Getting everyone excited about Native American cultures! Reaching out to both Native American and non-Native students in order to build a bridge of understanding and increase awareness about shared values. Having Native American students share their stories and be part of the teaching process. Inviting teachers to make RTC’s programs regular, classroom activities.
To encourage people to learn about Native American people and cultures, and to develop a more meaningful and complete perspective on Indian Country.
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Summer assistance for the current school year will now be available for all students.
Attention all new HIED and AVT Students: All HIED applications for Spring 2012 must be turned in by the December 15 deadline. No exceptions will be allowed.
Attention High School Seniors for the 2011 - 12 school year: Do not forget to turn in your YIP applications. All Tribally enrolled senior high school students are eligible to receive $500 as part of the senior incentive. Proof of Senior status is REQUIRED to receive this award. The YIP application deadline is July 31 of the school year recently completed.
For further information call: 402.371.8834 or Email:
Pat Eichberger: pate@poncatribe-ne.org
Aubrey Knudsen: aknudsen@poncatribe-ne.org
- Master/Grad Program has been discontinued for the 2011 - 2012 school year.
- Book costs have been discontinued for the 2011 - 2012 school year.
- Summer assistance for the current school year will now be available for all students.
If any students have questions regarding these matters, please contact Pat or Aubrey with the Education Department. Thank you.
Check out the updated College Profiles at EducationQuest.org to research colleges in Nebraska and across the country that are the best fit for you. By using College Profiles, you can search for schools based on location, size, school type, cost, major, activities and services for students with disabilities. Your search results page will list colleges that match your criteria and provide a link to more information about the school.
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 Check "For the Youth" for grant and scholarship information!
The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska is dedicated to assisting and encouraging its tribal members in the attainment of their educational goals. The Ponca people have always placed a high value on education. In the pre-reservation days, education was informal. Often elders would gather a group of children for instruction. In the Ponca language, the word for instuctor is woga-ze, which later came to mean "school."
While the Tribe realizes that the quest for knowledge is ongoing, the attainment of specific goals is addressed through the programs offered by the Tribe. The educational opportunities afforded tribal members are provided as a privilege with the intent that upon graduation, the completion of their course of study or the development of specific skills, tribal members will use their knowledge to the benefit of themselves, their families, their communities, and the tribe as a whole.
Five programs are currently available to tribal members.
- Higher Education
- Adult Vocational Training
- General Educational Development
- Graduate/Post-Graduate
- Youth Initiatives Program
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EARLY EDUCATION
Prior to the advent of European society, North American Indian education focused primarily on teaching children basic survival in an environment that, at times, could prove hostile. Not only did the Indian have Nature with which to contend but he also had to cope with enemy tribes. Social education taught children their roles and responsibilities within their immediate families as well as to their extended families, clans, bands, and tribes. Vocational education taught children about practical, everyday tasks. Boys were taught skills such as farming, hunting, gathering, fishing, etc. Girls learned skills such as parenting, cooking, and sewing. Each tribe had its own religion that explained to the children their beliefs and ideologies through stories and ceremonies. In addition, not only children but all tribal members often revered their elders and looked to them for guidance and wisdom.
The European invasion of North American that began almost immediately after Columbus “discovered” America would prove the undoing of the Indian’s way of life. Tragedy after tragedy would befall him in his fight for survival. First to come was the introduction of new diseases, such as smallpox and measles, for which the indigenous American had no immunities. These diseases would wipe out vast numbers, greatly decreasing the Native American population. Next to come would be the religious factions, both Catholic and Protestant, who saw the Indian’s beliefs as hedonistic. These factions forced not only their religious ideologies upon him but also took from him everything that made him who he was as a person—both the tangible and intangible. Ultimately, the Indian would lose the fight for his land and way of life through warfare and bogus treaties. His pre-historic bows and arrows were no match for the modern weaponry used by the invader. And the treaties were often ruses created merely to take more and more land from him until there was no more land left to take. What remained of the Indian’s dwindling numbers would soon be relegated to reservations—land unwanted and of little use to the conqueror. Here, his numbers would further diminish for lack of adequate food, medical supplies, and housing. The reservations were often arid, desolate lands where little if anything could be grown, and yet the Indian was not allowed to leave the reservation even to hunt or forage for food.
