Volume 7 Number 3
May 1968

by Henry Dahlberg, Assistant Director for Community Services

The effect of this right to make meaningful decisions has been profound in this community. The people of Rough Rock have begun to speak out for the first time since the pervasive wave of governmental control and paternalism swept over the reservation just 100 years ago. The people are regaining a sense of dignity and self-respect which stirs under the epithets "wards" and "beneficiaries." The people grow restive under the bureaucracy of the reservation agencies which have grown "labyrinthine in structure and glacial in dispatch." The school, and particularly the Community Services division, offers an avenue for the constructive use of this demand for greater responsibility and involvement in decision-making.

Although all administrative units of the school operate under the community school philosophy, Community Services is the principal vehicle for realizing those programs which affect the community at large. The Community Services staff is responsive to the wishes of the School Board and also suggests programs for the Board’s modification and approval. These programs lie in all areas of community and human resources development. Some are short-range, economic projects such as purchasing hay and coal for sale, at cost, to the local residents during the periods of isolation which follow severe storms, or, as happened this spring, selling lamb-starter milk when an unusual number of lambs were dying. Other programs are far more complex for they deal with the major problems of that isolated community--poverty, unemployment and lack of education.

It is in these programs that the School Board proves invaluable as it provides feedback which insures that the work of Community Services is meeting real needs, not those imagined by the "specialists." Specific programs conducted by Community Services under the supervision of the local School Board include Community and Economic Development, Adult Education, Community Recreation and Community Arts and Crafts. What follows is a description of those projects which we believe have been of benefit to the local community. Not detailed are the constant frustrations, numerous revisions and inevitable failures which go hand-in-hand with the work of Community Services.

Community development is faced with novel difficulties as there is no Rough Rock "community" in the usual sense of the word. The school is in an isolated region of the Reservation 17 miles from the nearest paved road and over 100 miles from the nearest town with a population of 2,000. The people live in small camps organized around the economic unit of the sheep herd, and each of these camps remains physically and, to a degree, socially separate from other camps. Few of the adults over 25 have been to school or speak English. It is the major thrust of the community development program to organize projects which might foster a sense of community identity and willingness to work together on problems common to the community. Just as important is the need to develop areas of possible employment for the community.

The "rules" which the community development staff follows are few, but they are essential to the success of the program. Projects must come from the people, they must have the understanding and approval of the School Board and the chapter (the chapter is the local political unit), and they must be instituted with an emphasis on human resources development and with the cooperation of all concerned parties.

Adult education is a key program in any community school, but at Rough Rock it has special importance. In one generation life has changed dramatically at Rough Rock. Yielding to population pressures, the pastoral and barter economy of a few years ago has changed as Navahos must seek wage work in order to support their over-crowded camps. The search for work is a frustrating and embittering experience for the local people are uneducated, unable to speak English and uneasy in the white man’s world. At best they qualify for only seasonal jobs with the railroads or on farms They are poorly equipped to handle the complexities of a cash economy and the free enterprise system. While programs in community development and the school provide at least part-time employment for over 75 percent of the local families, there is a need to upgrade the skills of those with jobs, to train those with no saleable skills and to provide basic schooling for all.

The adult education staff instructs an average of more than 100 community people a week in numerous programs. Students include dorm parents, trainees in arts and crafts, Neighborhood Youth Corps students, permanent employees of the school such as janitors and instructional aides, and others who wish to continue their education.

For adults who have had no previous schooling, the classes emphasize basic conversational English, reading numbers and simple addition and subtraction, carpentry for men and home economics for women, world and local news, home sanitation and child guidance. For adults who have some education, the classes stress reading and oral English, practical mathematics, social studies, and practical economics. Also included are courses at the high school level for students preparing to take the GED test. Driver training is also offered.

The Rough Rock Health Committee and the Mental Health Project are two educational endeavors organized and run by the community and School Board. The health committee works closely with the Public Health Service organizing projects such as buying eye glasses at group rates, relaying health news and programs to the community and providing PHS with candid feedback on the PHS Rough Rock program. The Mental Health Pilot Project grew out of a need recognized by the Public Health Service and the local people for the continued services of the Navaho medicine men. This program involves the training of apprentices by distinguished and knowledgeable medicine men.

Community Services believes that parental concern and involvement is a must in solving the fundamental problems of Indian education. The adult education program is valuable for achieving this involvement for it brings the parent to the school, introduces him to a classroom setting, and often teaches him the same type of skills that his child is also learning. The parent and child are partners in education, each reinforcing and assisting each other. Other programs which further the goal of parental understanding include our monthly Community Education meeting when discussion on school policy is encouraged and new programs are developed with the parents’ participation. The dorm parent program, discussed elsewhere, also increases the parent’s knowledge about what the school tries to accomplish and how important the parent’s role is in the education of his children.

The demonstration school has the only gymnasium and recreational facilities in 900 square miles. As a community school, Rough Rock makes its facilities available to all. This means the gym and other recreational facilities are in use by students and community from early morning to late at night, seven days a week, the year around.

Beyond providing recreational activities for students, staff and community, this program draws people to the school and creates greater interest in the school. Combined recreational activities add much to a sense of "community" among Indians and non-Indians, community and school staff, and teachers and students. Through the recreational and social activities in this area, the school staff and community have been further united in understanding and purpose.

One of the most effective programs developed by the School Board at Rough Rock has been the arts and crafts training program. To preserve Navaho arts and crafts only for the sake of preservation may make sense to many but not to the Rough Rock School Board. The Board sees the arts and crafts program principally as an income-generating project which can make the difference between despair and hope. One of the areas of greatest need throughout the reservation is reaching the "unreachable" adults who have neither education nor saleable skills. The arts and crafts program is one of those which are aimed at this portion of the Rough Rock community. The Navaho people are gifted with an interest in their arts and crafts and a built-in ability to make items of beauty which, in turn, have economic value.

During the training phases the trainees receive a small stipend which is perhaps their first earned income. When the trainees complete their apprenticeship, they return to their homes and continue to make articles which are purchased by the school or by the trading posts. While exact figures are difficult to obtain, it is known that the income of last year’s graduates of the arts and crafts program has at least doubled as a result of their training. More than 100 local people have completed training in one or more crafts.

Master craftsmen from throughout the reservation teach such skills as weaving, silver-smithing, sash belt weaving, pottery, moccasin making, and Navaho basket making.

The Community Services division helps further the goals of the community school by meeting, as best it can, and with everyone’s help the urgent needs of the people. It holds that everything that affects the welfare of the children and their families is its concern. Rough Rock Demonstration School is, then, a well-used place; a place used freely and informally for all the needs of living and learning. It is, in effect, a place where living and learning converge.