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Children’s Perceptions of Native Americans Due to Stereotypes Precipitated by the Media

As a child, it is easy to be persuaded and pressured into believing something by authority

figures, educational textbooks, movies, and television shows. Focusing exclusively in the school

system, that persuasion is being guided by both the authoritative teacher and politically correct

textbook. Elementary and middle school children have the capacity to remember and hold onto

information forever, regardless if it is true or false. Because of all these negative and false

stereotypes about Native Americans swirling in both the classroom and other media outlets, young

children have the potential to conduct serious emotional and physical harm to Native people. I

realized that throughout my childhood I was taught so many stereotypical ideas regarding Native

Americans. These beliefs were carried over from elementary school, to middle school, to high

school, and even college. It was not until taking American Indian Studies that I finally recognized

almost everything that I had remembered about Native Americans was wrong!

The project our group presented was titled, “Children’s Perceptions of Native Americans

Due to Stereotypes Precipitated in the Media.” We decided to focus on this topic because there are

still so many stereotypes out there today that are influencing our future generation. If we want

everyone to be treated with fairness, dignity, and respect, we must then research what obstacles our

children are facing in the midst of reaching that “peaceful harmony.” My group members consisted

of Nicole Phillips, Rod Zamparo, Jay Collins, and Shaun Alene. Nicole focused on the surveys and

films, Rod focused on comics, Jay focused on television shows, Shaun focused on children’s toys,

and finally, I focused on both the surveys and the proper way of teaching Native Americans to

elementary and secondary education students.

The first part of my project involved doing extensive research analyzing textbooks, lesson

plans, and reading the book, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History

Textbook Got Wrong, by James Loewen to get better get an idea of how teachers are presenting

Native American materials to grade school, middle school, and high school students. It is really

surprising to find out that some of the textbooks teachers continue to use are from the early 1990s,
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quite possibly the late 1980s. I decided to go to the education library here on campus and find

social studies textbooks to see how correct or biased information was presented in regards to Native

Americans.

To begin with, I chose the textbook, Cooperative Learning Basics. This textbook was

published in 1995, focusing their educational material toward grade school and middle school

children. I was pleasantly surprised they went into so much depth with Native Americans. It was

nice to know that there are some textbooks and lesson plans out there dedicated to studying chapters

that focus on specific Native tribes. In the workbook, it had a project in which students had to

select an area, such as the arctic or plains, and under each area were specific Indian groups. The

arctic contained Eskimos and Aleuts, while the plains area contained Kiowa Comanche, Mandan,

Hidatsa, and Arikara tribes. Each group of students were to pick a specific Native American tribe

and then perform a skit. After the skits, children then had to discuss and answer the question, “Why

is it important for us to learn about Native American people?” The teacher’s lesson plan book

response answered this question by stating, “Studying Native Americans reminds us that United

States history did not begin with Columbus in 1492 (Griswold 71-76). This textbook did the

appropriate way of getting children to learn about individual cultures and tribes of Native

Americans rather than over generalizing the Native population. So overall, I thought Cooperative

Learning Basics did an excellent job informing students that Native Americans were the first

Americans. With this textbook, children also learned the idea that Native Americans come from

different locations, each with their own distinct culture.

Another project from Cooperative Learning Basics begins with the discussion of the

sentence: “Columbus discovered American in 1492. Is there anything wrong with that?” The

teacher is then supposed to follow up with questions, “What does discover mean? When you

discover something does it usually mean you were the first person to do this? Was Columbus the

first person to discover America? Were there people in America before Columbus?” (Griswold 75)

I believe this is indeed a proper way to introduce the unit of Native Americans. Engaging students
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in these kinds of questions allows for perspective taking, helping children understand that

Columbus often receives more credit than he is rightfully entitled to. This activity also allows

students to learn about the cultures of several Native American tribes in a reasonable amount of

time. The one major problem that I did encounter in Cooperative Learning Basics was that it never

once mentioned that Native people still exist today. I believe that if textbooks focus units on Native

Americans, they should include both the historical and present day components to ensure that

children understand that Native Americans still contribute an important part in society.