Although he complied with every demand made by the European invader, he was still not accepted as an equal. His mistreatment during the 1800s was truly an American holocaust. At best, he was seen as an impediment to progress, blocking the westward expansion of the Europeans as part of their ideology of “Manifest Destiny.” At worse, his death became a viable reason for “ethnic cleansing,” reflecting the concept, at the time, that “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.”
By the late 1800s, the decision of the federal government was to civilize the “savage.” To do this required the complete obliteration of his native culture. The thought process was “kill the Indian; save the man.” Treaties made during this period often contained provisions for education to move the Indian toward civilization. These provisions called for schools to provide him with a basic elementary education and teach him farming as a vocation. Schools provided were often substandard and subterfuges for a spoils system whereby teachers were hired more for their partisan political connections rather than their educational qualifications. Primarily, the BIA schools were created to perform “cultural genocide.”
In 1891, Congress passed the Indian Appropriations Act. This act required all Native American children between the ages of six and sixteen to attend school and authorized the Bureau of Indian Affairs to withhold federal rations from any Indian family who refused to send their children away to school. Families were essentially given no choice but to surrender their children to the boarding schools.
Special boarding schools were created all across the United States. Thousands of Native American children were sent far from their homes to live at these schools. Most struggled with loneliness and fear. Some lost their lives to various diseases such as influenza, tuberculosis, and measles. Others survived despite the hardships—with many forming lifelong friendships. Still others were able to preserve their Indian identities in spite of the schools’ mandate that the children become fully indoctrinated into “white” society.
The education program in boarding schools consisted of a half day of instruction in the “three R’s” and a half day in vocational instruction. The vocational instruction involved growing their own food, making their own clothing, and maintaining the school. While the goal was for students to leave their reservations and assimilate into “white” society, the students often left ill-prepared to do so. The dilemma was that they often no longer fit into either the “white” or Indian society. However, it was not until the late 1920, that the federal government realized the futility of its policy and declared that uprooting these children and removing them to boarding schools was not a workable plan.
SELF-DETERMINATION
Basically, the various types of Indian education policies implemented by the federal government even well into the late 1960s were dismal failures. In 1969, a Senate subcommittee report titled Indian Education: A National Tragedy, a National Challenge documented these continued failures. According to the report: “The dominant policy of the Federal Government towards the American Indian has been one of coercive assimilation.”The report further added that its assimilation policy has fostered “prejudice, racial intolerance, and discrimination towards Indians” and “has had disastrous effects on the education of Indian children.”In summary, the report stated that “The coercive assimilation policy has two primary historical roots: (1) A continuous desire to exploit and expropriate Indian land and physical resources, and (2) A self-righteous intolerance of tribal communities and cultural differences.”
Finally, with the support of President Richard M. Nixon, Indian self-governance was established with the passage of the Indian Education Act of 1972 and the Indian Self-Determination and Education Act of 1975.
Today, the Indian Education Act provides funds to tribes for children both on and off reservation. The Self-Determination Act allows tribes and Indian organizations to oversee BIA programs, including BIA schools. By 1992, there were 22 tribally controlled community college and 84 elementary and secondary schools operated by tribes. On a positive note, several of these community colleges today are moving toward providing four-year degree programs. In South Dakota, Sinte Gleska University and Oglala Lakota College now offer four-year teaching degrees. Additionally, Diné College in Arizona and Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas offer the same.
