Volume 7 Number 3
May 1968

By Robert A. Roessel, Jr., Director

In the early 1960s, Allen D. Yazzie, Chairman of the Navaho Tribal Education Committee, and other Navaho leaders discussed the unique needs of Indian education. They felt the schools then educating Indian boys and girls neglected several important areas. Among these areas were meaningful local school boards, cultural identification, community education and community development, native language learning, home visits, and guidance and counseling.

In 1964, when the Economic Opportunity Act was passed providing funds for demonstration projects in poverty areas, Allen Yazzie and his associates presented a proposal to the Office of Economic Opportunity. OEO felt it important to demonstrate these ideas about Indian education and agreed to fund a three-year demonstration in Indian education. The Navaho Tribe received $214,300 from OEO for the first year of the project, July, 1965 to June, 1966.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs, which was also interested in trying new approaches, offered the Bureau school at Lukachukai, Arizona, as the site of the demonstration project (see Note 1). The offer was accepted and the first year of the Demonstration in Indian Education was at Lukachukai.

A factor which plagued the first year operation was that the Lukachukai BIA school had its own staff and administrative organization, while superimposed on this was the new OEO staff with its administration. A two-headed horse rarely wins a race and Lukachukai proved no exception.

Evaluation of the Lukachukai project at the end of a year revealed both successes and disappointments. Perhaps the biggest disappointment lay in the fact that the local school board could not function as the Tribe wished. BIA schools, being Federal Government schools, must abide by civil service regulations. Thus it was felt by school officials that the school board could not do the hiring and firing and the members were forced to play a lesser role than their interest and knowledge allowed.

The Navaho Tribe, OEO and BIA still felt, however, that the demonstration project warranted further opportunity to succeed. To provide the structure for a more flexible operation, a non-profit, private corporation of Navaho leaders was created for the purpose of receiving buildings and funds for the project. The group called itself DINE, Inc., the acronym for Demonstration in Navaho Education.

The Board of Directors for DINE is composed of three leading Navahos from the reservation. The president of the corporation is Allen D. Yazzie; the treasurer is Ned Hatathli, former Resources Director for the Navaho Tribe and presently Director of Education for the Navaho Irrigation Project; and Guy Gorman, secretary of the board, was former councilman and member of the Navaho Education Committee and is presently a member of the Public School Board at Chinle.

The BIA offered to turn over to DINE, Inc., a new $3 million school facility at Rough Rock, Arizona, located in one of the most remote and traditional areas of the Reservation. The school at Rough Rock had just been completed and had no staff; hence, all employees could be selected by the Navaho people without civil service restrictions. (The workers at Rough Rock are not civil service employees.)

The Board of Directors felt that any school to be maximally successful must have its roots in the community and be looked upon as a school belonging to the Navaho people.

In, keeping with those sentiments, and realizing that control by Window Rock was not a great deal better than control by Washington, the Board of Directors held a series of meetings with the Rough Rock Community to ascertain, first if it wanted to have a Demonstration School, and second, if it did, whether it wanted to elect a local school board to join it in its control and leadership.

After many discussions, the Rough Rock Community unanimously endorsed having the demonstration school and voted to select a five-member school board to provide direction and control. Officially the Rough Rock Demonstration School came into being July 1, 1966.

Later, in a very significant discussion, the school board enlarged its membership to seven to provide representation of areas from which the Rough Rock Demonstration School drew children but which previously had no representation.

During the first year at Rough Rock, the Bureau gave $307,000, which would have been the money allotted had the school been operated by BIA. OEO granted $329,000 for intensive experimentation and demonstration in the following ten areas:

During the second year (1967-68) at Rough Rock, the programs were sharpened and redefined by the School Board and the Board of Directors. Programs developed and/or initiated by the School Board during the first year became major thrusts in the second year. This included an expanded arts and crafts training program, a strengthened dormitory parent program, a home economics and shop program and a community health program. During the second year, the Bureau of Indian Affairs provided $346,000 while the Office of Economic Opportunity granted $447,000 to the Rough Rock Demonstration School. The funds have been used to carry out the programs described in part later in this issue and also to educate 370 children and 250 regularly-scheduled adults.

In the past there have been three kinds of schools operating on the Navaho Reservation: (1) Bureau of Indian Affairs Schools, (2) public schools and (3) mission schools. Navahos call BIA schools "Wa’a’shin-doon bi 'olt’a," or "Washington’s school." They call public schools "Bilaga’ana Yazzie bi 'olt’a" or "little whiteman’s school." Mission schools are "Eeneishoodi bi 'olt’a" or the school of "those who drag their clothes," a name stemming from the first Catholic priests who came to the reservation.

