What pictures come to your mind upon hearing the word "Native American?" What about "Indian?" Most people tend to see tipis, buckskin clothing, feathers and horses. Some may hear a whooping noise and see "braves" running around with their hands over their mouths to create this sound. Names like Sacajawea, Sitting Bull, Pocahontas, or Squanto may come up and you probably envision these people sitting around with Pilgrims, perhaps during a feast. But, do these people still exist? Are they still living in tipis with buckskins to clothe themselves? What are they like now? Unfortunately, Native American education is typically limited to stereotypes such as the aforementioned thoughts and does not include current information or information concerning Native Americans outside of the West. Through exploring children's text books, an elementary school library, and speaking one-on-one with students we have discovered that knowledge about this people group is limited in content, left focused on the West, and based on stereotypes.

Children's Textbooks

     The Hancourt, Inc. Horizons fourth grade Social Studies textbook included one small section, about two pages, related to Native Americans. This section left the people group in the past by including only historical information and failed to connect these individuals to current times. Photographs and other artwork were included to depict the Native Americans; however, all images conveyed the people group with the stereotypes of feathers and little clothing while living inside of tipis as referred to before. A few specific people were mentioned; however, they entirely left out women in the group. Even though this was a North Carolina based textbook, the roles of Native Americans mentioned were mostly centered in Oklahoma and other western states. A student reading this section of their textbook would easily see Native Americans as a thing of the past and have no way to make personal connections.

Elementary School Library

     If a student further explored the topic of Native Americans by researching within New Hope Elementary School's library, they would fun into even more problems. All of the library's information regarding Native Americans were fables or other stories that are known to have been passed on. This further emphasizes the stereotypical view of Native Americans and continues to keep students at a distance from this group of people since they have no available way to relate to them.

Interviews with Students

     These concerns exhibited themselves clearly through our one-on-one conversations with students. We spoke to two second graders at New Hope Elementary and found concerning results. One student was unable to answer many of our questions because they immediately stated that they had no idea what Native Americans were. After some encouragement, the student was able to recall a movie he had seen with cowboys chasing Indians on horses. He told us that he saw Indians getting their heads cut and other violent images while women would help take care of them by "sticking bugs in their cuts." He had never learned about Native Americans in school. The other student had some ideas about who Native Americans were, but also displayed a lot of confusion. Most extremely, when asked what Native Americans do today she responded that they no longer exist. While looking at images of Native Americans, this student also told us that one group of people could not be Native Americans because they were standing outside of a school and Native Americans never had schools.

     It is clear that misconceptions exist largely around the topic of Native Americans and hinder individuals in their knowledge of this culture that is still alive in North Carolina. This people group exists throughout our state, and in learning and appreciating the various communities and individuals around us it is vital to cast a most accurate image of Native Americans and their existence in North Carolina.