The next textbook I researched was titled, Exploring Our Country’s History: Linking Fiction

to Nonfiction. This textbook was published in 1996, incorporating a variety of short stories. I

decided to review the short story “Tapenum’s Day.” this story, appealing mainly to 2nd and 3rd

graders, was about a Wampanoag Indian boy in pilgrim times. The book explores the life of a

Wampanoag boy in the 1620s through photographs of Isaac Hendricks, a modern-day Native

American boy. Isaac plays the role of Tapenum, who wants to be selected to be a warrior. In the

story, Tapenum goes hunting with his bow and arrow, runs a great distance, and prepares sinew and

glue to make a high quality arrows (Waters 40). Incorporating a modern day Native child is a good

way to teach children that Native Americans still exist today, but the major downfall of this short

story was that the modern day Native child was pretending to be in the past. Mixing fiction and

nonfiction, in addition to mixing modern versus historic times may not be the best idea for young

children. It’s easy for children to come away with the idea that Native American still primitively

hunt, have spears, and carry bows and arrows.

Another short story from the same textbook was, “Across the Wide Dark Sea: The

Mayflower Journey.” This short story was filled with pictures specifically geared for K-3 graders. It

is a white boy’s perspective about the Mayflower and how they land on America. They make peace

with Natives and establish homes in their land. I was surprised to find out that the story

emphasized this was the young white boy’s land. “The young white boy’s land” is already a false

statement because it is honestly the Native American’s land that these colonists took over. The
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story itself does not view the Native American perspectives at all (Leeuwen 32). I believe

understanding different perspectives is one of the main skills students should develop at a young

age because perspective taking allows children to display empathy, tolerance, and fairness to

diverse cultures, such that as of Native Americans.

I then studied a different textbook and its supplementing worksheets titled, The United

States: Its History and Neighbors. The worksheets showed a picture of a Plains Indian ceremony.

The textbook explains what is going on in the ceremony and used the phrase, “Native Americans

HAD various ceremonies” (Hirsh 38). Once again, there is the use of the past tense, implicitly

stating that Native Americans are extinct. The picture that supplements the worksheet also looks

like they are portrayed as a bunch of wild Indians! They are holding various objects above their

heads, wearing animal masks, and one Native American honestly looks like he is holding a shotgun!

This picture was by far the most stereotypical idea of Native Americans that I encountered

researching this project.

Our United States: Its History and Neighbors lesson plans also prompted the teacher to

write sentences on the board relating to Native Americans. One particular sentence that teachers are

supposed to write are, “Native Americans learn to make spear points” (Hirsh 29). This phrase

could easily give children the impression that all that Native Americans did were fight or prepare to

fight. It could have been just as easy to write in the teacher’s lesson plan, “Native Americans learn

to make traditional food.” It was highly unnecessary to include Native Americans and spears in a

statement in which many other ideas could have been used. It is clear that this sentence is just

exacerbating the stereotype of Natives being savage and war-like.

I also thought it would be interesting to research various high school history books and read

the book titled, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got

Wrong, by James Loewen. I believe that a lot of textbooks that present different subjective

numbers are keeping students ignorant about reasoning, arguments, and weighing evidence that go

into social science. There are also so many truths that are left out of history books concerning
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Native Americans. It is important to explain that what really killed the vast majority of Native

people were the diseases that Europeans brought over; it is really not right to glorify the idea that

Europeans had enough strength to kill all the Indians! Many times in school, I was told that the

majority of the Indians died as the result of warfare. Actually, it wasn’t until late middle school and

high school that I was taught that Europeans brought over devastating diseases and illnesses with

them from England. It was shocking to read that when one tribe was wiped out because of disease,

the remaining members of that tribe would travel to another tribe to reside with them, thus infecting

that tribe with those horrific diseases. So even without white contact, hundreds of thousands of

Native Americans became infected and died. It was a helpless situation; Indian healers could not

offer any cures, and many Native Americans resorted to alcohol, rejected their religion, or simply

committed suicide (Loewen 80-81). This topic is too big of a deal to ignore and leave out.

