Volume 5 Number 3
May 1966

THE NAVAJO Demonstration School Project is an experiment and demonstration in the broad fields of Indian education and community development. A Navajo Tribal program, it operates on funds provided by the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964.

The demonstration school is on the Navajo Reservation at Lukachukai, Arizona, and is attempting to combine a variety of programs designed to better educate Navajo children. It is not anticipated that all of these programs will prove successful; it is not anticipated that every school enrolling Indians should adopt all of the successful programs. It is presumed, however, that through the process of putting into practice certain knowledge now available in Indian education, and through initiating other projects that are untried or uncertain, definite progress will result.

The advantages will be measurable, and Indian education at the federal, public school, and mission levels will benefit. There is no better way for Indian education to expedite solving its educational problems than to participate in an active, on-going research program. If change is to be achieved and Indian education improved, then this Navajo Demonstration Project offers great hope.

The project has identified specific areas of experimentation and demonstration. These include:

Following are descriptions of some of these experimental and demonstrative areas.

by Evelyn Evvard and George C. Mitchell

If Sally, Dick and Jane, with their parents, were to come to Lukachukai, their urban, clean, aggressive, "fun-wherever-we-are" life would have evaporated before they passed Kennedy’s trading post! The time, place, and people of their lives would have found no stage upon which to act out even one of their adventures.

An analysis of the stories in the Scott-Foresman Basic Readers was undertaken in order that those who teach Navajo children can be appraised of concepts in the stories which may conflict with the Navajo reader’s concepts of himself and his family and community life (see Note 1).

Our textbook reflects middle-class values so subtly that they may escape our attention. The first grade teacher who uses the Scott-Foresman Basic Readers needs to become intimately aware how his values translated into the stories of Dick, Jane and Sally can become pitfalls for the young Navajo child.

The urban child in the first grade reads about himself and his family. In the second grade he moves out into his community, reading about members of his community and their activities. It is not until the third grade that the urban child reads about children in other lands, and even then the stories he reads are not in cultural conflict with his own way of living.

This is not so with the Navajo child. In the stories he finds a world of paved streets, crossroads, traffic lights, policemen who direct traffic, of parks, zoos, kitchens, bedrooms, screen doors, and many other things unfamiliar to him. While learning the mechanics of reading, the young Navajo encounters a world of alien concepts. Since his experiences have not equipped him to evaluate and integrate these alien concepts, he must find it difficult, if not impossible, to comprehend fully the contents of the stories. However, these stories do provide the bridge between the cultures, and if the child can be given the opportunity to live the culture of Dick and Jane as he progresses in his reading, he is more likely to become a bicultural person. The sheer amount of middle-class values impinging upon him as he progresses through school make him bicultural, provided he has a perceptive teacher to assist him in dealing with some of the cultural biases he meets.

This article is concerned mainly with Anglo concepts encountered in the first readers and the ways in which these concepts differ from Navajo thinking.

There is a difference in concepts about animals. We invest in our pets and other animals with human characteristics, but little or no supernatural characteristics or powers. The stories in the readers of the primary grades reflect our attitude toward animals. This attitude can make the stories hard for the Navajo child to understand. A teddy bear is so much a part of the middle-class that it seems to be an accepted member of every household collection of stuffed animals. The Navajo, on the other hand, shows great respect for bears. Bears are one of the figures of sand paintings; their claws are used in rattles. Bears possess the powers to speak out with the Navajo supernatural. Offerings are made to the bears (in the forms of corn pollen, sacred stones, turquoise, abalone shell, black jade) in certain places on the mountain or on bear tracks. The Navajo speaks to the bears: "Don’t bother the animals or children." If, in the fall, a bear does take a sheep, another offering is made. It is bad luck to damage the image of the bear.

Navajo children have dogs, cats and lambs for pets. A dog or cat would not be expected to perform childlike activities as they do in the readers, such as taking the hat to mother at the child’s command, or ringing doorbells. Sally’s dog sleeps with her. Dogs are not allowed in the hogans; consequently many of the stories about animals in the house would seem unusual to the Navajo pupil. Another distinction between cultures is that Navajos do not buy dogs, nor dog food.

