E - Klasse 7 - Arbeit Nr. 9 - GreenButterSolutions

I want to be an Indian

Robert Burnette is the President of the Rosebud Sioux tribe of Indians in South Dakota. Recently an American teenage magazine spoke

 

with Mr Burnette about going to school on the Rosebud Reservation in the 1930s.

Here is a part of what he had to say:

Many of us kids on the reservation lived hundreds of miles away from the nearest school - too far to get there and back in a day.

 

So we had to go to the Rosebud Boarding School.

The school was run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the teachers were all white. I remember how I felt my first day there.

I felt all alone in a strange world. At first it seemed like an adventure. But the adventure quickly became a nightmare.

The teachers did everything they could to turn us into whites. We were not allowed to speak in our own language, to sing Indian songs,

 

or to practise our religion. Sometimes they showed us silent movies.

They were always cowboys and Indians movies. We were so brainwashed that we cheered when the Indians were killed.

In some ways, the teachers' attempts to make us lose our Indian identities backfired. Because we were punished for using our language,

 

we showed our pride and used it as often as we could.

All the teachers' efforts made us want to stay as Indian as we possibly could. However, there were some things they tried to teach us.

 

They made us memorize long, dull poems we were not interested in at all. We were also taught a lot of American history.

 

The Indians were always the bad guys.

Not many of us got much out of school.

 

(about 290 words)

 
Questions on the text.

1.1. How did the students in the Rosebud Boarding School react to the movies they were shown?

 

  
1.2. What did the teachers hope the result of their kind of education would be?

 

  
1.3. What was the result in fact?

 

  

Last Monday, September 11th, the 11- and 12-year-old students (have) their sports day. As in the years before,

 

several old school records (break). The 200 metres, for example,  (win) in 23.1 seconds.

 

The winner (be) Ian Quirk. Alex Klaces, last year's winner,  (beat) and only

 

(come) in the fifth place.

3.1. immigrants (people):  

3.2. mechanic (person):  

3.3. grandfather (man):  

3.4. library (place):  

3.5. giraffe (animal):  

 

4.1. I like her. (I).

4.2. Ted cannot swim. (his sister).

4.3. Anne has seen the Queen.  (Nancy and Lucy).

4.4. He thinks it's true. (Peter).

4.5. Fred and Dan don't like doing their homework. (Susan).