Obviously, it shows how much Europeans are still glorified as the “first Americans” and how they

were the “heroes” for making landfall in America. No one wants to think that our ancestors were

horrible individuals, so leaving these ideas out of textbooks is a way to deny that this part of history

ever happened.

Alas, there are still things textbooks often leave out, and they are of the upmost importance.

It was devastating to read that white Europeans actually abused Native Americans culture and

inflicted physical harm on the Natives. According to Loewen, once the Spaniards arrived in the

Americas, they actually hunted Indians for sport and murdered them for dog food. Colonists made

Indians mine gold, grow food, and even carry the colonists (Loewen 62-63). Colonists robbed

Native American houses and even graves! A white colonist journalled,“The next morning we found

a place like a grave. We decided to dig it up. We found furs, a mat, and even a fine bow…we also

found bowls, trays, and dishes. We took several of the prettiest things to carry away with us, and

covered the body up again” (Loewen 90-91).

My group member Nicole and I then decided to do some research surveying grade school

and middle school students to get a better idea of what they really knew or thought about Native
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Americans. The results were clear and consistent; children know very little accurate information

about Native Americans, and the information that they do know is quite stereotypical. My partner

and I first interviewed first graders. Since first graders are just starting to read properly, we felt it

was a better to ask the questions orally. There were several children who chose not to answer the

questions, so the numbers of children who we survey in certain grades do vary. We presented a

series of questions to first graders, fourth graders, and seventh graders. The first question we

presented was, “What comes to mind when you think of Native Americans?” The most common

responses by the first graders were typical Thanksgiving stereotypes: eating turkey, pilgrims,

Thanksgiving, and Squanto. The most common responses by fourth grade were Indians with a total

of 13 students out of the 27. The next common responses were hunting, pilgrims, and animal fur.

When we asked the seventh graders the same question, we got some interesting answers. The most

common response was Indians with 28 students responding out of the 46 students. The most

alarming answers came from the seventh grade class who provided responses such as brutal fighting

Indians, tomahawks, people who wore rags, and how long they have “lived” in America. Only one

student out of the 46 provided a correct answer, “friendly, nice people.”

The next question we asked was, “Where do Native Americans live?” We provided a set of

multiple-choice answers to be stated orally. First graders were required to vote on Adobe houses,

tents, housing just like you and I, and tipis. An astonishing 34 first graders out of the 40 stated

Native Americans still live in tipis; Only 5 children stated they lived in houses just like you and I.

This accentuates the fact that educators are focusing too much with Native Americans in the past

and often forget to emphasize that Native Americans are still alive today and are just like all of us.

We then asked the fourth grades this question as a free response and there were still children who

stated Native Americans lived in tipis. We also got some interesting answers stating that Native

Americans live in caves and the woods. The fourth graders marked the trend of naming specific

states such as Oklahoma, Illinois, and New Mexico. It was disappointing to see that only 2 students

out of the 35 stated that Native Americans live all around. The seventh grade results provided a bit
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of relief for my partner and I. 22 out of the 41 students stated provided answers that were

somewhat correct in context (12 stated they lived in the United States of America, 3 stated houses, 4

stated anywhere, and 3 stated North American).

The third question we posed to all three grade levels was, “What do Native Americans

wear?” The first graders were given a set of answers to vote on. The answers to choose from were

Nike tennis shoes, blue jeans, braids, moccasins, or feathered headbands. The entire first graders

we surveyed answered moccasins, braids and feathered headbands! Nobody voted for common day

objects such as Nike tennis shoes or blue jeans. This emphasizes the fact that children think of

Native Americans in a past tense and people who are primitive individuals. We questioned the

fourth graders and 22 students out of the 40 provided the answer animal skins! Other alarming

answers were old rags and not very clean clothes. 18 out of the 46 seventh grade class answered

“animal skins” and other disappointing answers were rags, broken sandals, and wearing what they

mostly eat.” There were only four students who answered “clothes” rather than the stereotypical

responses.

