THE AMERICANIZATION OF EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES

Jack D. Forbes

This land called America, or North and South America, is a very, very old land. Not only has this land been existing for millions of years but for many hundreds of thousands of years living creatures have been nourished on this land - including human beings - Anishinabeg (or Indians) for 40,000 or more years.

And yet the Europeans called this "the new world". Why? Perhaps because it was so well cared-for, so beautiful, so loved - it was, in short, young-looking and healthy. It had not been made old by human greed. It had not been exploited ruthlessly. Instead it had been lived on by people who regarded life on this part of the Earth as a sacred experience of caring for all life, including our
Mother the Earth herself. Many centuries ago White Buffalo Woman gave to the Lakota (Sioux) people a sacred pipe and a small round stone. She said:

"With this sacred pipe you will walk upon the Earth; for the Earth is your   Grandmother and Mother, and She is sacred. Every step that is taken upon Her   should be as a prayer. The bowl of this pipe is of red stone; it is the Earth.

Carved in the stone and facing the center is this buffalo calf who represents all the four-leggeds who live upon your Mother. The stem of the pipe is of wood, and this represents all that grows upon the earth.

And those twelve feathers which hang here where the stem, fits into the bowl are from Wanbli Galeshka, the Spotted Eagle, and they represent the eagle and all the winged of the air. All these peoples, and all the things of the universe, are joined to you who smoke the pipe - all send their voices to Wakan-Tanka, the Great Spirit. When you pray with this pipe, you pray for and with everything.

With this pipe you will be bound to all your relatives - Grandfather and Father, your Grandmother and Mother. This round rock, which is made of the same red stone as the bowl of the pipe, your Father Wakan-Tanka has also given to you. It is the Earth, your Grandmother and Mother, and it is where you will live and increase. This Earth which He has given to you is red, and the two-leggeds who live upon the Earth are red; and the Great Spirit has also given to you a red day, and a red road [the good, straight road of purity and life.] All of this is sacred and so do not forget! Every dawn as it comes is a holy event, and every day is holy, for the light comes from your Father Wakan-Tanka: and also you must always remember that the two-leggeds and all other peoples who stand upon the earth are sacred and should be treated as such." (From Black Elk, The Sacred Pipe pp. 5-7.)

Now when you hear those words, words of the native people of this land, what do you feel? Do they sound foreign? Exotic? Strange? Well, please remember that they are American words. If we are going to have schools which are relevant to this land vie are going to have to have schools which are relevant to those words. Every land has its own distinctive character, its own unique history, its own particular spirit. North America is no exception. What is the essence of America? What does the word American mean? What is Americanization? Now if we were in most any other part. of the world our answers to similar questions would be easier. For example, if we were asked what is peculiarly Irish we would certainly look to the native Irish heritage as it has evolved over thousands of years We probably would not confuse the culture of the English invaders with that native to Ireland. We would note that Irish culture has changed but vie would look for its roots principally on Irish soil, not in England.

Europeans have been here in North America for only about 400 years (at the most). Since human history in our land goes back, at least 40,000years we can say that 99% (or more) of American history, and of the American heritage, precedes the earliest European settlements along the Atlantic seaboard. In California Europeans have been in a majority only since about 1850, so about 99¾% of California history is primarily Native American.

In spite of the sophistry and propaganda which has sought to make the Native American race a foreign group in its own homeland, we can say, in truth, that there is an American people, there is an American Way there is an American heritage It has been developing and evolving on this sacred soil for probably at least 1600 generations and it is not dead. It is relevant, it is practical, and it is the unique message of this land.

So when I speak about the Americanization of education I am speaking about a profound process which demands that you who are of European thinking finally and at long last have an American spiritual and cultural revolution. Break the umbilical cords that bind you to Europe! Stop regarding this land as a temporary way-station on your migrations from England to Australia or wherever you are going next. Make this land your home, existentially as well as physically! Love this land, and the living creatures on it, as if you were going to stay here forever!

Now what do these words mean? Does it mean that I am advocating schools that teach only the native heritage and which ignore the presence of Europeans, Afro-Americans, and other ethnic groups? No, far from it.

Lame Deer, a Sioux holy man, has said: "To us a man is what nature, or his dreams, make him. We accept him for what he wants to be. That's up to him." (John Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes, Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions, 1972, p. 149).

