It is often said that it takes a village to raise a child. I know that it takes an army of teachers to make that child a productive and giving member of society. I am such a child still. I can never say enough of my traditional Dineh elders who taught me before I stepped into a classroom. The elders still hold that position in our lives as we also take on that helm ourselves. As a Baby Boomer on the Rez I revisit the memory of that special group of people who expanded my horizons in many classrooms.
As school resumes for another year I am reminded of those teachers I had.
My earliest memory in Shonto Community School on the Rez was of teachers who were enigmas—the first white people I encountered. They did not seem real to me. Someone told me they were manufactured somewhere and sent to us as was evidenced by seams on a lady teacher’s calves, which turned out to be seams on her hosiery. It took a while before I realized they were real. Those early years confused me in that Christian missionaries were given almost equal time with us and science and the world I knew did not have room for messiahs of another color.
They did allow me to engage with other young sheepherders and strange new teaching materials like books and bright wooden playthings. Within a few years we were teaching our elders of all the newness of this strange world. This was the year John Glenn made his historic orbit around the globe in outer space. We saw that on a very grainy black and white someone from the agency provided. That was a good thing.
The elementary years found me with a series of teachers who were influential in other ways like Mr. Sharp, a drinking man with a teaching problem. He would give us an assignment to occupy us as he sipped his medicine and serviced his firearms. He was a piece of work and the boys just loved it especially when he came to our defense with threat upon a dormitory overseer that was a bigger problem. He was my third grade teacher. Mr. Candler was a short, nervous man with no sense of humor who became the butt of many of our pranks.
This was the year I discovered troublemaking and the joys of it in a government setting. Yes, B.I.A. angst led me to embrace the wild side. Mr. Brown, an African American man, left us in mid-year for Vietnam. His number came in. Mr. Oliver from Muskogee, Okla., was my fifth grade teacher. Under his tutelage, I learned drama with all the sound effects. We played “Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves” for 40 days. That was fantastic and wild. A series of teachers came in and out of our lives after that; some great, others I forget. Some encouraged us, some didn’t seem to want to be there. The school was isolated way out in the heart of the Rez. It may as well been on another planet.
High school lasted five years due to the fact that I morphed into a rebel without pause. I wanted to be elsewhere but Kayenta, and I did. Classroom bored me and presented no challenges. I started leaving school at the advice of principals for they wanted no challenges. My art and English teachers thought enough of my drawing skills that they helped me into the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M. Mr. Belone, a Dineh and Ms. Freeman, made their mark on my teen years. One introduced me to great songwriters and music in class while she struggled with her alcohol addiction. She taught me the love of written words in spite of it all. One gave me a new awakening into art appreciation. I appreciated that.
These are some of the special people of the sacred profession that made learning in a new world palatable for me. They expanded my universe by guiding me past my own set horizons. There were many more to follow, but it was those early years in class that gave me my inquisitive nature, and handed me the keys to most of the answers.
The government educational system and the conditions under which I was educated left a lot to be desired, but it was always the voices of my elders and old warriors that fed my desire to learn the “alien” ways. I thank you all wherever you may be. Know that you made a difference in this Dineh’s life.
Ha naa go n’deez diin go, Nizhoni’ (the light, it spreads all around me, in beauty).