The fourth question posed was, “Do you think Native Americans are friendly?” Thankfully,

these results provided a much more positive outlook to how Native Americans are viewed. 32 out

of 37 first grade students reported that Native Americans are indeed friendly. 23 out of the 30

fourth grade students and 22 out of the 47 seventh grade students stated that native people are

friendly. There were 19 students in seventh grade that thought that natives were friendly only

sometimes. A possible conclusion for this answer is that this is the age where children are learning

more in-depth social studies, including analyzing early American history and the wars involved.

Although I did not know which social studies book these children used, it is a possibility that there

were instances in the book where wars they analyzed with Natives were mentioned negatively as

“massacres.” Depending on the book, distorted portrayals of Native Americans could have easily

persuaded these students to change their answer to “sometimes.”

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The fifth question asked was, “Have you ever met a Native American?” Coming from two

rural districts where the demographics were mainly of white students, I hypothesized that not many

children really had ever met a Native American. In fact, there are no Native American children

currently enrolled in the school system my mother teaches in, Stark County Elementary. 24 first

grade students out of the 38 stated they had never met a Native American. The numbers were even

lower for the fourth and seventh grade students. Only 4 fourth graders out of 33 stated they had

indeed met a Native American while only 12 out of the 45 fifth graders reported meeting a native.

My overall finding from this question was that my hypothesis was correct: not many children that I

surveyed claimed they met a Native American. This could possibly be detrimental because it gives

children a valid reason to believe that Native Americans do not even exist today. I decided to do a

follow up question to the first graders stating, “Do you think Native Americans are still alive

today?” A shocking 22 students out of 33 stated that they did not think Native Americans were

alive today! It is clear the majority of materials taught to young children relating to native

Americans only deals with the past with items such as the first Thanksgiving or the exploration of

the Americas.

The last series of questions were directed toward fourth and seventh grade students. The

questions were in regards to what movies children had seen and books they have read that contained

Native American characters. The fourth grade students answered Who Was Sacajawea, Little

House in the Big Woods, If you Lived with Native Americans, and their social studies textbooks. I

am not so sure on how the other books compare, but after reading Little House on the Prairie I am

sure Little House in the Big Woods is just as stereotypical and demeaning towards Native

Americans. For the movies, 9 children said they had seen Native Americans in the television

episodes of Little House on the Prairie and a few said they had seen Native Americans in John

Wayne movies. This is worrisome because these two TV shows containing Native Americans are

indeed over generalized and stereotypical, treating Indians as savage and warlike, always ready to

fight. These classic films such as John Wayne movies are also passed down generations, as well as
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the stereotypes associated. The seventh graders were then asked the same questions. For the books,

children mainly stated their social studies books as the one source of information about Native

Americans. 10 students stated they had read The Ransom of Mercy Carter and 5 children stated they

had read the book Pocahontas. After analyzing the results, it is clear that something needs to be

done in order to properly educate our youth about Native Americans, both present-day and past

information. If a teacher is going to focus her curriculum on Native Americans, then it is essential to

get the right information and take the time and effort to research genuine material, introducing

children to the real truth.

I understand that teachers are hard working individuals and want nothing but the best for

their students. The problem is that teachers can’t always provide the best for their students.

Teachers lack resources, time, money, and the education to correctly inform others about Native

Americans. We must realize that all teachers are not racist and a majority are unaware that they are

actually stereotyping and misinforming the future generation. Teachers are not always the ones to

blame. According to the magazine, “Making Native American Lessons Meaningful," it is probable

that many teachers did not receive the opportunity to practice and develop their analytical learning

skills during their college courses to properly teach young children about Native Americans. If we

put it this way, it is the university and college curriculum that may be the one to blame. Many

schoolteachers are just following the lesson plans they have been given over the years, and finding

the time and money to revise those lesson plans is a hard task to accomplish (Shaffer 201). All

these obstacles are a hard task to accomplish because unfortunately, teaching is a demanding

profession that is often underpaid.