Middle-class, urban children are pictured as aggressive, vigorous, outgoing and friendly. The Navajo child is less outwardly expressive. Pictures of the facial expressions of Sally, Dick and Jane indicate how these children feel, as does their conversation. Sally says "Oh" to express disappointment or joy. The Navajo child is silent and impassive about his feelings; hence, middle-class, urban expression of feeling may seem both foreign and uncouth to him. He would not know how to "read" the facial expressions of the children in the illustrations as the urban child is expected to do.

Urban children play different games: they dress up in mother’s clothes; they swim; they play with umbrellas; they convert large boxes into play houses. They use their father’s carpenter tools; they paint at easels; they play organized games like blindman’s buff. They play train, aware of the personnel needed to run a train. These activities reflect such aspects as mastery over nature, level of aspiration through work, change as a model of behavior, and the individuality of each child. Stories reflect the scientific attitudes of explaining events in terms of natural law. All these activities and attitudes must seem an anathema to a child whose culture inculcates in him the belief that he must live in harmony with nature, follow the ways of his parents, relate to the ceremonials he witnesses, and submerge himself into group activities and mores.

Urban, middle-class parents are pictured as participating in much of the play of their children. They play blindman’s buff, they ride in their child’s wagon. The urban, middle-class adult, as depicted in the readers, is a part of the child’s world. In contrast, the Navajo child is a part of the adult activities, work and ceremonials. He lives as an adjunct to the adult world.

Urban children are pictured as possessing a large variety of toys and other paraphernalia with which to play. They are all in good repair, or if they are broken, the reader is left with the feeling that it is unusual to have a broken toy. The Navajo child has few, if any, toys, and these would have been selected by the parents. The parents do not stress the value of toys. Rather, value is invested in their religion, sheep, hogans, horses and other animals, and sharing is an important aspect of their lives. The stories convey the concept that the urban child and parent value the toys and in turn are masters of their material environment. On the other hand, the Navajo child is learning to live in harmony with his environment, broken toys and all.

There is another aspect about Sally, Dick and Jane’s possession of toys that creates difficulties for the Navajo child. He sees pictures of the toys and other possessions of the story children. He would like to have toys and "good things." While comparing his lack of possessions with the possessions of Sally, Dick and Jane, he becomes ashamed of his own disadvantages. As a result, he does not want his teacher to visit his hogan and discover how he lives.

A hogan is so very different from an urban house that many projects in school could be developed in exploring the differences of how a family relates to a house or a hogan. Ordinarily, neither parents nor children play in a hogan. It is too small for such activity. If the weather is bad, the children can only wait until they can go outside to play, or they must play unobtrusively. This is probably one factor among many that teaches the child to be patient, accept and live with nature’s vagaries. On the other hand, in an urban home inclement weather gives rise to another set of activities. Once again their activities illustrate the children’s mastery over nature.

Hogans have dirt floors that are only swept clean. Mopping floors with water obviously is not done. Hence, it would not make any difference if the child or adult came into the hogan with dirt or mud on his feet. For the Navajo child, reading about Dick walking on his hands to avoid walking on a wet, newly mopped floor would seem pretty silly, unless he thoroughly understood the urban abhorrence of dirt. Urban children are early indoctrinated with the germ-theory and can understand the use of screen doors to keep out germ-ridden flies. The germ-theory is in conflict with the harmony-with-nature theory of the Navajos.

Some of the beliefs and values encountered in the Scott-Foresman basic readers which conflict with the Navajo beliefs and values are listed below.

Analyzing the stories of the activities of middle-class, urban children has brought to light more than just the differences in cultural values with which the Navajo child must cope as he reads the stories. We face the fact that whether or not we discuss with him these differences, what we really are doing is indoctrinating him with middle-class, urban culture. Even though we, the teachers, want to present the materials of the curriculum so that the Navajo child has the opportunity to make a choice between cultures, or to take the best from the two cultures, it seems that, in the last analysis, we deceive ourselves.

