Indian Education

“Indian Education” by Sherman Alexie is a short story first published in Alexie’s 1993 collection, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, which consists of 22 interconnected stories (24 in the 2005 edition). Alexie is a celebrated, though controversial, Indigenous American writer whose works explore contemporary Indigenous life and identity, including the social conditions on reservations. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven was widely celebrated upon publication, winning the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, the Lisa Wallace Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, and the Washington State Governor’s Writers Award. “Indian Education” uses a series of vignettes to document 13 years in the life of Junior Polatkin, one of the collection’s protagonists. Major themes include Systemic Racism in the Indigenous Education System, Trauma and Resilience in Indigenous Communities, and The Tension Between Cultural Identity and Assimilation.

This guide refers to the version of “Indian Education” published in Sherman Alexie’s Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories (2012).

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of racism, death by suicide, disordered eating, bullying, child abuse, rape, child sexual abuse, sexual harassment, illness, mental illness, substance use, and addiction.

Plot Summary

In first grade, other boys bully Junior for his short hair and government-issued glasses. They make up epithets for him, like “Junior Falls Down,” “Bloody Nose,” “Steal-His-Lunch,” and “Cries-Like-A-White-Boy” (285). Junior finally stands up to his main bully, Frenchy SiJohn. He beats Frenchy up and is sent, triumphant, to the principal’s office. 

Junior’s teacher, Betty Towle, an “ugly” red-headed missionary, persecutes him throughout second grade. She makes him hold heavy books for punishment, tells him God will never forgive him for a doodle he draws of her, and tries to get Junior’s parents to cut his long braids. In third grade, a teacher named Mrs. Schluter makes Junior stand alone in a corner for drawing a cartoon she considers vulgar. 

In fourth grade, Mrs. Schluter’s husband tells Junior that he should be a doctor, even though his wife thinks Junior is “crazy.” Junior asks why. Mr. Schluter replies that Junior could then return to the reservation and heal people. That year, Junior’s father drinks “a gallon of vodka a day” (288), and his mother starts quilts that she never finishes. His parents weep in separate rooms. Junior hears them crying and imagines that he is a doctor. 

In fifth grade, Junior takes up basketball. At the same time, his cousin Steven Ford starts sniffing rubber cement. In sixth grade, Junior meets his best friend, Randy, a new classmate who previously lived in Springdale. A boy named Stevie Flett taunts Randy into a fight and goads him to throw the first punch. Randy does, breaking Stevie’s nose. 

In seventh grade, Junior kisses a white girl who lives on the reservation. She will later be raped by her stepfather, and the newspapers will not mention that they are white when covering the story. The day he kisses the girl, Junior feels as though he is leaving his tribe behind.

Junior attends eighth grade at a middle school in a farm town, where many of the white girls have bulimia. Junior asks them for the lunches that they otherwise would have vomited back up; on the reservation, he and his family have to line up to get poor quality food, but they eat it every day. In ninth grade, Junior collapses during a school dance after a basketball game. His Chicano teacher accuses him of drinking, but the episode is due to undiagnosed diabetes. 

In 10th grade, Junior gets his driver’s license the same day that a man named Wally Jim uses his vehicle to die by suicide, leaving behind a wife and children. There is no trace of alcohol in his system. The state trooper is confounded, but Junior’s tribe understands. 

In 11th grade, Junior’s basketball team, “The Indians,” loses an important game due to Junior missing two free throws. He is probably the only Indigenous person who has ever played for the team. The next day, the sports headline reads, “INDIANS LOSE AGAIN” (292). Junior challenges the reader to tell him that “none of this is supposed to hurt” (292). 

Junior is the valedictorian of the farm town high school. He wears his hair long and remains “stoic” for the photographers during graduation. Back home on the reservation, Junior’s former classmates graduate, too. Some cannot read and others receive diplomas simply for attendance. The “bright” students are anxious about their futures. The tribal newspaper publishes Junior’s portrait alongside those of his former classmates. 

In a postscript, Junior’s friend Victor questions why they should organize a class reunion when his graduating class reunites each weekend at the tavern.