A fourth kind of school has now appeared. It’s a tribal school, controlled and operated by the local Navaho community at Rough Rock, Arizona. Its English name is Rough Rock Demonstration School. Navahos call it "Dine’ bi 'olt’a," or the "Navaho’s school." There are nearly one hundred schools located on the Navaho Reservation but only one is so honored. These words express more eloquently than anything the significance and sense of identification the Navahos attach to the Rough Rock Demonstration School.

Rough Rock Demonstration School is pioneering in Indian education in a variety of areas:

The funds for the school have been assigned to the governing body, DINE, Inc., which is composed of an all-Navaho Board of Directors.

The policies of the school are established by an elected seven-member, all-Navaho school board and the Board of Directors. The policies and programs at Rough Rock are the result of action initiated by the Navaho people. The creation of the most successful programs lies with the community-not the professionals.

The School Board and the Board of Directors hold monthly joint meetings. These sessions allow the Board of Directors to keep current on the school and to share their ideas and suggestions at regularly scheduled intervals. In many other schools, school officials or other professional personnel establish policies and initiate activities, often without advising or gaining consent from the community.

The school board meets with the chapter (local government unit) to discuss school affairs and holds monthly school-community meetings to consider school matters and work out school-community projects and relations.

Parents from the community work in the dormitories on a rotating basis, living there for eight weeks and acting as foster parents and adult counselors to the boys and girls. Community elders visit the dormitories to tell stories and acquaint the youngsters with Navaho traditions, legends, and history.

Weekly day-long school board meetings are held which are attended by large numbers of community residents.

The role of the professional has been changed from one of control to one of assistance. If the community, through its school board, were to choose to do something which the professional thought unwise, the role of the professional would include discussion with the community to point out the possible consequences of such action and would include mapping alternate routes and their consequences. But if the community insisted on taking certain action, the professional would accept that decision and make every effort to make the choice a successful one. In other words, the professional is the servant, not the master. Democracy itself draws its strength and greatness from this conviction.

Students are not only allowed but are encouraged to go home for weekend visits as often as possible. Transportation is provided in those cases where children otherwise would not be able to go home. The basic policy of the school is that the children belong to the parents and not the school.

Teachers visit the homes of their students several times a. year. Accompanied by the child, the teacher goes to see the parents and to explain the school’s program and the child’s work.

Parents are urged to visit the school and classrooms at any time. On these visits the parents or community members are guests of the school and stay in the dormitory and eat in the cafeteria. Transportation is provided when necessary.

The cultural identification program makes Navaho culture a significant and integral part of the school program.

At Rough Rock, where a "both-and" approach is used, students are exposed to important values and customs of both Navaho culture and the dominant society. Students are not forced to make an "either or" choice.

(A) There is instruction in the Navaho language. Both reading and writing Navaho are taught to all students. (B) Students are taught Navaho history in both the classrooms and the dormitories. (C) Formal instructional sessions with dormitory parents, as well as informal conversations, acquaint students with Navaho etiquette, Navaho beliefs, and Navaho lore. (D) Students may use, in fact are encouraged to use, their native Navaho language in the dormitory, in the dining hall, on the playground, and in the school.

A Navaho Curriculum Center has been established at the Rough Rock Demonstration School. The Center is funded in part by an Elementary and Secondary Education Act grant. The Center is responsible for producing a series of books for use in the intermediate grades dealing with such areas as Navaho biographies, history, legends, and modern problems and programs. A series of 18 books is being prepared which will be used not only at Rough Rock but at other locations both on and off the reservation.

Many Navahos who could not be employed at other schools, because they are not high school graduates or do not speak English, have been hired in various capacities such as dormitory aides, janitors, dormitory parents, kitchen aides, maintenance helpers, arts and crafts trainees and instructors. During the first year at Rough Rock, more than 40 Navahos were employed who never before had held permanent jobs.

Uneducated and inexperienced Navaho employees are given instruction in their jobs and in basic education while they are employed. An extensive adult education program has been designed to teach them English, home economics or shop, consumer education, baby care, first aid, and other areas in which they express interest. Employees are given the opportunity to take high school work or extension college courses at the school.

All employees attend a two-week orientation period before school opens in the fall. The orientation acquaints the staff with the history of the Navaho people, the philosophy and objectives of the school, and the unique features of Indian education.

The Demonstration School makes it possible for non-English speaking adults to learn new skills. (A) Instruction in the English language is offered to employees and community residents. (B) Adults may learn how to repair automobiles and trucks. (C) Instruction in home economics gives basic information in nutrition, food preparation, and in serving the women of the community.

(D) Woodworking and shop instruction makes it possible for the men to learn marketable skills and to learn to construct items needed in their homes. (E) Women in the community can learn to use the electric sewing machines in the dormitories and can use the machines to make and mend clothing for their families. (F) Adults receive driver education training on a pick-up truck donated for that purpose by a Gallup, New Mexico, automobile agency.