From the moment we introduce him to middle-class, urban culture, through pictures, through the words we select in teaching him to speak English--through teaching him English in the first place--the whole curriculum moves inexorably toward teaching him to think and act in terms of the culture represented in the books. Only while the child lives at home, with his extended family, witnessing and participating with his family in daily living and in ceremonials, is the child taught the Navajo way. In essence, each day at school depicts for him the end product of his middle-class, urban education: the middle-class, urban way. No matter how the cultures are differentiated, the climax of every story, of every lesson in health, of every lesson in social studies, arithmetic, spelling--the climax, the final achievement, is the middle-class, urban way. From this viewpoint, if we were to teach so that the educated child could make a true choice, the whole curriculum would have to present two climaxes—the middle-class urban, and the Navajo.

By Evelyn Edward

A study utilizing the Bender Gestalt Visual Motor Test was conducted at the Lukachukai Boarding School on the Navajo Reservation in order to compare responses of Lukachukai children to those tested and reported by Koppitz (see Note 2). The study also was conducted to determine whether the test could be used for screening the academically "ready" from those who may need special help with their academic tasks.

A random sampling of 20 children each from grades one and two and 18 from the beginners' class were tested. Absences prevented our testing 20 children. The sampling was taken from a total of 204 children in the three classes. The children were tested in February, 1966.

The Bender Gestalt Motor Test consists of nine geometric designs, one to a card. The subject is asked to copy these designs. The time it takes to copy the design is recorded. Each subject is finally asked to respond to the design and say what it makes him think of.

The results of the tests are given in Table 1. The means and standard deviations have been compared with Koppitz, both in terms of years in school and in terms of ages of the children. These children compare more closely with respect to age than years in school, suggesting that the test is an indicator of visual motor maturity rather than academic visual training and experience.

Table 1

There were 30 possible errors to be made. Twenty-seven of the errors were made by 1-13 children in the beginners’ class. Twenty-three errors were made by 1-9 children of the first grade, and 19 errors were made by 1-7 children of the second grade. Thus, fewer children made fewer errors as their ages increased. The errors not made by any child were: substitution of a line for dots in design 3, and substitution of a straight line for the sinusoidal curve of design 6. Only one child substituted a straight line of dots for the curve of dots in design 5.

Preservation of designs 1, 2 and 6 dropped from a high of 44 percent of the beginners to less than 1 percent of the second grade children. Errors in distortion of the angles of designs 6, 7 and 8 showed the same drop.

More than half of the beginners substituted angles for the sinusoidal curve of design 6. Only one second grade child made this error, which suggests that these errors were due to lack of muscular control at the earlier age.

The rotation of design 4 was almost as frequent an error in the second grade as in the beginners’ class, in which 36 percent erred. Rotation of design 7 was a problem only for the beginners’ class.

Thirty percent of the children in each class did not integrate the parts of design 4. Integration of design 7 was difficult for the beginners: 55 percent failed to do so. In the second grade all children integrated the design.

The most difficult task for the first grade children was drawing the correct number of angles of design 7; 48 percent failed to do this. The most difficult task for the second grade children was drawing design 4 without rotating it, and the substitution of circles for dots of design 5. Thirty-five percent of the children committed these errors.

The first and second grade children were asked to name the designs. The vocabulary of the beginners was too limited for them to respond. Eighty percent of the responses to design A were to the circle, the specific responses being rock, letter 0, head, world, star, etc. Eleven responded to the line of dots and one to the background (holes in the ground).

Responses to design 2 were to the discrete circles. Two responded to the line of circles; one said it was a step ladder. Most of the responses to design 3 were to the gestalt, 16 of the 40 calling it a tree. The responses to design 4 were almost evenly divided between either the open square (a box) or the curved line (hair, girl, bees, bird, cow horns).

Most of the responses to design 5 were to the gestalt (some called it a hogan). Five children responded to the discrete dots (period, marble, rock). The common response to design 6 was water and snake. The most common responses to design 7 were arrows and rockets. Pencils and arrows were the most common response to design 8, indicating that the children responded to the whole design.

Thus, almost all the children responded to designs A, 1, 2, 4 and 7 in terms of one of the two parts of the design and did not see the design as one gestalt. Designs 3, 5, 6 and 8 were seen as a gestalt.