So the first thing that we have to remember is that the native heritage of this land is above all else a heritage of freedom for self-development. In fact, it is the essence of the native viewpoint that individuals must assume responsibility for their own life-path. As Juan Matus, the Yaqui holy man says: "When a man decides to do something he must go all the way, but he must take responsibility for what he does. No matter what he does, he must know first why he is doing it..." (Carlos Castaneda, Journey to Ixtlan, 1972, p. 61).

It has always been hard for the European to understand the freedom which is an essential part of the Native American way, a freedom which is available not only to those who are powerful but which is also extended to children, to old people, to trees, to animals, and to those who are weak. Can vie have such freedom in education today? I think so, and I think we must unless we are all committed to a totalitarian society.

A second element in the native heritage which is pertinent at this point is "truth." Truth will take care of "cultural pluralism" - truth in text books, truth in curriculum, truth in the recognition by the schools of the languages actually spoken by our people, truth in the recognition of the music and the arts of our people, and so on.

Our schools are now "lies." They have little to do with truth. They pretend to teach the history of this land when all they actually teach is a biased version of the story of the white man's conquest of this country. They pretend to teach the music and art, and literature of this land when almost always they only teach the music, art, and literature of the elite segments of the white population. They pretend to prepare people for self development when, in fact, they usually only socialize them to authoritarian bureaucratic systemized behavior and conformity.

If we were to be able to open our eyes to the truth we would see a land with fantastic original beauty, now partially ruined. We would see a Native legacy of tremendous power and value. We would see millions of Blacks, Browns, and poor whites struggling heroically to survive and develop through centuries of slavery and exploitation. We would see, in short, not only many peoples and many colors, but we would also come to understand how greed, materialism, Machiavellianism, and violence have caused this land to become at one and the same time one of the most beautiful and most ugly places on the earth.

Why are we here to discuss "cultural pluralism?" We are here apparently because the European-style school system of this land, accurately reflecting as it does coercive, conformity-seeking, imperialistic tendencies brought over here from Europe, denies the right of the individual to develop in his min style, and is based upon lies. But then we must remember that the school system reflects the values of the ruling segment of this society and the schools cannot be changed by themselves. The county planning commission which denies me the right to build a traditional Indian-style ramada (sun shade) is part of the same system as the principal who denies Chicano children the right to use Spanish in the formal learning process.

At this time, I want to present to you some "Powhatan Goals of Education." I feel that they represent a fairly accurate summary of Anishinabe (Indian) viewpoints. Let us keep in mind how they might apply to our schools today.

POWHATAN GOALS OF EDUCATION

The goals of education for Native Americans should be based upon two basic principles:

(1) the development of the individual so as to allow  for the maximum realization of his or her spiritual potential; and

(2) the maintenance or reestablishment of the native community in a harmonious non-exploitative relationship with living creatures and with the total Universe.

Fundamentally, the goals of Native American education can be stated simply: to help develop a true Navajo, or a true Lakota, or a true Powatanape - Powhatan man - or Powatanasqwa - Powhatan woman. In this conception basic values, of a spiritual nature, are obviously crucial because everything else depends upon the possession of a proper "face" or spiritually-grounded personality.

The goal of Powhatan education, for example, traditionally, is to bring about the development of persons like Opechkankano (the leader of the Confederation from 1620 to 1644) with the following characteristics:

(1) a person who knows his "true self-identity", that is, who understands his relationship to his or her clan, tribe and nation, and also to the earth, to animals, to plants, and to the Great Creative Power.

(2) a person dedicated to the welfare of his or her people.

(3) a person of courage.

(4) a person who considers and takes care of the weak.

(5) a person who respects all living things.

(6) a person who has a face - who does not lie, or boast, who can be relied upon, who is "steady"
and has a well-developed, strong character.

(7) a person who controls his desires, or better yet has few material desires, so as to maintain a simplicity of life.

(8) a person who has taken a new name, who has been "born again" into a true relationship with the Creator (as in the Huskanaw ceremony).

(9) a person who is "under control", that is, always does what he or she really wants to do and not what alcohol, drugs, anger, hate, ambition, or greed influences him or her to do.

(10) a person who develops skills and knowledge to a maximum capacity so as to provide benefit for his or her people and so as to enhance the beauty and harmony of the world.

(11) a person who is non-aggressive and non-exploitative, who does not seek, to verbally, physically, or otherwise dominate any other creature; that is, a person whose immense power is held in reserve until needed for the benefit of others but who does not brazenly or aggressively "show off" his or her power for selfish reasons.

