“The Apple Indian”

By JASON PENCE

Native Americans have faced many challenges throughout the past decades; some of those challenges still exist. For some Native Americans, they don’t want to be the “apple Indian” or educated Indian.

According to Candice Hubbard-Blackbird, a University of Great Falls employee in the Trio Center; many Native Americans in the last twenty years never made it through high school.

The experiences that most Native Americans faced at American boarding schools were not positive. Due to those experiences, many Native American students lack the reinforcement from their parents to get an education.

The Indian students that decide to further their education in college face many additional challenges. According to Hubbard- Blackbird, many students that go to school on the reservation lack basic social skills.

Many of these students have been sheltered on their reservation, and or interaction with other
ethnicities.  The learning styles on the reservation tend to differ from college atmospheres.

Avis Rock is a Native American student at the University of Great Falls who attended a tribal college first. Rock is a “non-traditional” student who is completing her bachelor’s degree in business administration. 

According to Rock, “Native Americans have the opportunity to attend tribal colleges which prepare them for larger public school settings. Many of these students are also 1st generation college students.”


Although tribal colleges offer a good education, according to Rock, they lack the social interaction with other ethnicities and experiences of the reservations. Many state and private colleges around the country do not have Native American students or professors.


If a Native American student leaves the reservation for college, they tend to get ridiculed by their friends and other Native Americans according to Hubbard-Blackbird. It makes the Native Americans on the reservation nervous when someone is educated.


Another struggle is the lack of Native American students on campuses. According to Rock, student’s struggle fitting in the college atmosphere and making friends can be difficult.


During my interview with Hubbard-Blackbird, she suggested that it would be nice for Native American students to stay at host families in the inner city to help socially prepare them for their college experience away from the reservation.


According to the Office of Public Instruction of Montana, the dropout rate in the 08-09 school years for Native Americans was at 8.8 %. The dropout rate for white students was 2.9 %, and a statewide dropout rate of 3.6 %.