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Who needs to build a campfire or tie a knot when you can learn to do squash and stretch instead?

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Today's post is prompted by Nicole, a reader who wrote to tell me about an article called Boys Gone Wild in baystateparent: Massachusetts' Premier Magazine for Families. The article describes the activities of boys who attend Night Eagle Summer Camp in Vermont. I hasten to add that the boys and their leaders do a lot of playing-Indian activities...

In February 2011, I wrote about learning that a group of boy scouts from Louisiana who had been at Nambe Pueblo (that's where I'm from) to study our dances with the intent of performing them in Louisiana. I pointed out that I don't think the scouts would go to a Catholic mass, study the priest and then perform what he did. Our dances are sacred, just like the prayers offered by a priest.

Maybe (I say, with hope) those scouts did not know they were being insensitive. That is probably because they've been in the scouting program for several years where they did all kinds of "Indian" activities that, bit-by-bit, made them unaware that those activities are inappropriate.

When we tell our stories, for example, we don't tell them around a campfire as a means of entertainment. They--like stories from the Bible--are significant to us in some way. In American society, however, they aren't seen as religious stories. Instead, they're "myths" and "legends" and "folktales" that anyone can tell, anytime they want to, as shown in this page from The Berenstain Bears Go To Camp published in 1982. At the time of its publication, the review in Reading Teacher said

"Though Grizzly Bob's Day Camp looks exciting, Brother and Sister Bear are apprehensive. But after spending a few days trying things out, they discover they can have fun."

A chunk of that fun means doing Indian things. Or, in other words, playing Indian. On the page shown here, the cubs are gathered round as Grizzly Bob tells them a story. The clothing Grizzly Bob wears and the way he stands reflect stereotypical pop culture images of Indians.

You can see that sort of stereotypical imagery on things like council patches of the Boy Scouts of America. In Studying Native America: Problems and Prospects (1998 Univ of Wisconsin Press), Russell Thornton writes (p. 299):

Of all the institutions in American society, the Boy Scouts of America have probably done the most damage in miseducating the public about Native American cultures. Although their "Indian Lore" merit badge has recently experienced a dramatic improvement through the advice of anthropologist David Hurst Thomas, the honorary society called Order of the Arrow annually initiatives thousands of boys into the martial, romantic version of Indian culture through ceremonies drawn from the writings of Longfellow and James Fenimore Cooper."

I agree with Thornton but my net is a bit wider. I think the camps children go to each summer are equally responsible. The Boy Scouts of America creates space for this sort of play-Indian activity to continue. The Y-Indian Princess program is similarly problematic. As Thornton says, the BSA has made some changes. So has the Y-Indian Princess program. But, this sort of thing continues, especially in summer camps. Every semester, students in my courses tell me about the summer camps they went to and how they played Indian. After studying American Indians---real ones, not the images of pop culture---they see the summer camp activities in a different light. Some call them embarrassing; others call them racist.

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Hi, my name is Tom Mittan and I’m an engineer at Lockheed Martin in Owego, NY. I began my career working as a structural engineer on the Presidential Helicopter Program, and from there have moved onto the K-MAX Unmanned Helicopter program as a systems engineer and aircraft performance data analyst.

My first inspiration to learn more about engineering began when I entered high school and joined a Lockheed Martin-sponsored engineering Explorer Scout Post (a division of the Boy Scouts of America), here in Owego, in New York’s southern tier. The Explorer Scout Post focused on hands-on activities that engaged students in the design and construction of various projects such as radio transceivers, robots, and remote controlled airplanes. The projects were not only fun and engaging, but also offered valuable insight into the engineering process and a great opportunity to interact with real engineers and learn more about what they do.

In addition to the Lockheed Martin-sponsored Explorer activity, I was also exposed to science, technology and mathematics through secondary school programs such as Science Olympiad and MATHCOUNTS, as well as Technology Education classes (a branch of traditional Shop classes). These experiences, like those in Explorer scouting, greatly helped to augment the principles I learned in my science and math classes by offering lots of hands-on experience and a chance to work in a team environment on some very interesting projects.

Without fun and educational experiences like those offered in the programs above, it’s often difficult for students to picture anything beyond all the formulas and equations taught in their calculus or chemistry classes. With them, however, students are able to experience firsthand all the exciting possibilities these fields have to offer.

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