One of our testers was Anglo. Of the children she tested (50 per cent), only two took longer than nine minutes and four shorter than four minutes, the average extremes according to Koppitz (see Note 3). The other tester was Navajo. One of his testees finished in less than four minutes, but 16 first and second graders took more than nine minutes (range 10-58 minutes). Time has a different cultural meaning to the Navajo than to an Anglo. According to the Navajo, one can never finish anyway-life is a changing of events that is not finished even at death.

Scoring for possible brain injury at the beginners’ level I believe to be difficult and the results extremely tenuous. Most of these children have had very little experience with holding a pencil and copying. Even though they compare well with their Anglo age-mates, I hesitate to suspect five of the 18 children of brain injury because of 5-7 indicators in their drawings. Since there was only one child in the first grade and one in the second grade whose drawings indicated brain injury, I suggest to postpone analysis for brain injury with the Benders until they are in first grade. However, the beginner child who had seven indicators of brain injury may be suspected.

Each drawing was recorded for emotional factors using the Koppitz scoring (see Note 4) merely to study any evident trends. There was a decrease in confused order of designs as was expected, since confused order is common among children 5-7 years old. There was a decrease in the number of children who drew designs of increasing size from beginners to second grade children (five beginners and one second grader). This behavior is associated with low frustration tolerance and explosiveness. Young Anglo children normally tend to have low frustration levels, so the results found here are consistent with those of Anglo children. There is an increase in the number of small drawings. These drawings "are associated with anxiety, withdrawal behavior, construction and timidity in children" (see Note 5). There is a large increase from beginners to first and second grade children which suggests these children may be anxious and timid about pressures of academic work. They do exhibit withdrawal behavior in class by refusing to respond to questions and work with which they are provided. There was a large increase in the number of children (from beginners to second grade) who reinforced the lines of their drawings. Their behavior, according to Koppitz, is associated with impulsiveness and aggressiveness.

The teachers of the children were asked to rank the children in their classes. These children were also ranked according to the Bender scores. There was practically no correlation between the two rankings.

1. The means and standard deviations of the scores of the children in the study, when compared to children of like ages for the Koppitz study, are very similar. These results suggest that children’s drawings of the Bender do indicate visual motor maturation; differing experiences of the two cultures seem to have no significant effect on the responses.

2. The time taken to copy the designs when the test was administered by testers of different cultural backgrounds, indicated that children may be responding to the cultural patterns of the tester. When confronted with an Anglo tester, the children gave the typical middle-class time response and finished within the time limits of the Anglo testees. Conversely, when the Navajo child found himself in the presence of a Navajo tester, he became a non-time-conscious Navajo. This kind of differential response by the first and second grade children also might come about because of their being pressured to achieve in a foreign, Anglo, academic world. The presence of this Navajo tester released their resistence to the whole gamut of that which they might have considered nonsensical, imposed tasks. Since the beginning pupils did not react to the culture represented by the tester, one may assume these children do not feel pressured to conform to Anglo authority.

3. The difference in time for tasks performance also indicates the abstracting ability of these young children. In one year they have discovered a fundamental difference between their culture and ours.

4. The differential response in time-for-task performance may have educational implication about the selection of teachers for these children.

5. There is little or no correlation between teacher ranking of these students and the Bender ranking. It is doubtful that the test can be used for academic readiness.

6. The trends of the emotional response of this group of children, as evidenced by the drawings, seem to be similar to the findings of Koppitz.

7. Further research is indicated in the area of the older pupils’ responses to a Navajo tester.

People who are concerned with the teaching of language recognize several difficulties encountered while the learner is attempting to master the sound system of a foreign language. One difficulty the student faces is that of hearing and producing sounds not found in his native language. Another difficulty is hearing and producing sounds found in his native language, but never in the new position of the foreign language. When such strange sounds or new positions are encountered, the learner tends to substitute as close an approximation as he can achieve from his own language for the sound of the language he is attempting to learn.

For instance, native English speakers tend to have difficulty producing the /ng/ sound as it occurs in initial position in Tagalog, although the sound is native to English in medial and terminal positions. They usually substitute an /n/ for the strange initial nasal sound. Navajo speakers have a /k/ in their language, but because this sound never occurs in terminal position, English words such as "kick" are difficult to produce. They usually substitute a glottal stop for the English terminal stop.