The Native student of today varies from traditional to assimilated. Still others are bicultural—able to move back and forth between both societies. Because of the tremendous differences among Indians tribes, educational needs can vary greatly from tribe to tribe. For example, the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska is a non-reservation based tribe so the Tribe’s needs are not the same as those with reservations and their own school systems.
| Five Ponca Programs |
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HIGHER EDUCATION, ADULT VOCATIONAL & GRADUATE PROGRAMS
At the post-secondary level, the goal of the Tribe’s Education Department is to offer its members a variety of higher education as well as vocational training opportunities. The Higher Education and Adult Vocational Training Programs are the primary focus of the Tribe’s Education Department with both programs originating in 1993.
The HIED Program assists tribal members attending four-year colleges and universities while the AVT Program assists those attending community colleges or other vocational training institutes.
Eligible tribal members are funded based on information supplied to the department by the financial aid office of the schools students plan to attend. Tribal members may attend the school of their choice anywhere in the United States and may attend on a full- or part-time basis. All students are required to maintain a 2.0 GPA based upon the number of credit hours funded.
GRADUATE AND POST-GRADUATE
The Graduate/Post-Graduate Program was established in 2002. Prior to that time, a Master’s Program was in place. The revision creates for a broader range of possible graduate/post-graduate degrees a student may choose to seek, thereby, not limiting his/her choice to specific types of masters programs. However, assistance in the program is limited to two years of participation, and students must maintain that GPA as required by his/her program of study. As with the HIED and AVT Programs, students may attend the institute of their choice nationwide. Unlike the HIED and AVT Programs, there is no probationary period allotted to students at this level who fail to maintain satisfactory progress.
GED/ HIGH SCHOOL EQUIVALENCY
For those tribal members who have not graduated from secondary schools, the goal of the Tribe’s Education Department is to motivate and reward those who seek their high school equivalencies.
The General Educational Development/High School Equivalency Program was first implemented on September 1, 1996. The initial program assisted those tribal members located in the Tribe’s designated service areas with the cost of testing fees only. Today, the program is available to all tribal members nationwide and also provides an incentive bonus upon successful completion of the program.
YOUTH INITIATIVES
At the elementary and secondary level, the goal of the Tribe’s Education Department is to encourage and reward student achievement.
The Youth Initiatives Program (YIP) was established during the 1997-98 school year. The program was originally created to provide an incentive for senior high students residing in the Tribe’s designated service areas to graduate. During the 1998-99 school year, the program expanded to include all senior high students nationwide. Again, the program was revised prior to the 1999-2000 school year to become more all-encompassing.
The revised YIP is aimed toward encouraging and rewarding achievements by our K-12 students nationwide. Areas of recognition include the following:
- Art
- Attendance
- Essay/Poetry Composition
- Senior Incentive
- Student of the Month/Year
Grade divisions are as follows: Primary (K-2), Intermediate (3-5), Middle (6-8), and High School (9-12). In the Art and Essay/Poetry contests, projects are submitted to the Youth Initiatives Advisory Board for consideration with names of participants concealed. Once a student is recognized in any one category, he/she may not re-enter in that particular category during the same school year. Projects are returned upon request.
JOHNSON O'MALLEY
Regarding the Johnson O’Malley Program, the goal of the Tribe’s Education Department is to collaborate with the public school system and parents to encourage student academic achievement and create cultural awareness within the community.
The Education Department oversees the Johnson O’Malley Program.This program is BIA grant funded and available in Madison County (Nebraska) only. Funds are re-applied for on an annual basis. Currently, the grant is subcontracted by Norfolk Public Schools with an Indian Education Committee (IEC) making funding appropriation decisions. Generally, funds are utilized to pay for the JOM Coordinator’s services, purchase basic school supplies, supplement parent-cost items, and to cover costs for the year-end banquet recognizing seniors and the achievements of all K-12 students in the area. The program is open to all Native American students who can provide proof of enrollment with a tribe.
| Forms |
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Print the following forms for your application process.
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| Contact Information |
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Ponca Tribe of Nebraska, Department of Education
Pat Eichberger, Director of Education
402.371.8834
FAX: 402.371.7564
pate@poncatribe-ne.org or aknudsen@poncatribe-ne.org |