A toy factory was begun during the second year at Rough Rock which builds sturdy toys for use by primary children. In addition, the project constructs desks, tables, and chairs on order. The new program had during its first few months of operation $5,000 worth of orders. The toy project employs and trains local Navahos.

(A) Laundry facilities are available for community use. (B) Shower facilities can be used by community residents. (C) The recreation department plans activities for community residents. (D) The school library is open in the evening and on the weekends for use of staff members and community people. (E) Hay is purchased and sold at cost to community residents. (F) Special milk to feed lambs is sold at cost to livestock owners.

Master Navaho craftsmen are employed to demonstrate and teach the arts and crafts of the Navaho people. Crafts being taught include: silver-smithing, weaving, sash belt making, mocassin making, pottery making and basket making.

Interested adults of the community are invited to learn any of these crafts. In addition, Navahos from throughout the reservation are eligible to take part in the training if they wish. A select number of trainees are paid a small salary so that they can learn quality Navaho arts and crafts on a full-time basis. Examples of Navaho arts and crafts are displayed in the school.

During the first year, records kept on the graduates of the arts and crafts training program indicated that graduates more than doubled their income as a result of the training.

The school’s employment policies enable the school to broaden its economic role in the community. The Rough Rock Demonstration School is able to employ increased numbers of Navaho people through the School Board’s action to eliminate educational requirements for many jobs and to reduce salaries correspondingly.

Many positions are filled on a rotating basis, thus giving job opportunities, experience, and income to many members of the community. Local people are hired as dormitory parents, laundry workers, arts and crafts trainees, etc. The entire institutional laundry needs of the Demonstration School are met through employing local people to operate a laundry at Rough Rock instead of contracting out to off-reservation commercial laundries as is done in all other schools on the Navaho reservation. During the summer of 1967, the school cafeteria operated as a cafe, thereby employing additional local people as waitresses, cooks, etc.

During the first year, over 60 percent of the adult community derived some direct benefit from the school. The figure for the second year will be even higher, probably approaching 75 percent.

ONEO Arts and Crafts program (a component of the Office of Navaho Economic Opportunity, the reservation Community Action Program) has used the facilities and staff of the Rough Rock school to give additional training to ONEO craft instructors.

The Advisory Board of the ONEO Navaho Culture Component meets at Rough Rock frequently. ("We like to meet where people are proud of being Navaho," said one elder.) This group also cooperates with the Rough Rock Navaho Curriculum Center, exchanging and coordinating information.

The school cooperates with the U. S. Public Health Service in a demonstration in community health. During the second year, a community health committee was elected, which meets weekly with Public Health officials in coordinating and improving health in the Rough Rock community. An important area of demonstration the second year at Rough Rock was in health, with the USPHS expending maximum interest and resources.

The school provides housing for the Navaho Police personnel assigned to the community.

Head Start training sessions have been held at Rough Rock which included teachers and teacher-aides from the entire Southwest.

The school initiated a pilot program in Navaho mental health designed to continue and develop Navaho methods of psychotherapy. A larger program is pending approval in Washington.

Conferences at the school (sponsored by the school and/or by tribal groups) enable individuals and groups to discuss common problems in Indian affairs and share ideas and information.

Teaching English as a second language is a program stressed at the Demonstration School and specialists are on hand to provide leadership to the project. Various organizational structures are tried in an effort to determine the most effective plan in terms of more nearly meeting the individual needs of the children. Specialists in a variety of areas are on the staff to provide leadership in physical education, art, music, reading, speech therapy, etc.

The Rough Rock Demonstration School has taken yet another significant step in demonstration in Indian education. This is the decision by the School Board and Board of Directors to appoint Dillon Platero as the new director, effective July, 1969. Platero, formerly chairman of the Navaho Education Committee, was the deputy director at Rough Rock for the preceding year and a half. By appointing him to the position of director, the Navaho people have taken the final step in achieving control and direction over their own education.

With 15,000 visitors during Rough Rock’s first 22 months of operation, anonymity is not a problem. However, the future of Rough Rock lies in a very real way upon forces outside the control of the Rough Rock community or even the Navaho people.

The President’s message to Congress on Indian affairs included the very ingredients which are presently in operation so successfully at Rough Rock. In addition to requesting maximum Indian involvement in education, the President requested the establishment of model community schools. Surely, Rough Rock is such a model. The future direction of Indian education is intimately related to the future of the Rough Rock Demonstration School.