(12) a person who is reserved and maintains dignity (who is under control) and whose expressions of joy, remorse, happiness, sorrow, enthusiasm, love, et cetera, are always spontaneous and real and never forced or feigned.

(13) a person who desires to help others, and to share with others but at the same time does not jeopardize those who are dependent upon him or her by compulsively giving away things so as to win false esteem. (Attan-Akamik, v. 1, no.6).

If we were to Americanize the education process by implementing the above goals, what relevance would they have to ethnic groups other than Native Americans?

First, Chicano culture is largely native American in origin and meshes very well with these goals. Cesar Chavez, for example, is a fine expression of the kind of man such an approach to education would hope to encourage.

Second, Afro-American people are part Native American by blood since many thousands of Indians were enslaved and merged into the Black population, and Indians and Blacks have, and/or are, intermarrying.

Traditional African culture and rural Black southern culture are both similar to Native American, especially traditional African. Both Martin Luther King and Malcolm X personify individuals who could easily conform to the ideals of Native American education.

Pilipinos, Hawaiians, Samoans, and Asian-Americans cans also have traditional values which, prior to corruption by Anglo influence, would not be hostile to a truly American approach to education.

The European populations in North America present us with greater problems however. On the one hand, traditional Highland Scots and other rural or peasant European traditions are available as models with basic values somewhat comparable to those of Native America.

On the other hand, though, most Europeans in North America (along with a certain percentage of non-whites) have become partially corrupted by the greed, materialism and machiavellianism of the upper-class traditions of Europe. More fundamentally, the white masses as a whole have participated in, and profited from, the conquest and rape of this land. Most, therefore, share several characteristics with the ruling classes which, together, constitute severe stumbling blocks to Americanization: first, a deep, fear of non-whites (partly based upon guilt); second, a fear of nonmaterialistic cultural values (because, perhaps, they represent a threat to the value of "upward mobility"); third, a deep ambition to attain material affluence (that is, a great part of the white masses hope not to change the wealthy class model but simply to become like it); and, fourth, an imperialistic tradition derived from the conquest of the living creatures native to this land.

We have to bear in mind that the conquest and rape of this land, and the exploitation of non-whites, has been a profitable if sometimes bloody experience. The Sioux medicine man Lame Deer also obtained insight into the psychological "pay-off" from conquest while visiting "Mount Rushmore" in the sacred Black Hills.

"What does this Mount Rushmore mean to us Indians? It means that these big white faces are telling us, first we gave you a treaty that you could keep these Black, Hills forever ..... then we found the gold and took this last piece of land, because we were stronger, and there were more of us than there were of you .... and after we did all this we carved up this mountain, the dwelling place of your spirits, and put our four gleaming white faces there. We are the conquerors. And a million or more tourists every year look up at those faces and feel good, real good, because they make then feel big and powerful, because their own kind of people made these faces and the tourists are thinking; 'We are white, and we made this, what we want we get, and nothing can stop us."' (Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions, p. 93).

Fortunately, an aggressive imperialistic people seem to always ultimately pay a price for their behavior. I believe that we are now in the midst of a crisis for white society in the United States. A year or two ago I wrote that:

“The crisis in white society which today threatens the continued existence of the United States (and of the world) is not the result of an accident. It is instead the inevitable result of "machiavellian" attitudes towards Mother Earth and towards living creatures, including humans. No society based upon an exploitative, aggressive, greed-oriented set of values can possibly survive for any great length of time. Such a society inevitably brings about its own destruction.”

How is this true? It is true because a people who do not recognize the intrinsic rights of other living creatures will destroy them at will (provided that greed, based upon a desire for wealth-derived social status, is socially approved).

This was what the white man did to the bison in a few short years. This is what the white man did to the forests and grasslands of North America. A people who do not love Mother Earth, and who seek wealth, will rip her apart. This is what the white man has done and is doing, ripping open and poisoning her surface and filling the rivers, bays, and oceans with silt, debris, and pollution.

A people who do not respect the right of each human being to self-development and integrity, and who seek after wealth, will exploit other humans, will use them as "means" instead of "ends". This is what the white man did when he enslaved millions of Blacks' and natives, slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people, and forced millions (including other whites) to work in factories and fields under sub-human conditions.

