Indian Education

Indian Education by Sherman Alexie is the story of a little boy growing as told through his progression through grade school.  In each grade the boy learns a different lesson about what it means to be different.  Interestingly his story not only reveals the difference between white and Indian but also between Indian and Indian.  As a disassociated member of each group the narrator is provided with a unique opportunity to provide insights into both.

For the reader it would be most obvious that the narrator was an outsider in white society from his earliest years of education.  Beginning with the ugly redheaded second grade teacher Betty Towle the narrator, Victor, was at odds with white authority.  It was not until high school that he begins to go with the flow of white conventionalism but that is not enough to make him an honorary member of white society.  Despite his apparent acceptance through scholastic achievement and basketball the narrator is still painfully aware that he is different.  While white girls force themselves to vomit in the bathroom and whisper nervously about anorexia the narrator and his family opened canned beef that even dogs wouldn’t eat and were happy to have food.  And it is not only the narrator who has not forgotten he is Indian the teachers also remember in the back of their mind intending to prevent him from spreading his bad Indian influence.  Like the teacher at the school dance.  The teacher knows all about those Indian kids and their drinking.  The narrator is part of this society and at the same time is not.  He is always evaluating the circumstances surrounding him and his actions in order to remain accepted by this group.

It may be more difficult for the reader to pick up on the divided between the narrator and his people but it began first.  It was in the first grade when the other Indian boys began to pick on the narrator.  The author writes “the other Indian boys chased me from one corner of the playground to the other …they stole my glasses and through them over my head … until someone tripped me and sent me falling again”.  Encounters like this were the beginning of the divided between the narrator and the other Indian boys.  As the children grew up there priorities diverged.  While the other boys remained on the reservation the narrator began attending high school in a farm town.  The narrator does not specifically state why he does this but it may have been at the encouragement of his fourth grade teacher Mr. Schluter.  By interacting and making friends with white society the narrator has solidified the divided between himself and the reservation.  In both the white high school and the reservation Victor the narrator is both a distant observer and a participant in events.  He interacts but is never truly trusted.  In the white high school he is accepted but no one ever forgets that narrator is different an Indian.  On the reservation he was initially ostracized because of his appearance, which may have been considered to white, and then later for willing choosing to interact with whites.