If the Bureau of Indian Affairs and public school systems believe the answers to problems facing Indians in the field of education lie in "more of the same," and if they believe that the solution to these problems rests primarily in more money, the significance of Rough Rock will have been lost. Unfortunately, there are many signs today that many people in high places in Indian education are of the opinion that Indian education can best be improved through more efficient centralized administration combined with more money placed in the hands of professional educators.

On the other hand, if the BIA and public school systems finally recognize the problems affecting Indians in schools demand not more of the same, but a radical new departure and new approach, then Rough Rock stands vindicated and its significance will never be lost. In a very real way, the significance of Rough Rock is based on two factors: First, control of Indian education by Indian people, and second, the incorporation into the school curriculum of positive elements of Indian life and culture.

Should the agencies and individuals having responsibilities for Indian education realize that Indian people must control and direct their education, and should the Congress of the United States see fit to act upon the President’s message on Indians and provide funds to carry out the suggested programs, then certainly Rough Rock’s future ought to be assured by becoming perhaps the first "Model Community School."

As newness wears off, one of two things is likely to happen at Rough Rock. First, the school through its independence and firm convictions may antagonize or alienate the entrenched power structures in Indian education or, second, the school may lose its direction and sense of purpose and revert back to an "8 to 5--don’t rock the boat" type of operation. It is hoped that Rough Rock will be allowed to choose a path which will let it continue to project and innovate.

The degree to which the Bureau of Indian Affairs will adopt and incorporate the successful findings of Rough Rock Demonstration School is as yet an unknown factor. Should the Bureau, for whatever reasons, see fit not to effect changes based on the Rough Rock experience, then it would have forfeited its position of responsibility to Indian education and to Indian people. The former Assistant Commissioner of Education for the BIA, Dr. Carl Marberger, was vitally aware of the importance and significance of the Rough Rock Demonstration School. Based on projects developed at the school, Dr. Marberger was effecting changes and making recommendations. Mr. Charles Zellers, newly appointed to this position, has not revealed by his actions his feelings concerning Rough Rock and its programs.

The time has long since passed when Indian people will be content to allow officials in Washington or anywhere else to make decisions affecting the future of their children and the future of their communities. The words of an old World War I song are appropriate in amply highlighting the impact of Rough Rock on Indian people: "How can you keep them down on the farm after they have seen gay Paree."

In other words, after Indian people have seen what has been accomplished by so-called uneducated Indians at Rough Rock in a backward and primitive community, how can you keep them from demanding and assuming the control of their future and of their education. Times have changed and Rough Rock reflects this change. It is now up to professionals and agencies having responsibilities in the field of Indian education to recognize and respect that change.

The Rough Rock Demonstration School has shown what is possible when Indian people, with limited or no formal education, are given an opportunity to direct and control their own education. No longer will it be possible for people to sit back and say: "The Indians aren’t ready yet." Rough Rock has conclusively shown that Indians are ready to exercise leadership in affairs affecting them if only given the chance.

At Rough Rock the School Board and the community now enjoy a right long enjoyed by other Americans, but which in the past has been effectively denied the American Indian: this is the light to be wrong. The Rough Rock community has accepted the responsibility and the challenge of thinking for itself and developing its own educational programs.

Bear in mind this is being done through a locally elected, all Navaho School Board, which has less than five years of formal education total among its seven members. The School Board is the group that has displayed imagination, creativeness, leadership, and understanding in developing and implementing educational programs for the entire community. This is the group of men who are truly recreating Indian education and Indian affairs.

The significance of the Rough Rock Demonstration School lies far beyond Indian education. The greatness and strength of this nation was derived from the involvement of its citizens and from placing in their hands the nation’s future.

In a day and age in which the average American plays an ever decreasing role in decision making, and in which each person’s part in providing control and leadership in public education is at an all time low, Rough Rock stands as a light in the night with an unmistakable message. This small, isolated school is drawing attention, from all portions of this country, to the principles on which this nation was founded. Rough Rock has been visited by literally thousands of other Americans interested in rediscovering the ways whereby a community, regardless of its educational level and experience, accepts the responsibility and succeeds in directing and controlling the education of its children.

Democracy has always been based on the involvement and the acceptance of responsibility by all citizens, regardless of education and experience. In a democracy, the trained professionals and the skilled experts are the servants, not the masters. Surely these kinds of people are needed and have contributed greatly to the growth of the United States. But their most significant contributions have been, and must continue to be, if democracy is to be both effective and strong, in the areas of pointing out alternatives, making recommendations, and providing answers to questions, not in dictating decisions through an aristocracy of the elite. Rough Rock proves conclusively that Indian people have the interest and ability to direct and control their education.

Rough Rock proves that American public education can be controlled by the people it serves and that an effective partnership can be established between the professionals and the people--with control and leadership residing with the people.

1. See the May, 1966 issue of the Journal of American Indian Education which discusses the Demonstration at Lukachukai.