Day 1: Navajo culture gives new meaning to school community

Few things can be said about the first day back from a two-week winter break, but I do have some good first impressions of Rock Point School.

I spent much of my morning in Navajo literacy / social studies classrooms taught by a Rock Point graduate. He told me about his education here and how some of the more culture- or hands-on-based courses disappeared after he left. He now teaches in the same hallway where he took classes on silversmithing and saddle upkeep, but where basket weaving and pow-wow dancing were offered courses. These days, such courses seem to have been replaced by classes focused more on literacy and cultural history, or technology-based courses. However, the school has been encouraging these 'traditional' cultural skills or activities as after-school enrichment.

A Christmas performance on the day before the break really impressed the community, according to the teacher who sponsored the Navajo Culture Club's show. He said that some students' behavior and attitudes toward school have been turned around since their involvement in the after-school group; the access to the traditional culture must give kids a greater sense of purpose or belonging in the school community. Other teachers I asked about the performance commented similarly, saying that most of those students fell into the thought that the could not do much.

Perhaps the first major lesson that I can take away from today is that a teacher here cannot expect much consistency in their students' exposure to Navajo language, cultural knowledge or traditions anymore. So many students are being influenced from off the reservation (through television, video games or DVDs). The language abilities of students in the junior high levels (7th & 8th) do not set any solid expectations for what students will know walking into a class that is supposed to be conducted in Navajo and supposed to give them a sense of Navajo 'identity', so to speak. Many students have transfered in and out of schools on the reservation (most of the time with family moves). Others have been exposed to 'white' schools off of the reservation and have returned to the reservation schools with no Navajo linguistic knowledge. There is certainly more mobility here than I expected: families do not stay planted in their communities or even on the reservation, for that matter.

To reach the kids, the teacher has developed assignments for students to trace and learn about their clan statuses. Navajo trace themselves back to four original clans that identify themselves with a color, an animal 'protector' and a set of personality characteristics that go along with the interpretation of the animal's characteristics. Most of the kids, when asked to introduce themselves in class today had little or no knowledge of their family origins or clan status. When speaking of last semester, the teacher told me that once he gave the kids access to a knowledge of their ancestry, some of the the kids took on new identities, displaying new sparks of enthusiasm. Parents, grandparents and other family members became very involved in family tree projects or clan research. So, again, (as we have been learning throughout our pre-service careers) access to students' culture drives student motivation and participation.