Teaching or Transforming

This week one of our journal entries was "Should American Values be taught in all public schools", and the class resulted in holding a QARE discussion on the topic. In the beginning, the majority of the class said that it is acceptable to teach the values so that students understand what it means to be American. However, that was before we read personal narratives from two different American Indians that attended "American Indian" Schools. The narratives re account how these children were taken from these families and sent to a foreign place. They were made to transform, by being forced to wear white people's clothes, eat white people's food, and speak the white people's language. This was not just normal "teaching". This was taking away everything these children knew and had, and replacing them with completely foreign things and slowly instilling these things into them. This was a transformation. After reading these narratives, many students changed their views. The overall confusion was caused by misunderstanding the exact meaning of the word "teach"

So what is the exact meaning of "teach"? The dictionary definition is "to impart knowledge or give instruction". This meaning may seem simple enough, but one has to remember that imparting something as emotional and meaningful as values may not be as simple as "giving instructions". So where is the line between teaching and transformation? I believe what differentiates them is that teaching still allows for other values and ideas, while transformation has no room for anything but the designated topic.