Volume 13 Number 2
May 1974

DAVID ADAMS

IN 1744, when commissioners of the government of Virginia offered to educate six sons of the chiefs of the Six Nations, the chiefs replied:

As this exchange graphically demonstrates, the American Indian, from the very beginning, believed that the responsibility for the education of his young should remain in his own hands. However, at the mercy of a dominant culture, convinced of its own manifest destiny, the Indian was not to be allowed this privilege. He was, instead, to be forcibly instructed in the ways of an alien culture by the agents of that culture. It is only now, after two centuries of "Anglo" tutelage that one can see the dim outlines of a new period in the history of Indian education, a period where once again Indians shall determine for themselves the education of their children. It is the purpose of this article to explore both the philosophical basis for the self-determination movement and the attempts to operationalize it at Rough Rock Demonstration School in Arizona.

While it is not the purpose of this article to review the history of Indian education, the movement for self-determination cannot be wholly understood unless viewed in the historical context of federal Indian policy. It was as the 19th century came to a close that the federal government was forced once again to deal with the "Indian problem." As tribe after tribe went down to defeat before the Army, Washington sought the "final solution." While Indian removal, in the form of the reservation system, was an expedient course of action, it could only be regarded as a temporary one. A long-term policy was needed. In the long run, there were only three courses of action possible, outright extermination, self-determination, and assimilation. The first of these was not efficacious for the simple reason that it was not a "civilized" solution consistent with Christian ethics. Self-determination on the other hand would admit to the inherent worth of Indian cultures, an unacceptable admission for a society convinced of its own inherent superiority. Thus, forced assimilation was to be regarded as the final solution. Moreover, a primary tool in the assimilation process was to be education. The classroom would be the place where the Indian would shed his "savageness" and assume "civilized" ways (see Note 2).

Four kinds of schools were instituted to serve the assimilation process: mission schools, public schools, reservation day schools, and the boarding schools (reservation and off-reservation). While the boarding school was admittedly the harshest of the four types of schools to educate the Indian, it is important to emphasize that all operated on common assumptions regarding their role and responsibility, assumptions which for the most part have survived until today. All viewed themselves as agents of a superior civilization to an inferior one. All viewed the tribal cultures with which they came in contact as being savage, and therefore, deserving of extinction. Most viewed all Indians as being the same, failing to see both the subtle and not so subtle differences in tribal traditions. Finally, all saw their role as being one of transforming the Indian into a white man with white values. Given these common assumptions, it is little wonder that the Indian did not cooperate.

It is against this background that the movement for self-determination has emerged.

The problem remains of defining self-determination. In precise terms what is it that its advocates demand? Once implemented, how would Indian education be different? In an attempt to answer these questions, it is possible to identify three principles that constitute the basis for the self-determination movement. The first principle involves the issue of curriculum.

Self-determinationists argue that the curriculum in the Indian schools should reflect traditional Indian cultural values. In the final analysis this first principle is concerned with instilling in the Indian child a sense of pride in his cultural heritage. As a young Eskimo woman told the Senate Subcommittee on Indian Education, "If my children are proud, if my children have identity, if my children know who they are and if they are proud to be who they are, they’ll be able to encounter anything in life. I think this is what education means." (see Note 4).

A second principle of self-determination is that Indian schools should be responsive to the needs of the surrounding community; that where possible the community should take an active part in the school program. Indian parents must feel that the school is their school and not that of an alien culture unwilling to listen to their concerns. Finally, and this is a key point, advocates of self-determination argue that Indian schools should be run by Indians. While the ultimate goal is to penetrate the administrative levels of the schools with Indians, the immediate objective is to staff the schools with qualified Indian teachers.

All this is not to say that "Anglos" will have no role to play in the self-determinist scheme of things. Indeed, there are many desirable reasons for the presence of a few Anglo teachers in an all-Indian school. But the great majority of teachers must be Indian and the focus of power must clearly be in Indian hands--otherwise to talk of self-determination is a sham.

The program described above involves an abrupt change from policies of the past. What is encouraging is the fact that there is reasonable hope among some Indian groups that there will be significant changes in the near future along the lines of the self-determinist doctrine. The basis for this hope lies in such schools as Rough Rock Demonstration School (Arizona), Ramah Navajo High School (New Mexico), and other schools that have broken with the past and the BIA tutelage that it brought. In both of these schools the concept of self-determination is becoming a working reality; both are in the process of becoming Indianized.

The curriculum at Rough Rock reflects these objectives. A strong emphasis is placed on the teaching of Navajo cultural traditions. In a projected three-volume history of the Navajo people in the process of development at Rough Rock’s Curriculum Center, the entire first volume has been devoted to the recounting of ancient beliefs relating the story of the Diné's origins which began in an earlier world when "man was not in his present shape and the creatures living were thought of as Mist Beings" (see Note 7).

An example of self-determination in action is found in a class on Native American Studies, taught by a young Navajo instructor, Louise Descheeny. In Miss Descheeny’s class I have observed lessons taught by medicine men (in Navajo) in which the traditional ways have been explained by those who understand them best. Also in this class, students explore in some depth contemporary issues involving American Indians generally and Navajos specifically--such issues as the Hopi-Navajo border dispute and the Black Mesa controversy. In other classes, students are encouraged to discuss Navajo culture, listen to Navajo music, and sing Navajo songs. In a special arts and crafts program, students are instructed in the traditional Navajo arts of rug weaving, silverware, and basket-making.