A society that does not give intrinsic value to human beings, a society that approves of genocide, cannot prevent the rise of violence within the society. A society that conquers Indians and Chicanos, and which seeks to justify such aggression intellectually and morally, has no ethical or psychological defense against violence and "crime". If it is "okay" for whites to steal Indian land and keep the stolen property (as is true today), without returning any of it, then it is "okay" for any man to steal from another. "Power" becomes the only arbiter of morality.

If it is "okay" to kill Indians (and if the "movies" justify it every day) then it is "okay" for any man to kill another. "Power" alone determines whether a killing is "legal" or "illegal."

A "machiavellian" mass society valuing wealth-acquisition and typified by exploitative relations must, inevitably, be a violent society, using force to protect the "haves" and the "hope to haves" from the "have-nots" and outsiders.

Such a society will destroy itself because its greed will cause it to consume its own resources and even its own people. No self-restraints can effectively be imposed because the society's very nature, it's internal dynamic, is to consume. It's voracious appetite will cause it to literally eat itself. When sufficiently weakened, other similar social monsters will finish it off - if anything remains.

Non-machiavellian peoples, such as most Indians and Chicanos, and a certain number from other groups, exist within the territory of this self-destructing society. If they are to survive this crisis, they must see to it that their own people are given the opportunity to be saved, along with those non-natives who possess the personal values necessary for "salvation."

The ancient Mexicans, the Hopis, and many other native groups have prophecies which predict that this, the fourth or fifth "world" (or "age"), will soon face a crisis which will lead it into the next age of existence. *Many Indians believe that the end of this world is close at hand and certainly the behavior of the "Great Nations" points towards an almost-inevitable calamity.

But Indian prophecies also hold out some hope - hope based upon the possibility that respect for Mother Earth, for other humans, and for all of the sacred web of life can be spread to enough people so that "goodness" will begin to counter balance and then overcome "evil." I (Jack D. Forbes , "Why DQU? " in Aztecas del Norte (Norte: the Chicanos of Aztlan, New York, 1973, pp. 255-258) The truth is that the United States, with "Watergate," the "energy crisis," the "ecology crisis," "crime in the streets," "Vietnam," increasing wire-tapping, rules and regulations, overcrowding, the destruction of the small farmer, corporate dominance of the economy, and so on, is in a critical period. Education, if it is to be of any value, must be changed. I offer the American Way as an alternative.

The Son of Old Man Hat, a Navajo, provides us with insight into American approach to education. Let us read one of his stories, a story of an educational arrangement lasting for many months, worked out between his stepfather, Old Man Hat, and a nephew of the latter, Who Has Mules.

"That winter, while we lived on Black Mountain at Willows Coming Out, Who Has Mules came to our place...Old Man Hat said, 'I'll tell, then you'll know and remember. You can easily learn if you hear the stories first. If you want to learn about the horses, sheep, cattle and properties, if you want to have all these things, you don't want to be lazy, you don't want to go to bed early at night and get up late in the morning. You have to work bard for all those things ... When you've acquired stocks [livestock] you have to work on them day and night...'Then, when you learn about all these things, there's a song for each one. Even though you know only one song for the sheep you'll raise them, nothing will bother them, nothing will happen to them, You'll have them for a long time, the rest of your life...'

While they were talking I was sitting up listening to what they were saying. My father [Old Man Hat] said to me, 'Sit, up and watch Vie fire. Keep the fire going.' So I was sitting there listening and I was glad he'd told me to sit up. I wanted to sit up and listen anyhow. Everything my father said I was kind of picking up. So I was glad to be keeping the fire going for I was anxious to hear what my father was saying. I always liked to listen when a man was talking.

When the men started talking I always liked to hear them...

[Old Man Hat said] 'After you've raised everything, sheep, horses and cattle, and have gotten lots of property you shouldn't cuss and swear at your properties and stock ... these things are like your children. You've got to go easy with them, then you'll have something all the time ... Well my nephew, my little one, you said you wanted to learn something about the stocks and properties. If you want to learn, learn it right now...

From, there on [Who Has Mules] came every two or three days. That winter we didn't do anything, nor go any place. These two were working on the songs, prayers and stories all that winter....[Old Man Rat said] Now you've learned all that I know. I wanted you to learn, for you are my only nephew. I know you wish to have lots of stock and property, and I know you need them, I know you have children. I don’t want your children to go starving. So, now, you can go ahead, tend to your stocks and properties,  and do it right. And don't talk roughly. If you do you won't get these things,  because all the stocks and properties will know that you'll be rough with them.

