I think that there is a lot of significance to the quote “We were supposed to kill the Indian to save the child” (Alexie 35). When Mr. P says this, Junior is a little confused at first. After reading about the history of Native Americans, I learned that when the europeans came to America they took everything from the Native Americans who were completely innocent. The Europeans took several lives from the Native Americans which in this case are Indians. I think that Mr. P is explaining to Junior that teachers at his school are trying to take out the “Indian part” of the kids to make them successful and not have to live in Res. Which will make them more educated. There is something else that Mr. P said to Junior before he admitted what teachers at Juniors school did. He said, “When I first started teaching here, that's what we did to the rowdy ones, you know? We beat them. That's how we were taught to teach you.” (Alexie 35). This shows that the teachers at Juniors school beat the rowdy Indians just because they wanted to get the “Indian” out of them. I think that trying to “kill the Indian to save the child” is useless because you can beat them as much as you want but a person’s personality will never change.
I definitely agree with this. I think that "kill the Indian to save the child" is a very grim way of teaching, especially in this sitchuasion. The teachers were trying to make all of the kids forget their culture, and "kill" their heritage in an attempt to make their future's brighter. However, I think that the teachers were mostly just taught that the culture was bad, and they were using the idea of giving them a better life as an excuse to hurt the children. It makes them look good, as if the more they beat the children, the more the children will learn to be more like white people. Then, the teachers are shown as doing a good act, while they are really just hurting children.
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