Velma Hale CDTE faculty at Dine College graduated from Northern Arizona University with Master’s Degree and a former professor in the Ethnic Studies department at NAU. Velma Hale is promoting schools and teachers to include a culturally relevant curriculum in the lessons, units, and activities. Hale states (2014), Studies shown and proven native students outperform non-speakers over time (p. 5). The article relates to the Dine (Navajo) language and culture loss through schooling and how it continues to hinder our learning of the core subjects. The pre-service teachers need to change that by aligning their lessons to the Dine standards. According to Hale (2014), “We must see how the normed scores from state-mandated tests have systemically enticed contemporary Navajos to choose mastery of Western concepts over their indigenous concepts” (p.
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I agree with what she says, many educators have to rely on Western mandated pieces, not knowing they could embed their own heritage stories for fear of top-down penalties (Hale, 2014, p. 4). Reflecting back on my education at the boarding school I attended the teachers were afraid to incorporate the Dine culture into the different subjects. We only did the Dine culture once a week and that was in a different building. From there it’s like forget about that and now focus on your math, reading, writing, and science. It was different at Rough Rock where it was everyday learning and the instructor try to promote communicating in Navajo to our classmates. As I’m in the process of becoming a teacher I first felt that way like I’m going to get in trouble incorporating the language and culture in the classroom but I feel I have to change that thinking. That way our children don’t fail the standardized test and don’t do what Freddie Bowels states (2014), once we lose our language, we lose our culture and we’re just another brown-skinned American (p.
I agree with what she says, many educators have to rely on Western mandated pieces, not knowing they could embed their own heritage stories for fear of top-down penalties (Hale, 2014, p. 4). Reflecting back on my education at the boarding school I attended the teachers were afraid to incorporate the Dine culture into the different subjects. We only did the Dine culture once a week and that was in a different building. From there it’s like forget about that and now focus on your math, reading, writing, and science. It was different at Rough Rock where it was everyday learning and the instructor try to promote communicating in Navajo to our classmates. As I’m in the process of becoming a teacher I first felt that way like I’m going to get in trouble incorporating the language and culture in the classroom but I feel I have to change that thinking. That way our children don’t fail the standardized test and don’t do what Freddie Bowels states (2014), once we lose our language, we lose our culture and we’re just another brown-skinned American (p.