The Future of Navajo Education

Edited by Miranda Haskie, Barbara Mink, and Kathy Tiner
Fielding University Press
139 pages

Review by Kelly Dinéyazhí-Hunter

The Future of Navajo Education assembles prominent Navajo educators and leaders who have infused their traditional upbringing with Western education ideologies. This book is based on presentations conducted at various Navajo education conferences in Window Rock, Arizona, co-sponsored by the Navajo Nation and Fielding graduate University. These various Navajo educators and doctoral candidates/recipients from Fielding share their educational journeys as young Navajo students on the reservation. In chapters 2 through 10, the scholarly research they share from economic sovereignty, robotics, mathematics, language revitalization and retention, and female leadership is enlightening.

As Navajo Nation President jonathan Nez states in chapter 1, “T’aa Ho Ajit’eego (you have the ability to do it yourself) shiyazhi she’awee’ (my children), you have the ability to succeed.” Readers are grounded in a traditional upbringing meant to inspire resilience and self-determination. Family and the teachings of the elders are fundamental to the resilience and perseverance of Navajo children. Dr. Henry Fowler reiterates this in his aim to connect the younger generations with Navajo elders by infusing Diné in Western curriculum. The future of Navajo education is to achieve economic and educational sovereignty through holistic teachings passed on from the home.

In the next section, “Revitalizing Navajo Language and Culture,” Barsine Benally emphasizes that it is through the Navajo language that one is identified and knows how to experience the universal family. This section is a reminder of the cultural genocide Indigenous communities endured through the history of education, such as with the eradication of language and culture at boarding schools. Tribes are empowered to resist the extinction of their languages and cultures by the very means meant to destroy them, changing the practice of education to include the Navajo language and culture.

In the concluding sections of the book, three resilient Diné matriarchs maintain that “home is where you come from.” The teachings from home are imperative to one’s self-awareness and place in the community. As they are tasked with finding answers, it is then that they return to the lessons their families and elders have taught them. In these moments of realization, no matter the modes of leadership or education, Diné language and teachings are within the individual.

To conclude, the Honorable Robert Yazzie provides a prominent chapter on Diné Fundamental Law, the guiding principles that influence how Navajo people think, plan, and live in reverence with all living things. In keeping with the essence of Navajo language, culture, and education, Mr. Yazzie explains how Diné Fundamental Law is best understood in the Navajo language. The four directions of thinking are nitsáhákis (thinking), nahat’á (planning), iiná (life), and sihasin (desired outcome). It is through this process that this book has been brought to fruition. These Navajo scholars have laid the foundation for what needs to happen; it is now up to future leaders to strive for the desired outcomes.

Kelly DinéYazhí-Hunter, EdS (Navajo) is an assistant professor of early childhood multicultural education at Navajo Technical University.