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Abstract: An inordinate number of American Indian nursing students fail to graduate. This article explores ways to facilitate student success through the use of a Dream Catcher-Medicine Wheel, and reports findings from a descriptive study of hope in American Indian and non-American Indian students who were nursing majors at an upper Midwestern university. The Herth hope scale revealed high levels of hope in both groups: however, among the American Indian students there was a trend toward lower scores on items describing negative reactions to presumed setbacks and fears. Findings are discussed in light of the Dream Catcher-Medicine Wheel conceptual model.
Key words: Dreams-Catcher-Medicine Wheel, Hope, Herth Hope Scale, minority retention, Native American nurses
Lindsey (1976) posits that hope is connected to life itself. Durkheim (2009) contends that hope is a basic human instinct in the preservation of life and without it the will to live may be hindered. The significance of hope is well-documented in such disciplines as theology, philosophy, psychology, and literature. In Christian theology, hope is tied to the coming of Christ, which is expressed as eschatological hope (King, Carson, Luker, &C Russell, 1992). In philosophy, Kant (2013) asserted "All hoping has happiness for its object" (p. 309); social psychologist and Holocaust survivor, Frankl (2006) observed of fellow concentration camp inmates "What may have been the real reason for their deaths: giving up hope" (p. 81).
More recently, O'Donnell Gandolfo (2013) observed "hope even in the face of tragedy" (p. 1), in which memories of the suffering endured during an El Salvadoran massacre evoked hope. Parallels exist in the suffering that Native Americans have endured as a consequence of execution of the hoped-filled promises of educational treaty rights. Specifically, in 1868, the United States entered into a treaty with the Sioux Indians, which included the stipulation "for every thirty children between [six and sixteen years]...a house shall be provided and a teacher competent to teach the elementary branches of an English education shall be furnished, who will reside among said Indians, and faithfully discharge his or her duties as a teacher (Kappler, 1904, p. 1000, Article 7).
Similarly, in 1873 Queen Victoria of England signed Grand Council Treaty #3; the Anishinaabe First Nations chiefs in Ontario and Manitoba, Canada successfully negotiated for...