Lesson 4: Resistance and Change

Up until now students have focused on the ways in which FIBS and Carlisle Industrial Boarding School practiced forceful assimilation of American Indian students through suppressing their languages, cultures, beliefs, and keeping them away from the support and guidance and influence of their families and Native American communities. Additionally, students have engaged in comparative analysis by looking at the differences between their own schooling experience and that of the students of Carlisle Indian Industrial School. This lesson aims to have students understand and explore the concept of resistance by looking at how students resisted their forceful assimilation and instead carved a pathway for incremental change for themselves and their Native American communities. This lesson is the first of two parts as this lesson will explore the concept of resistance by having students analyze instances of resistance in Native American communities during the 19^th and 20^th centuries. The second lesson will have students engage in research, but they will instead look at present-day resistance movements focused on different populations and on different issues which still involve student/youth resistance, Educational Inequality (Malala Yousafzai) and the Black Lives Matter Movement.