Accepting Educational Responsibility: Regaining the Values of Dine Education

• In Event: Curriculum, Democracy, and Values

Abstract

This study examines the history of Dine education and its meaning in the stories three current Navajo teachers. The teachers share their responsibility for Navajo language and literacy first from the perspectives of the history of formal schooling, then from the perspective of the communities where they live and work. These stories stories challenge settler colonial history (Denetdale, 2016; Rowe and Tuck, 2017) to regain the values of our past. What these stories mean for us today shapes the historical consciousness that moves forward our actions and shares responsibility for the future.

Authors

• Louise Lockard, Northern Arizona University

• Velma M. Hale, Northern Arizona University, Dine' College, Fielding Graduate University