They'll be afraid and won't want to come to you. If you think kindly and talk in the kindest. manner then they'll know you're a kind man, and then everything will go to you. So, now, just go ahead, this is all I want to say to you. This will be 'he end.' That what my father said, and Who Has Mules went home. (Walter Dyk, ed. , Son of Old Man Hat, Lincoln, 1966, pp.75-81

Does learning have to take place in a schoolhouse under coercive conditions? Obviously not, since children learn a lot, for the most part without difficulty, before they ever enter school and young people and adults are well known to learn about so-called "hobbies" and "avocational interests" on their own. "Compulsory education" may be a legal necessity, but let us make use of our adults, our older people, and our youth  themselves to develop learning-path approaches to education which bypass or supplement the formal school. For so many youth the formal school is an unrewarding prison and they rebel because existentially, if they have any gumption, they have to rebel.

From the traditional American perspective the central essence of education is not, in any case, the acquisition of specific skills or factual knowledge (although this is a necessary part of a person's growth through life) but rather it is learning how to be a human being, and how to live a life of the utmost spiritual quality. A person who has developed his character to its highest degree, or who is on that path, will also, be, able to. master specific skills.

A person, on the other hand, who has no spiritual essence or depth of character will either not be able to concentrate on learning anything else or will misuse what he has learned (as do our "mad scientists" and technicians who perpetually produce new products of questionable value and who will not assume responsibility for the use others make of their inventions). The highest goal of Native American education is to help individuals to learn to live as self-directed, free human beings with a keen sense of their destiny in the Universe. A few insights into this goals of education can be seen in the teachings of Juan Matus, the Yaqui holy man:

"I told you once that our lot as men is to learn, for good or bad ... You should know by now that a man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting, nor by thinking about what he will think when he has finished acting. A man of knowledge chooses a path with heart and follows it... He knows that his life will be over altogether too soon.... Your friend [an old, wealthy man] is lonely because he will die without seeing. In his life he just grew old and now he must have more self-pity than ever before. He feels he threw away forty years because he was after victories and found only defeats. He'll never know that to be victorious or to be defeated are equal ...

Our lot as men is to learn and one goes to knowledge as one goes to war And so you're afraid of the emptiness of your friend's life. But there's no emptiness in the life of a man of knowledge, I tell you. Everything is filled to the brim ... I an, not like your friend who just grew old .... For him, his struggle was not worth his while, because he was defeated; for me there is no victory, or defeat, or  emptiness. Everything is filled to the brim and everything is equal and my struggle was worth my while .... (Carlos Castaneda, A Separate Reality, New York, 1972, pp. 85,83).

"I have heard you say time and time again that you are always prepared to die. I don't regard that feeling as necessary. I think it is a useless indulgence. A warrior should be prepared only to battle .... The spirit of a warrior is not geared to indulging and complaining, nor is it geared to winning of losing. The spirit of a warrior is geared only to struggle, and every struggle is a warrior's last battle on earth. Thus the outcome matters very little to him. In his last battle on earth a warrior lets his spirit flow free and clear. And as he wages his battle, knowing that his will is impeccable, a warrior laughs and laughs."

"It is the consistent choice of the path with heart which makes a warrior different from the average man. fie knows that a path has heart when he is one with it, when he experiences a great peace and pleasure traversing its length." (Separate Reality pp. 215, 217-18.)

“...you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question. This question is one that only a very old man asks... Does this path have a heart?...Does this path have a heart?" If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey, as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you. (Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan, Berkeley, pp. 105-6).

“go ... you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it."

"You don't have time for this display [of reluctance] ... whatever you're doing now, may be your last act on earth. It may very well be your last battle. There is no power which could guarantee that you are going to live one more minute."

"There are some people who are very careful about the nature of their acts. Their happiness is to act with the full knowledge that they don't have time, therefore, their acts have a peculiar power:...Acts have power, especially when the person acting knows that those acts are his last battle. There is a strong consuming happiness in acting with the full knowledge that whatever one is doing may very well be one's last act on earth. I recommend that you reconsider your life and bring your acts into that light." (Carlos Castaneda, Journey to Ixtlan, pp. 107, 109-10).

"A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide-awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it will live to regret his steps." (The Teachings of Don Juan, p. 43).

