Essay example --

The Rise, the Fall, and the Climbing: The Native American Experience Education: â€Å"the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.† Such a term has different applications to various societies and cultures. The typical ego-centric viewpoint of Western education: textbooks, institutions, curriculums, and degrees overshadow the broader sense of this definition. Education captures a wider lens of more than just standardized test scores and the classroom; but interwoven tapestries of ancestral roots, cultural heritage awareness, and life lessons well-learned and passed on to the next generation of Native American boys and girls. To begin with, the branding of ‘gender inequality’ was inapplicable to men and women in various Aboriginal tribes. In fact, they could be described as a kinship with mutual contribution and expectance. Men were responsible for hunting and defense; therefore they were public representatives of their tribes. Women, on the other hand, functioned as the ‘backbone’ of the community, owning the family’s housing and household goods, farming and gathering of foodstuffs, and even serving as members of the counsel in political matters. Such opportunities and skills were passed down to their offspring, who would be raised as productive members in their collectivist society with a strong cultural heritage and confidence in their identity that promised self-efficacy among the sexes. This leads us to the most important role that both genders shared: instruction and education. Again, setting aside our own view of education, both men and women served as ‘teachers’, or storytellers; orally... ...ircle and there's nothing you can do about it† (Alexie 163). The reused books, the recycled mentality-it is all a harsh cycle that most Native Americans at present feel â€Å"there’s nothing you can do about it.† Taking a retrospective look into the differences in females and males, we find that women have proven to be leaders, both before and after assimilation. But even at present, Native American women are the high-profiled victims of physical and sexual abuse, addiction, and pregnancies. Yet, they fuel their hope and future through education: adopting the Western view and reconnecting with their own cultural foundation. Men, also in the frame of Alexie, struggle among the disparaging HUD homes, the painfully accessible bottle, and failure, but if there is a word that will conclude the rise, the fall, and the climbing of the Native Americans, resiliency is the word.