Native Boarding School Experience

The motto of many boarding schools and mission for Native children: " To extend civilization and instruction to his ignorant race, and show them the way to heave."

The Native boarding schools stressed strict conformity: "We went from the tallest to the littlest all the way down in companies. We had A, B, C, D companies. E Company was the lazy company, those that just couldn't get up and make it. They thought they'd shame them a little bit if they made an extra company and called it the Lazy Company." (Source: Assimilation Through Education: Indian Boarding Schools in the Pacific Northwest by Carolyn J Marr) 

The purpose of Native American boarding schools was to take away culture, language, and essentially a way of life. 

Native Children in boarding schools were forced to cut their hair, shun their language, and even made to change their names to more "western" ones, their very identities were stolen.