The white man, with his egotism and chauvinism, has seldom seen fit to either learn from Native Americans, Afro-Americans or other non-whites, or to admit that he has learned from them, which amounts to the same thing. Now, out of fear, and because non-white pupils seem increasingly "difficult" and "unmanageable," token efforts are being made introduce "multi-cultural" education and "Cultural pluralism" into the schools.

The schools of this country are, by and large, not. American. They are in fact, rooted in the heritage and purposes only of the white English speaking population and are dominated by the class biases of the ruling or elite sector of that population. Introducing little bits or pieces of multi-cultural curricula into such schools will, unfortunately, neither change them nor provide a truly American educational experience.

Just the other day I read of a thirteen year old white girl who was denied the right to graduate with her class in Clifton, Arizona, because her family couldn't afford a new store-bought dress. School principal Billy C. McDowell said that he had no alternative but to send the girl home alone in tears because the students "had been given their instructions long before the graduation. I felt a girl who did not abide by the required dress should not participate." The school board president, William Blair said: "Yes, I saw the Stacy girl's dress, and it wasn't a wrong dress. It just had pastel flowers on it. But we had 66 graduates, and we couldn't have everybody different. She was defying authority. (The Sacramento Bee, June 21, 1973, p.A2)

So often in this country's schools non-Anglo and poor children have to "defy authority" either because they cannot afford to conform.. to the school's culture or because they do not want to. What we have to do is to change our educational system so that no principal, school board, or teacher would even dream of coercing any student in any manner whatsoever, unless that student were
directly threatening the self-development of others.

In any case, it is clear that non-white culture cannot be successfully recognized in a school whose structure, methodology, and values are European-authoritarian in character. Underlying, often hidden, goals of Anglo middle-class socialization have to be exposed and eliminated.

Persons raised according to traditional Native American values will ordinarily behave differently from many people in the dominant society. Ordinarily, a Native American community will be (1) extremely democratic, (2) very tolerant of individual differences, (3) very equalitarian, (4) typified by an absence of wealth concentrated in a few families, (5) uninterested in technology if the latter threatens any basic values or yields no significant improvement qualitatively, (6) typified by a deep commitment to the spiritual life, (7) typified by giving a relatively low value to the possession of most material goods, (8) opposed to the unnecessary destruction of any living creature, (9) opposed to the unnecessary alteration or destruction of the earth or any part of the earth, (10) uninterested in imperialism, and (11) extremely oriented towards individual creativity in the arts, crafts, the dance, music, and so on.

It should be crystal clear that such a community represents a radical alternative to existing white cities and towns. Are you prepared for the American Way, or will you continue to follow the logic of European conformist education even if "Watergate" and becoming a number in a computer file are its implications?

Americanization, in my opinion, offers a way to liberate education so that it in turn can become free enough to serve all of the diverse individuals and ethnic groups living on this portion of the Earth.

Lame-Deer says:

“The Great Spirit warts people to be different. The Great Spirit wants He makes a person love a particular animal , tree or herb. He makes people feel drawn to certain favorite spots on this earth where they experience a special sense of well-being, saying to themselves, ‘That's a spot which makes me happy, where I belong.’ The Great Spirit is one, yet he is many. He is a part of the sun and the sun is a part of him. He can be in a thunderbird or in an animal. or plant. A human being, too, is many things. Whatever makes up the air, the earth, the herbs, the stones is also a part of our bodies. We must learn to be different, to feel and taste the manifold things that are us .... On all the earth there is not one leaf that is exactly like another. The Great Spirit likes it that way. He only sketches out the path of life roughly for all creatures on earth, shows them where to go, where to arrive at, but leaves them to find their own way to get there. He wants them to act independently according to their nature, to the urges in each of them.

If Wakan Tanka likes the plants, the animals, even little mice and bugs, to do this, how much more will he abhor people being alike, doing the same thing, getting up at the same tire, putting on the same kind of store-bought clothes, riding the same subway, working in the same office at the same job with their eyes on the same clock and, worst of all, thinking alike all the time. All creatures exist for a purpose .... Only human beings have come to a point where they no longer know why they exist ... They don't use the knowledge the spirit has put into every one of them; they are not even aware of this, and so they stumble along blindly on the road to nowhere - a paved highway which they themselves bulldoze and make smooth so that they can get faster to the big, empty hole which they'll find at the end, waiting to swallow them up. It's a quick, comfortable superhighway, but I know where it leads to. I have seen it. I've been there in my vision and it makes me shudder to think about it. (Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions, pp. 156-7).