After doing much research with grade school and middle school students, I was shocked by

how much children didn’t know and how misinformed they seemed about Native Americans. Any

teacher’s goal should be to provide students with a solid knowledge base, analytical skills, and

enough courage to stand up and say something is misleading and/or stereotypical. Just by changing

little things in lesson plans and annual activities involving portrayals of Native Americans can be
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the start of a new beginning in terms of changing the way students think. The teacher can add a

simple new responsibility of keeping an open eye and ear out for their students in terms of

undercutting inaccurate terms, portrayals, and history about Native Americans.

First of all, students need to be taught that the Indians aren’t all gone, that they’re not all

poor and uneducated, and that they live and work throughout the U.S contributing significantly to

American society. According to Education World, Debbie Reese is stated, “Teachers must provide

accurate instruction not only about history but also about the contemporary lives of Native

Americans” (Hopkins 1). Next, if teachers become more aware of their environment, it is possible

that they will catch Indian references used toward children. According to the Ableza Institute, it is

not a good idea to tell children to sit “Indian style” or to make statements like, “You are all acting

like a bunch of wild Indians”. Even songs such as “America the Beautiful” has a line in it, “land of

the pilgrim’s pride” that may need to be explained properly. Rhyming songs such that of “one little,

two little, three little Indians” should be substituted for some other object or thing rather than the

word Indian. In grade school, a lot of teachers have the alphabet letters and pictures corresponding

to those pictures on the wall. Make sure that "I" is not for Indian and does not have a stereotypical

Native American as the picture (Ableza 1-3). “Making Native American Lessons Meaningful” also

writes that it is also important to use Native Americans in the present tense. Use "have” instead of

"had,” letting children know that native people still exist today (Shaffer 202). According to Native

Nevada Classroom, it is also never a good idea refer to Native Americans as “them.” Referring to

Natives this way introduces the point that they are not like “us,” and that they are subordinate and

the out-group in society (Council on Interracial Books for Children 1). In addition, it is essential to

avoid derogatory terms of Indians, such as savages, primitive, simple, or red man/race.

Craft activities portraying Native Americans are often a popular portion of the curriculum

during celebrated holidays, such as Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. Enacting plays and skits in

which children play pilgrims and Indians is not always a good idea, mostly because these plays are

culturally insensitive to Native American culture. Thanksgiving plays portraying Indians are very
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disrespectful. Skits often have the children who play Native Americans speak in broken English,

using such terms as “how” or “war whooping.” Never encourage broken English because not only is

it disrespectful, it is not even true. Native Americans were very intelligent individuals and they not

only had their own culture, but their own separate languages as well. According to “Native

Curriculum in Early Childhood,” feathers and headdresses are scared for very significant occasions.

Skits often include children dressed up with brown paper bag vests, with beads and feathers, thus

promoting the stereotype that Native Americans are primitive, simple people (Moomaw 6). In a

website from Education World, according to Debbie Reese, “Young children’s conceptions of

Native Americans often develop out of media portrayals and classroom role playing of the first

events of the Thanksgiving are both inaccurate and potentially damaging to others” (Hopkins 2).

According to a magazine article titled, “Creating Positive Cultural Images: Thoughts for teaching

about American Indians,” a way in which teachers can promote cultural commonalities and

differences is having their students compare and contrast the Thanksgiving holiday celebrated by

their own families compared to other harvest celebrations that take place in other cultures. Perhaps

it is a good idea to turn Thanksgiving into a holiday of opportunity, appreciating the diversity of

Native Americans and other cultures. It is important to get children to realize that Native Americans

have special religious ceremonies in which they wear special attire, just like we would wear nice

clothes to church or a special religious occasion (Haukoos 80).

