Rant on Native American Studies
My professor spends the whole class period pointing out how ignorant everyone is because we haven't done anything to improve the situation of Native Americans in general. This is an Introduction to NAS class, we're taking it because we're not educated on the subject. He points out the bias in EVERYTHING that ever existed and manipulates stuff to try to make everyone feel bad for it. For example, today he shows us some statistics on the percentages of Native American faculty in colleges in the United States. Caucasian people consisted of 85% or something along those lines, and Native Americans consisted of 0.4%. He ranted about how there need to be more Native American professors and stuff. There are a few problems with this statement:
1. When you compare the population statistics of the United States to these statistics, you get similar numbers:
United States Universities
Native American Population: 0.9% 0.4%
Caucasian Population: 75.1% 85%
It's true that the numbers aren't exactly the same, but they are a lot closer than the professor tried to make us believe.
2. Native Americans as a group are anti-college because not very many universities have NAS programs. You can't become a teacher/professor without education and credentials, which you get from (surprise, surprise) COLLEGE.
3. When they DO go to college, they get degrees in the newly developed and unaccredited Native American Studies departments, not education.
In other words, that class sucks. Today there were at least three people talking on AIM on their laptops (I obviously wasn't one of them), and I saw two or more people asleep at any given time.
posted by Jennifer @ 11:45
2 Comments:
Hey Jennifer! Ooooh :( I had a History Professor that sounds just like this guy. In his mind, History had gotten a bad rap (because most students can't understand why, when, where or how they will ever use the information). At the beginning of the course (short of tying us all up and forcing it down our throats) he told everyone that if we came into his class with an attitude of not being interested in History, that we already failed his class. He was very hateful about it (which of course, gave us good reason to change our minds - ha!)and proceeded to "try" and tell us why we should be interested in the subject. I don't remember details, or statistics if he gave any(because it's been over 20 years), but I won't ever forget his tone nor his threat.
By the way good, you make some excellant points in rebuttle (?) to the professor's statements (You are learning something from his class). Obviously this professor has a personal agenda instead of just sticking to the facts and letting the student make up his or her own mind. It also sounds a little too political (isn't that a different course?) Yikes!
Well, you should have an interesting semester. Keep up the writing as often as you can, even if you don't always get a response. It keeps parents like me passified, since my own doesn't always openly share the college experience.
Hi: This is from Grandma Chris: You DO have to endure a lot of "crap" from certain professors. The fact is that many Native American tribes are getting rich because of gambling casinos that are in most or even every state. Their children now have many more advantages educationally and otherwise than they have had in the past. Your teacher would have grown up in a time before there were casinos and might have had a very deprived childhood. He is probably using the classes he teaches to vent his childhood resentments, instead of recognizing that it is possible for Native Americans to get ahead as he has. With people like that, it is often wise to just try hard to understand where he is coming from and then to regurgitate what he believes when you write a paper or take a test if you have to do that to get a good grade in the class and if it really turns out that he has such a closed mind as it now sounds. In time when today's Native American children reach adulthood, I think we will begin to see that their attitudes have changed. Right now, you have to deal with the reality of that professor's attidude. It is true that Native Americans have suffered terribly at the hands of Caucasions in the past 300 years. Good luck getting through the class!
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