Stasis and Change in Federal Policy, Regional Texts, and Curriculum: Moving Forward

“Native Americans lost control of their land.. .due to the expansion of a country.” “Indians are now living the kind of lives we expect of 20th century Americans.” Although it would be easy and preferable to believe that the previous two quotes were from the early twentieth century when stereotypes and racialized history were more prevalent, in truth the quotes come from Dale Lambert’s elementary school textbook Washington: A State of Contrast published in 2005. Lambert and many of his contemporaries have continued to treat the history of Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest in a way that discredits their involvement, either by making them absent in the historical text, presenting them as victims of whites and societal advancement, or by portraying Indians as episodes in white history. Lambert’s text therefore presents us with a troubling question: Why has the curriculum and education about Indians remained seemingly unchanged? This seeming stasis within the regional curriculum in many ways is contrary to the slow evolution and progression that occurred within historical scholarship and federal Indian policy, including federal Indian Education policy. Examining curricular change alongside policy and scholarship change demonstrates how far curricular change has lagged behind