Pro-School Activism Before World War II
When looking at the history of schooling in Sami societies, one might easily assume that the Sami must have resisted or opposed the schooling as a foreign force making demands on their children.
Some researchers have held that this was the case until quite recently or that school meant so little in Sami societies that the parents did not care whether children actually learnt anything (Hoem 1969, 111, 1976). In the early twentieth century, however, it does not seem the Sami opposed schooling more than other families who made their livelihoods from farming and fishing, and child labour was part of the daily routine. On the contrary, we shall see that they demanded better schooling—a parallel, perhaps, to the similar demands from the labour movement.The nomad school in Sweden was founded upon a philosophy that nomad children only needed basic knowledge—and less of it than other children did. The Sami, for their part, could not understand why the authorities thought it was good for their children to learn as little as possible. If we can speak about Sami parents as a group, it seems they meant Sami children needed knowledge on par with other children, even if parents in the northernmost areas were less critical than others were. They wanted full access to everything that was taught in school to enable their children to learn as much as possible.
Furthermore, the Sami protested against the dominant Swedish idea that the school as a physical structure should differ as little as possible from the nomad’s traditional dwellings, tents, and turf huts. It was believed that the living quarters should be basic to avoid instilling in the children a lust for a more comfortable life than what reindeer herding could provide (Sjogren 2010, 82–85). However, the Sami were not afraid their children would become too accustomed to a sedentary life to return to reindeer herding; again, they wanted the same standards for their children as other children received.
As the Swedish historian David Sjogren (2010, 72 ff.) has demonstrated, the parents’ complaints bore fruit. The material conditions were improved, trained teachers became more common, and the curriculum was extended. Thus, the parents had some influence upon the organisation of the school; furthermore, they also managed to get a representative on the schools’ advisory boards.
In southern Sami areas in Norway, Sami parents criticised the school in Havika for not meeting the same standards as other schools. They demanded two things: Sami children were to be taught the same subjects at the same level as their peers, and the school was to be adjusted to nomadic life and to take into consideration Sami nationality (Borgen 1997, 72–78). These demands were most likely influenced by the complaints launched by the Sami across the border, as Swedish and Norwegian Sami in this area were well connected and met across borders at a formal meeting at just about this time in 1917 (Borgen 1997, 44–49).
The Sami representatives indicated that the knowledge the school provided was essential to Sami children. They did not see learning new things as a threat to Sami culture but rather part of Sami life. At the same time, they protested against the policy of keeping Sami language out of school and against the cultural assimilation of the children. Regarding language, the protests were two-pronged. The first complaint was pedagogical: being taught in a foreign language from the first day of school prevented the children from learning. Initially, this worry focused on shortcomings in religious instruction, but soon it seems to have involved all subjects, including the majority language. Children learnt neither their mother tongue nor the majority language properly. The second complaint was political: as a matter of principle, children should be taught in their mother tongue. Following a large Sami meeting in Bonakas in Finnmark in June 1919, it was demanded that Sami children should have religious training in Sami throughout school and in other subjects for least three years and that they should be taught Norwegian as a foreign language (Zachariassen 2011, 256).
This would ensure that the children acquired the knowledge they were supposed to achieve; the children would learn to speak proper Norwegian, but the Sami language would attain its rightful position alongside Norwegian. In 1925, the Sami teacher Per Fokstad produced a Sami school plan that contained all these elements, along with a plan for a Sami Folk High School and increased opportunities for Sami youth to undertake teacher training (Samisk skolehistorie 5). Neither he nor others wanted to keep the Sami outside ‘modern society’; the Sami had to attend school and learn the dominant national language, but they also had to maintain their Sami identity.When discussing the value of schooling in Sami society, it is notable that the Sami leaders in Norway in the early twentieth century—such as Isak Saba, Anders Larsen, and Henrik Kvandahl—were themselves teachers. In Sweden, too, the leaders were educated, albeit not necessarily as teachers. Elsa Laula Renberg had been educated as a nurse, while Gustav Park was a minister. In Finland, there was a Sami elite in the late nineteenth century who had received higher education in teachers’ seminaries before returning to their old schools ‘to sustain the Sami language and culture’ (Nyyssonen 2007, 47). Education could be utilised to make a position not only in the majority society but also within Sami society, and the support the leaders gained does not indicate hostility towards schooling but rather respect.
To understand the Sami position, we must consider the fact that the Sami had been educated by missionaries since the late 1600s and early 1700s and were accustomed to schooling. Furthermore, in many local societies, the Sami lived side by side with other nationalities, and the different groups had essentially the same livelihoods. Ethnic boundaries were not necessarily distinct. In addition, communities with Sami dominance, including reindeer-herding communities, had links to the majority society through trade, public services, and the church, and communications improved throughout the first part of the twentieth century.
Thus, the Sami—and not only leading families who wanted their children to secure a future position inside or outside Sami society—could have the same reasons as others for wanting schooling for their children. Religious instruction was one thing, but it was also smart to read, write, know some arithmetic, and perhaps be informed about the wider world.The Norwegian authorities did not pay much attention to the proposals for Sami schools. Instead, schools continued to transfer a particular form of tacit knowledge to Sami pupils: their language and their culture had little or no value, and they needed to assimilate to play a role in Norwegian society. We also know that many took this to heart. It was ‘knowledge’ embedded in the material structure; it was included in the architecture of school buildings and the organisation and content of the schools, and many pupils came to share it. The historian Einar Niemi (1999, 22) has called this the ‘psychological effect’ of the school, an effect that is difficult to measure but has been observed and experienced by many. We must expect that the feeling of lower value and the importance of becoming assimilated were brought home by many children and featured in forming both family life and local society.
Many parents, because of their own experiences, used the majority language instead of Sami at home to smooth the way for their children. To the contrary, however, it is said that children in some municipalities stayed away from school or did as little as possible to avoid outside influence. This is not well documented (Lund 2003, 39), but in Kautokeino and Polmak in Norway, the local authorities declined to have residential schools in their municipalities; they did not want a nursery for Norwegian language and culture in their midst (Eriksen and Niemi 1981, 300).
At the same time, kin, family, and local society—the places where Sami culture and knowledge were embedded—counteracted the assimilatory effects of schooling in particular before World War II since the school did not take up much time.
In the 1920s, children at the boarding schools in Finnmark could attend school as little as fourteen weeks per year. Knowledge on how to manage a reindeer herd and where to drive it was passed on from one generation to the next. Similarly, knowledge about fishing in the sea and freshwater, hunting, the location of where cloudberries grew, the making of clothes, Sami music and language, living in tents and turf huts, and driving with reindeer and a sledge were passed on through the generations. In some areas and some families, Laestadianism was also important in the upbringing of children. The children learnt from practice and participation and simply from living in a society different from the one they encountered at school. Family life and life in Sami society served to transfer knowledge and values to Sami children in coastal societies, especially in reindeer-herding societies and societies where the Sami were in a majority position.