What Is STEM Without Roots?
The excerpt below is taken from an article originally published on the American Indian College Fund website and is reprinted with permission.
When it comes to STEM, it may be the roots that hold us in the field, the classroom, and in our love for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
As Native Americans, there has been a complicated history and relationship with formalized education. Beginning with boarding schools and day schools that mandated assimilation and rejection of Indigenous community languages and wisdom, the disruption has spanned for well over a century, with the abusive boarding school era coming to a close as late as the 1970s. Each generation since these boarding schools struggles with the false dichotomy that one can either be Indigenous or do well in school.