Because most students enter school speaking little or no English, the teaching of English has always been a major concern to Indian educators. In 1887, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs responded to this challenge by instructing schools that "instruction of the Indians in the vernacular is not only of no use to them, but is detrimental to the cause of their education and civilization, and no school will be permitted on the reservation in which the English language is not exclusively taught" (see Note 8). This policy was so rigidly enforced that even today in many schools Indian students are severely punished for speaking in their native tongue. Typical of this attitude is the recent case of the high school teacher in New Mexico who was overheard telling his class: "One word of Navajo in my class is equivalent to cussing" (see Note 9).

All this has changed at Rough Rock. A bilingual instruction method is used where students are taught in Navajo for the first couple of years while simultaneously learning English as a second language. Once students have developed a facility to speak English, primary instruction changes to this medium. But even then the change is not total. In Miss Descheeny’s class, for instance, students are encouraged to write their essays in Navajo as well as English. The reason for this is quite simple. Language and culture are inseparable entities. To the extent that one loses the former, he is well on his way to losing the latter--a tragedy that Rough Rock is devoted to preventing. (This also explains why Ramah High School has classified English as a foreign language; see Note 10.)

The changes at Rough Rock are more than curricular. Writing of the school’s first school board, one writer noted:

The fact that Navajos rather than Anglos should be given the ultimate power of decision-making is in keeping with a basic tenet of the self-determinist movement--the idea that wherever possible the community should be involved in the school program. This tenet has been actualized at Rough Rock in more than political terms. Speaking before the Conference of North American Indian Young People, Dillon Platero, then director of the school, explained the school’s science program.

It is little wonder that Navajos in the area refer to Rough Rock as "Diné bio’lta," or the people’s school.

It is not the writer’s claim that Rough Rock is an educational utopia, that it has in any sense solved all problems related to the question of Indian education. Indeed, there has been considerable controversy of late as to whether Rough Rock is in reality what its defenders claim it to be. Much of this controversy is the result of an OEO-sponsored evaluation of Rough Rock under the direction of Donald Erickson, an associate professor of education at the University of Chicago. Erickson was critical of Rough Rock’s program on a number of points. He found that dormitory conditions were no better than in surrounding schools, that in addition to many of the Navajo parents complaining of having nothing to do, many "applied the disciplinary methods they themselves had experienced as children in the BIA schools." He was also highly critical of the school’s progress in teaching English as a second language and claimed that other schools had been far more successful in this area. Finally, and most relevant to the subject of this article, Erickson claimed that there was very little involvement on the part of the Navajo Board of Education or community in the substantive educational decisions, that they had instead concerned themselves more with the non-academic aspects of the school such as the hiring of non-professional help. In conjunction with this last point, Erickson concluded that community control was more imagined than real (see Note 13).

Erickson’s evaluation has been both praised and damned by Indian educators. Most, however, would concur that while Rough Rock’s program may need improving in certain areas, it still stands as a model of self-determination in action. Murray Wax, for instance, has argued that Erickson’s observation that the all-Navajo Board enters rarely into decisions affecting the purely academic areas of the program in no way negates the claim that the school reflects the community’s values and is in fact community controlled. Wax argues that the Board’s reluctance to become involved in the day-to-day operations of the school is testimony to the fact of the community’s faith that the school will serve the community interest (see Note 14).

Given the success of Rough Rock and similar experiments in self-determination, it is reasonable to expect that new isolated examples of "Indianization" will be forthcoming in the future. And this brings us to the ultimate question--once given the power to control their own schools, will self-determinists be able to accomplish the delicate task they have set for themselves? Will they be able to give the Indian student a sense of identity by teaching traditional values while simultaneously preparing them to function effectively in the larger society? As a young Navajo has expressed it, "How do we change without destroying ourselves?" While self-determination does not answer this question, it allows Native Americans the freedom to wrestle with it.

1 Special Subcommittee on Indian Education, "Indian Education: A National Tragedy--A National Challenge," 91st Congress, First Session, 1969, p. 140.

2 For general treatment of this period, see Henry E. Fritz, The Movement for Indian Assimilation, 1860-1890 (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1963); Loring Benson Priest, Uncle Sam’s Stepchildren: The Reformation of United States Indian Policy, 1865-1887 (New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press, 1942); and Robert Winston Mardock, The Reformers and the American Indian (Columbia, University of Missouri Press, 1971).

3 Roul Tunley, "Smooth Path at Rough Rock," American Education, VI, March, 1971, pp. 16-17.

4 Special Subcommittee, p. 19.

5 Theodore Kaltsounis, "The Need To Indianize Indian Schools," Phi Delta Kappen, LIII, January, 1972, p. 292.

6 As quoted in Story Moorehead, "To Keep the Things We Love," American Education, VI, August, 1970, p. 7.

7 Ethelou Yazzie, Ed., Navajo History, Vol. I (Many Farms: Navajo Community College Press, 1971), p. 9.

8 This and other similar comments by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, J.D.C. Atkins, can be found in the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1887, in House Executive Document No. 1, part 5, vol. 11, 50 Congress, I session, pp. 18-23.

9 NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, "Indian Participation in Public Schools," Social Education, May 1971, p. 456.

10 Robert Norris, "Politics of Local Control: Ramah Navajo Community Forms a School," paper presented at Comparative and International Education Society, San Antonio, Texas, March 25-27, 1973, p. 5.

11 Tunley, p. 15.

12 Teaching and Research in Bi-cultural Education, The Memramcook Conference of North American Indian Young People (Memramcook, New Brunswick, July, 1969), p. 110.

13 Donald Erickson, "Custer Did Die For Our Sins," School Review, LXXIX, November, 1970, pp. 76-79.

14 Murray L. Wax, "Gophers or Gadflies: Indian School Boards," School Review, LXXIX, November, 1970, p. 67.