To begin our small group remedial language program we asked each teacher from the fourth through the seventh grade levels to submit a list of three children in his room whom he considered to be most in need of remedial language sessions. The teacher was asked to fill out a referral slip on each child, stating his opinion of the language problems of the child and other pertinent information. Classes were held once a week, with 20-minute sessions. Screening of the children indicated that of the 27 referred for remedial aid, two appeared to have language problems because of physical impediments. The remainder of the students had developed faulty habits of pronunciation.

The initial session with each child was spent chatting about his daily life, studies, ceremonials, etc., in order to familiarize the teacher and student with each other and to allow the teacher to make mental notes of difficulties the child encountered in expressing himself in free conversation. After this session the teacher entered evident language problems and other pertinent information in an individual folder for future reference.

The second session was devoted to practicing everyday Navajo phrases. In this session, the role of teacher and student was reversed with the student demonstrating various words and sounds and the teacher attempting to imitate them. During the course of this session the student was asked to point out on quickly sketched diagrams where certain sounds were made, to show in a small standing mirror the difference between ways the original and mimicked sounds were produced, and to think about the production of certain sounds, try them out and describe them so that they could be better mimicked. He was encouraged to be critical of attempts at mimicry. The purpose of this session was threefold: It motivated the child to begin his language studies with a high level of interest; it made familiar to him some of the techniques and equipment we were to employ while forming new pronunciation habits; and it gave the instructor a firsthand opportunity to observe how certain pronunciation habits would carry over from first to second languages.

Only after the children could discriminate the sounds were they asked to produce the target phoneme. The children were asked to produce the sound in a short sentence first. Sentences no longer than five or six words were used, since the task of memorizing longer sentences and producing the new phoneme seemed too complex for most students. If the child was unable to produce the sound in a short sentence, he tried it in a phrase. The child proceeded from sentence, to phrase, to word, to isolated sound, stopping and reversing the process at the point where he achieved successful imitation of the phoneme. During these stages the tape recorder was introduced, and the child was able to listen to the model and his own reproduction of it. Model sentences were of two types: those which contained only the phoneme in varied positions such as, "Brother is taller than mother," and sentences which contrasted two sets of phonemes such as, "Give the fodder to father."

When the child could give good reproductions of both familiar and strange sentences, it was time for the final session. In the final session the child was again led into free conversation on subjects where it was likely that the target sound would be encountered frequently. For example, conversation about the home and family tended heavily towards words such as "the," "they," "father," "mother," and "brother." If the child unconsciously retained the pronunciation habits he had demonstrated during the class sessions, we concluded he had mastered the target phoneme.

1. The remedial teacher led the child into free conversation and noted difficulties the child encountered in expressing himself.

2. The student gave the teacher practice repeating Navajo phrases.

3. The student was asked to discriminate aurally between words by indicating which words in a random list contained the target phoneme.

4. The student was asked to indicate which words of a random list containing many minimal pairs contained the target phoneme.

5. The student was asked to indicate which words in a list containing only minimal pairs of meaningful and nonsense words contained the target phoneme.

6. The student repeated the indication process with the minimal pair list, but kept his eyes closed while listening to the pairs.

7. The student chose between minimal pair words in which the Navajo phoneme usually substituted for the target sound was used.

8. The student repeated process seven with his eyes closed.

9. The student attempted to produce the sound in sentence, phrase, word, or isolated sound, stopping and reversing the process at the point where he achieved successful imitation of the phoneme.

10. The student practiced short sentences of five to six words until he could give a good reproduction of both familiar and strange sentences.

11. The student was led in free conversation which would call for the practiced sound to be used frequently.

1. Most of the children referred for remedial aid had difficulties based on habit formation rather than on physical handicaps.

2. Evidencing interest in the child’s native language facilitated the language learning process by involving him in a more aggressive participation in it.

3. Students showed difficulty hearing sounds foreign to their native language in either formation or position.

4. Students tended to substitute sounds from their native language for those of the foreign language.

5. Many sessions emphasizing auditory discrimination of phonemes aided the ability to produce these phonemes.

6. Children who could distinguish adequately between two English phonemes still experienced difficulty discriminating between the English target phoneme and the Navajo phoneme which usually was substituted for the English one in normal conversation.

