WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. – With bows of history and arrows of words, Diné language teachers fight western education systems.
On Friday, Oct. 18, the Diné Language Teachers Association held a conference at the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock, Arizona.
The day was more than a teachers conference. It was a day of recognizing and honoring the hard work Diné Bizaad teachers face revitalizing the language while integrating western education standards.
Dr. Geneva Becenti, director of the Diné Language Initiative and Policy Program, grew up in a household where Navajo was the first and only language spoken.
Like many Diné Bizaad teachers, Navajo was a language the teachers knew before English and grew up constantly speaking it. However, today, to be a teacher one must have a degree in education and specific training to teach in different states.
“We’re saying, ‘No, we want to have community speakers come into the schools so they can teach culture with the language,” said Becenti. “That’s what the kids want.”
From Becenti’s experience of weaving Diné Bizaad and western education, students often ask, ‘Who am I’? Learning the language forces students to learn about the culture and traditions and they can’t learn that if their teachers aren’t also teaching it.
According to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, hundreds of thousands of Native American children were removed from their homes and forced into boarding schools between 1869 and 1960.
The boarding school era was a way for the United States government to assimilate Native American children into the western world.
During those school years, thousands of children ran away or tried to run away from boarding school because of the horrific acts they had to endure at the schools. For instance, they were not allowed to speak their traditional languages. This resulted in children growing up and starting their own nuclear families, where they were traumatized to even teach their own children their language, culture and traditions.
Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren took office with the goal to revitalize Diné Bizaad. A speaker himself, he also attended boarding school near Red Mesa on the Utah and Arizona border. He remembers being in kindergarten and running away because he missed home.
“An act of genocide, an act of assimilation, an act of hate, that’s what each Native American child experienced in attending boarding schools back then,” said President Nygren. “It’s a horrible thing that many of our fluent speakers were traumatized enough to never speak it again and never want to be Navajo after school. I want our little ones to be proud to be Navajo. I want them to learn Navajo from a place of care so they’re not scared or embarrassed to speak it.”
On Oct. 18, President Nygren proclaimed Diné Bizaad Teachers Day.
He wanted to ensure the Diné Bizaad teachers were seen and heard because teaching the language and bringing it back to the children is a vital component in staying sovereign.
Currently for the state of New Mexico, Navajo Language teachers need to pass the Diné Language culture assessment created by the Office of Diné Standards Curriculum and Assessment Development (ODSCAD) and previous community speakers. The first part of the test is oral and second is written demonstration plans. If passed, they are given a 520 Native American Language Culture certificate. They then can take that to a school and teach Diné Bizaad.
“The teachers are really being mistreated because they don’t go through the western route,” said Becenti. “Like they don’t have a classroom to teach so they have to pull kids from their classes and then they’re not treated as an actual teacher. Just because they don’t have the credentials of a western teacher.”
Not only are Diné Bizaad teachers facing these new barriers in teaching Navajo language and culture, they’re facing the nationwide teacher salary crisis.
Becenti said for level one teachers, they start off with $50,000 a year. Oftentimes, Becenti has seen school boards being resistant to start Diné language teachers off at a level one because they only have a language certificate. Native American Education has also been looked at in providing funding for teachers but when the funds trickle down, it won’t reach the teachers, Becenti said.
“It seems like the school board and school districts don’t honor the Navajo Nation Sovereignty Education Act and so in there, it’s not being honored where any children within the Navajo Nation or surrounding Navajo Nation have the language and culture,” said Becenti.
Becenti referenced the Yazzie/Martinez case, which outlines the discrimination and disadvantages Native American, low-income, disabled, and English Language learner students face at school. In 2018, Judge Sarah Singleton ruled that the state of New Mexico did indeed not meet the needs of the students in the case and ruled that the state needs to provide a better educational environment for these students. This case also got funding for Native American students that continue to be used by the Albuquerque Public Schools Indian Education Department.
Yet none of the funds go towards the language teachers.
“They’re (schools) discriminating against our Diné language teachers,” said Becenti.
Becenti has heard the stories from Diné Bizaad teachers on and off the reservation experiencing the same situations; not enough funding, discrimination, no classrooms, no respect, and no help.
When President Nygren proclaimed Oct. 18 as Diné Language Teachers Day, Becenti said she was thankful that President Nygren’s administration finally recognized Diné Bizaad teachers and listened to the struggles they faced.
“I always say, I can’t fix every problem, but I will do what I can to try,” said President Nygren. “It’s unacceptable that Diné Bizaad teachers are treated the way they are both on and off the reservation. Our states need to recognize these teachers just as they do to those who received a western education.”
