What a Weekend

It is Saturday night. I have spent yesterday and today and will spend tomorrow at a short class on Native American studies. It is about multicultural education. Last night we discussed the Civil Rights movement focusing on education and today we spent the whole day learning about the history of education and rights for the Native Americans. To hear the stories of the children who were taken from loving families and forced to live in an industrial, prison like setting the whites called boarding schools broke my heart. The idea was to "Kill the Indian and save the child" by robbing them of their heritage. They were beaten if they spoke their native tongue or did any ceremonies or spoke of their beliefs or ways. Christianity was forced down their throats as was English. They were taught menial trades and given a lower level education than a white child. But many of these students turned it on the White man. They took the education and used it to help their people. They could read English so they understood what the treaties stated. They learned about law and began to educate themselves to fight the whites for their rights in court. Since in the boarding schools there were many different tribes who now all spoke English and could understand each other they began to unite. The tough thing was they were separated from role models like parents so they did not know how to parent and this is apparent even today. The grandparents that went to boarding school at a young age were disconnected from their families when they came back every nine months. A lot of students lived at the boarding school the whole time they were in school. They came home after they graduated and did not fit into their families anymore. There is a lot of abuse in Native families today and we can trace it back to the abuse the students in boarding schools suffered. There is also a lot of neglect. It is not that these Native parents do not love their kids, they do. But their parents never learned by example how to raise them and the abuse and neglect cycle goes on today. It just breaks my heart.

I had a wonderful day learning all this and North Dakota history at the Heritage Center Museum in Bismarck. It was a long drive but a wonderful day. When I got home I rushed to clean my house. I decided to turn on my self cleaning oven forgetting I put a plate of baklava in there. I put the baklava in the oven because it was left over from what I made for my class to experience Greek food for social studies. You cannot put baklava in a covered dish because it gets soggy. So I put it on a plate and stuck it in my oven so I did not attract any mice into my house since it is spring and they are starting to become very active. Then of course, I forgot about it. I cleaned my house and turned on the self cleaning oven and took a shower. Imagine my surprise when I came out of my bathroom and my whole house is full of smoke. I now know I need to check my smoke alarm because it did not go off. I ran into the kitchen choking and crying because of the smoke and saw the plate on fire. I immediately turned off the stove but it will not let me open the door till it is cool. The fire is out but it is still billowing smoke. I have fans on and doors and windows open. I am soo smart it surprises me. Now that I am sitting here waiting for the smoke to clear and the oven to cool, I realize I could have kept the baklava in the microwave. Duh. It is a wonder I have lived as long as I have. Thank God I did not decide to go to bed while my oven was cleaning itself. "Here's your sign" as the old country and western song from the blue collar comedy guy goes.