Off-Reservation Boarding Schools

 The first, most well-known, and largest off-reservation boarding school is the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Being a boarding school, obviously the children resided in separate boys and girls dormitories. During the summer, the high officials did not want the children to move home. Therefore, they were given the opportunity to reside with a white family during the summer. Those children were practically used as free labor for those families. Boys worked outside and girls worked inside. 

At these boarding schools, the children were given white washed first and last names. They were not allowed to wear any Native clothing and their hair was cut almost immediately after arriving. There was no traditional food allowed for the children. All meals were of white culture. Children were also not allowed to speak in their Native tongue and were taught English. However, many of the schools had a very poor education system when it came to speaking English because the teachers did not know how to connect the new words to the Native language. So, most children really did not know what each word meant and could not communicate. The children were disciplined if caught using their Native languages, even to each other.