7. Practice was needed in drill incorporating both English-English and Navajo-English minimal pairs.

8. Pronunciation habits were not adequately set until they became matters of unconscious application.

by Evelyn Evvard and Robert R. Weaver, Jr.

In Part I of this study we attempted to confine ourselves to a fairly concrete description of our testing program and its results. In Part II, we will take some of these rather concrete results and conclusions and discuss the implications valuable to counselors and teachers that are implicit therein.

Our first conclusion was that except for picture arrangement, results of the WISC performance indicated that Lukachukai children perform as well as or better than the children upon whom the tests were standardized. The implication here is obvious. Any lack of achievement on the part of these children cannot be related to lack of innate intelligence. It might be well to note here, however, that early in our testing program we tried to administer the verbal section of the WISC to some of the students who had been particularly successful on the performance section. The result was not just a poor score. We found that we could not administer the verbal section to these children. They began to wring their hands, to tap their feet, and to show other signs of emotional stress. They became unable to respond in any way that made it possible to score their performance at all. The connection between this fact and the fact that these children with very few exceptions range from a year to two-and-a-half years behind the established norms for the Stanford Achievement Test is obvious.

Let us recapitulate a little. We have said in effect that the Indian children’s responses to the stimuli presented in the performance tests are consistent with Anglo responses. The implication here is that these children show a hierarchy of developmental responses similar to those of Anglo children. We could assume then, with these children, the same relationship between responses on these tests and academic readiness for Anglo curricular materials as is assumed for Anglo children, if all other factors were equal. It is quite obvious, however, that all other factors are not equal. If we are to continue to persist in expecting these Indian children to cope with materials prepared primarily for Anglo, urban, middle-class children, it behooves us to isolate and cope with some of the critical factors that are not equal.

Three obvious factors are mentioned again and again by the majority of educators who are working with Indian students. First is the language factor. It is easy to see that Indians can’t cope with an Anglo-oriented curriculum if their English is not well in hand. Second is the environmental factor of isolation. Lukachukai students are not familiar with the world of Dick and Jane. Third is the cultural factor of value conflict. Students who believe in cooperation instead of competition, who are present-oriented instead of future-oriented and who believe in accepting nature instead of manipulating it, will not achieve the same success with the typical curriculum as will urban middle-class Anglos as these values are written into the stories and so reinforce Anglo values but not those of the Navajo.

The implicit fact here is that there is a choice. We can, if we wish, continue to stress the mastery of traditional Anglo-oriented materials. If our goal is to enable the Indian student to achieve the same success with these materials as does the Anglo child, then we must deal with differences in language, environment, and value systems of the Indian student. On the other hand, if our goal is not a closely paralleled achievement between Anglo and Indian student (as far as we have been able to ascertain, this is the goal of most educators of Indian students), we may choose another approach. We can devise a curriculum and materials pointed toward the Indian as he is. We can, if we wish, devise a curriculum that does not depend upon English as the academic language. We can devise a curriculum built around the Indian’s present environment. We can devise a curriculum compatible with the Indian’s cultural values. The important thing for counselors and teachers to be aware of is that this choice must be made by the educator of Indians.

Our test results indicate that the Indian students can achieve on an equal level with Anglo students if the above-mentioned factors are equalized. The question is: "Do we really want this closely paralleled achievement?" Before we set up programs for counseling Indian students, before we sit down to devise curricula and materials for Indian students, before we devise training programs for teachers of Indians, we must answer this question.

To conclude our testing program, a conference was held among the teacher, counselor, and tester of each student involved. In this way we shared information gathered by people who look at the student from different points of view. All teachers were asked to comment on how students related to authority and to their peers, and how they developed personally and socially. We also asked the teachers of each student to rank their classes for academic success, and found that teachers and WISC test scores ranked the students almost identically. If we wish to predict a student’s probable future academic success under a traditional school situation, the ranking of his teacher will tend to predict as accurately as the test. This test can be used to offer some objective evidence as to a student’s potential in cases where the teacher is in doubt.