Perhaps one of the most important lessons a teacher can teach is that of “walking in

another’s moccasins,” meaning taking many different perspectives of one situation or event.

According to “Resources for Teaching About Native Americans,” it is important to use a different

approach to Thanksgiving instead of taking the pilgrim’s perspective. Engage children in probing

questions such as, how did you think Squanto felt when the pilgrims arrived? Another possible

perspective taking activities would be to help them understand that natives were no more savage

than others who would have fought to defend their precious lands (Harvey 51-52). Also, in teaching

curriculum on Native Americans, emphasize to students that Native Americans have a wide variety

of physical features, attributes, and values; as do people of all culture and races. Help students of
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all ages understand that American Indian culture differs with each Indian nation. Finally, teach

children that American Indians people prefer to be indentified by their nation name.

I believe there is no other way to improve teaching about Native Americans other than by

increasing one’s knowledge of Native Americans. Being able to better understand their cultures

will allow teachers to be able to select better instructional materials and to recognize stereotypes in

lesson plans and worksheets. Teachers usually have the summer off, a perfect opportunity to travel,

explore, and visit reservations or historical sites of Native Americans to obtain a better perspective

of their culture and present day lives. It could also be the perfect opportunity to take courses

offered by universities and museums to increase one’s knowledge and perspectives of Native

Americans. It is also important to subscribe to various journals and newspapers that present current

perspectives and current issues in the daily lives of Native Americans. Be responsible for finding

books that depict all children of all colors (including Native Americans) doing contemporary things

such as driving, biking, playing sports, ect. Also, when introducing different tribes, be specific

about which tribes used particular items when discussing particular artifacts (Harvey 52).

. The last major portion of this project focused on group work. Overall, I felt our group dynamics

were just okay. I would say that Nicole, Rod, and I were really motivated and extremely cooperative

when working together. Us three were the ones that really kept the group together. We would

occasionally check up on each other and our results from our research. We were the ones who

really exemplified teamwork, constructed deadlines, and set goals to achieve at certain points

throughout the semester. Jay and Shaun were both just okay contributors, and it wasn’t until the a

week before the project was due that they started to step up their game and become more task

oriented. I must say that I was doubting Shaun and Jay a little bit that their part of the project would

be completed. Everyone came to the group meetings and provided excellent ideas. I don’t think

our group connected with Shaun and Jay very well, partially because they were never in regular

attendance in class. Nicole did an outstanding job with putting all our slides together on the

PowerPoint, and Rod did an excellent job sending emails. I felt that Nicole and I went beyond what
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was expected, creating the survey and actually going to our old grade schools and asking students

questions about what they exactly knew about Native Americans. The person in the group that I was

most concerned about getting his share done was Shaun. We had very little communication with

him until almost to the very end of the project. Nicole, Rod, and I chose the topic quickly and I felt

that if we did not choose a topic or set deadlines, Shaun and Jay would not be motivated to

complete their part of the assignment on time. It was frustrating for a while to work with individuals

who I felt did not have much motivation and had to be reminded of meetings. Throughout this

project, we all respected each other’s ideas, and Nicole, Rod, and I exemplified a lot of patience

being with Jay and Shaun. Our plan of action was to each pick a form of media, research it, and

then bring it to the group to share what we all found. We thought it was essential to meet and we all

did an excellent job finding a time that we all could be together. I thought presenting to the class

went very smoothly. We were all allowed for 5-7 minutes apiece. Shaun was the only one that

seemed to have a problem fitting in all his information in that time frame. I was really impressed by

Jay’s part of the presentation. I was surprised because at the meetings, he never really seemed to

have started the project. Overall, it was awesome to have Nicole and rod as my group mates. I

honestly don’t think I could have done it this project without people who are as passionate about

this class as I was.

In conclusion, this was one of the best classes I have taken here at the University of Illinois.

I feel it is now an obligation to teach my friends, family members, and classmates the real truth

about Native Americans, both present day and past. This group project has been a wonderful

experience and I have been more motivated than ever to continue researching this fascinating topic!