With $1.8M grant, educators set out to ‘Indigenize’ classrooms

Posted by Navajo Times | Dec 29, 2016 | Education |

By Candace Begody
Special to the Times

TUCSON, Ariz.

Special to the Times | Candace Begody
Jeremy Garcia (Hopi/Tewa) and Valerie Shirley (Diné) spearheaded efforts to secure a $1.8 million grant that will be used to train teachers in the Tucson area to “Indigenize” their classrooms.

Native American people, their culture, and their languages have historically been excluded in all levels of educational curriculum.

To address that, at least at the elementary school level, University of Arizona instructor Valerie Shirley (Diné) and her colleagues will use a $1.8 million grant to fund a four-year project dubbed the “Indigenous Teacher Education Project,” in hopes of “Indigenizing” local classrooms.

“Our overall goal is to prepare Native American teachers to Indigenize their classrooms,” said Shirley, an assistant professor of Indigenous education within the College of Education, “but to also balance that with Western academic skills used in the dominant society; not necessarily taking over but finding a balance.”

Shirley, who is originally from Ganado, Arizona, will serve as the program director, while Dr. Jeremy Garcia, assistant professor within the College of Education, will serve as the co-principal investigator.

Shirley said many of today’s teachers – with a very low percentage being of American Indian descent – are not culturally responsive and do not understand the early policies that affect American Indian education today, namely the Assimilation Era.

“You see the effects of that today,” she said, adding that many tribal communities house low-performing schools and still face issues such as poverty and high dropout rates.

“Change has to happen and it can only happen within,” Shirley added. “The idea within this grant to is give that and to prepare the teachers to give back to their communities.”