Teacher comments were recorded and compared to results of the Bender Gestalt Motor Test. In one particular area an interesting correlation was noticed. Of the 50 students tested, 24 of them drew small figures on the Bender. Koppitz says this is an indication of shyness and withdrawal for younger children. All but two of the students indicated by teachers as shy and withdrawn were included in the 24 who drew small figures on the Bender. It would seem, then, that the Bender can be used as a device to screen out those students who do not have withdrawal problems.

There are indications that these shy, withdrawn children who draw small figures on the Bender are in trouble. In our random sample of 10 students from each grade, three through seven, there were three students who drew small figures in the third grade, five in the fourth, eight in the fifth, seven in the sixth, and only one in the seventh. This sudden drop in the number of shy, withdrawn students between the sixth and seventh grades could be explained by assuming that these students suddenly become less shy and withdrawn as they reach the seventh grade. We have noticed, however, that the opposite seems to be true, and we suspect that the real answer is that these withdrawn and extremely shy children are not in school by the seventh grade. Follow-through will be done on the students who have drawn small Benders in this program to ascertain what percentage of them become dropouts before entering high school.

by Leif Fearn

THE QUESTION of how most efficiently to teach American English to Navajo children has received a considerable amount of attention from the educators involved. Questions of methodology and procedure are being asked reservation-wide, and a considerable amount of research is being conducted in search of teaching efficiency.

The observation that direct and personal contact with a language is a requirement for efficient learning is not particularly profound. The principle of "flooding" the learner with the language to be learned is a commonly known one, and is given varying degrees of attention in most schools. The teacher talks, plays records, uses a tape recorder, motivates the youngsters to talk, and shows films regularly. These activities illustrate the teacher’s faith in the "flooding" principle.

However, in conducting activities incorporating the "flooding" principle, the teacher must ask himself or herself, "Are these activities actually getting to the children?" and, "Are my children receiving benefit from the activities in proportion to the effort put forth in conducting the activities?" In short, it is asked whether the youngsters are paying attention and whether they listen.

Research indicates that people listen or pay attention to a surprisingly small portion of that which is presented to them. The research findings apply to children in school as well as to adults. Therefore, the relatively simple task of presenting Navajo children with great amounts of American English becomes increasingly more complicated as the teacher attempts to construct presentations to which the children will attend.

Herein lies the value of the utilization of the medium of television in the "flooding" process. Observe a child watching television. Complete attention is in evidence. The child will watch the commercials as well as the shows. He will watch a tour of the Louvre as well as the cartoons. He watches and pays attention to anything and everything. He may not be able to read "look" in his reader, but he can read "Coca-Cola" on bottle caps. He may have difficulty with the concept of time, but he can tell you all about the "Pepsi generation." You may have great difficulty teaching him about the physical dynamics of the solar system, but he can tell you all about the orbits of Gemini VI.

Why are these things true? Television is the answer. The television screen is able to maintain the attention of people for prolonged periods of time. Television can come closer to claiming one’s complete attention than any other available medium.

There are numerous vehicles which can be utilized in closed-circuit television. All of the currently used audio-visual instruments are amenable. Films are particularly applicable, as they maintain a high level of attention in their original state. In addition to the ordinary audio-visual instruments, there are opportunities to use the teacher to better advantage. The teacher can prepare exceptional presentations in a chosen field, and while seeing these on television the students will attend on a higher level than if the presentation were live. In all presentations the emphasis should be on the best possible reproduction of American English. There should be an effort made to incorporate new vocabulary as well as a sophisticated manipulation of ordinary language.

In summary, teachers want to present the Navajo child with as much American English as possible, in the best way possible, and in such a way that the child will attend to the highest possible level of efficiency. Television offers the medium by which we can insure a high degree of attention on the part of the child, thus efficiently to "flood" him with American English, and as a result, give the child an opportunity to develop habits in regard to the second language which were never possible with traditional mediums.

1. The New Basic Readers, Curriculum Foundation Series (Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1962).

2. Koppitz, Elizabeth M. The Bender Gestalt Test For Young Children. New York: Grune & Stratton, Inc., 1964.

3. Ibid, p. 36.

4. Ibid, pp. 132-141.

5. Ibid, pp. 137.

6. Native speakers frequently produce the voiced th,/d/, without protruding the tongue between the teeth. The sound was demonstrated in the sessions by placing the tongue between the teeth in order to expedite the learning process.