html
The Commission recommended that a National Sorry Day should be declared and the first National Sorry Day was held in Australia on 26 May 1998 - to recognize the pain caused to aboriginal families whose children had been removed from their homes. Support for Sorry Day was widespread. Not only did the vast majority of Australians vote to create the day, but additional events have been held and books have circulated in every community where individuals can write their personal messages. These books will become a permanent archive in which individual citizens can record their feelings.
Homework: Ask students to compare and contrast the speech from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the one by Australia's Prime Minister. How are they the same? Are there any significant differences in the speeches? Are there significant differences in the treatment of Native peoples in the United States and Australia? Do students think that the Prime Minister's speech and the success of Australia's Sorry Day influenced the head of the Bureau to make such a speech? If so, does that make his speech less valuable?
Extended activities
- Ask students to research the original Sorry Day
- Invite students to design a poster or pamphlet for an American Sorry Day.
- Is "Sorry Day" a good name, what might be a better one?
- Debate the value for the United States of a National "Sorry Day."
- Discuss whether the new president is likely to call for a "Sorry Day."
Resources
HOMELAND Timeline Bureau of Indian Affairs http://www.pbs.org/homeland/
Sorry Day http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/special/rsjproject/rsjlibrary/car/wtno29_aug2000/index.htm
Roadmap for Reconciliation http://www.reconciliation.org.au/
Frontier: Stories from White Australia's Forgotten War http://www.abc.net.au/frontier/stories/default.htm
A Site for Secondary teachers on the Aborigines of Australia http://members.nbci.com/athw/