It Depends

Teaching often requires making decisions regarding instructional strategies that are tailored to individual student needs, While we know general principles regarding pedagogy and practice, the readiness levels, interests, and learning profiles of the students we serve often change what we need to do so that we can include the individuals who make up our classes. During the professional development sessions regarding Writer's Workshop and the Six Traits of Writing, we have tried to ensure that lesson plans, no matter how comprehensive, allow latitude to change and differentiate instruction based upon what we see from our students. Unlike the mantra of the popular press, there is no "silver bullet," no single instructional strategy that will work for all students, that will solve all of the problems facing an underperforming school, or that will certainly raise achievement. Instead, we try to emphasize that teaching is a combination of knowing one's craft, watching one's students, and then making critical decisions about what will work best at a given moment in time. How one proceeds depends on the instructional objective, the instructional strategy selected, and the students' response to that strategy. Sometimes things work out as one plans. Other times one needs to make changes. It depends.

S.T.S

Who said the T-Word?

A knock on the door, two adult Dine people, male and female are at the door. Maurice and I approach the door, we have recently been approached by more people hanging around the mission and it is often best to be with another person. At 11 at night, I'm bringing the former Knox Prairie Fire defensive player. The couple is very kind and respectful as we say hello, followed by a simple statement "Has anyone told you about the flood?" As we look at each other they begin to explain the situation, "A reservoir burst, and a tornado came in Chinle, the water could come and flood us down here. There is high ground up by the garbage dump, so when you hear the siren you should go up that way to avoid the flooding." After a couple of thanks we proceed to get everyone together and tell them what we heard, we gather Steve and Diana and in a short amount of time we are following advice and directions and loading food into the cars, turning them so that we can make a quick exit because once the siren sounds, it means an evacuation should be immediate. Water projected to be knee high would be flowing through the wash and flooding the mission and other parts of the area. At a meeting of all people in the mission, Lynn the Pastor told us that it could come at anytime, an hour, 3 hours or not at all. When the siren came we had to be ready to go, and so we waited. And played spades, and waited, and finally went to bed.

When morning breaks finally, there is no water, merely a lot of tired eyes and people happy that there wasn't a mass exodus towards the mesa. We carried on with lessons and planning, working with teachers, reviewing information and working on the core knowledge curriculum that is now essential to their work at the school. After the lunch break, we come back to find out that the dam in Many Farms,a town about 40 minutes to an hour from us, had broken and so the water could still be working its way to us here in Rock Point, so we were back to considering evacuation. After all of this and the threat of more danger all that one can remember is that, in the Dine culture, the word Tornado when spoken has the power to summon a tornado. So what we had to find out was, who said the T-word?

J.L.

Breaking Through New Mexico

The road from Liberal, Kansas into Moriarty, New Mexico is paved with prairie, open skies and an ominous rain cloud in the middle of the road.

Today, we left Kansas, crossed through Oklahoma and passed through Texas, only to break into New Mexico. The mileage has been impressive, but even greater is the transition from the flatlands, to rolling hills, to the standing mountains and canyons with red rocks. The funny thing about learning geography is that you see glossy photos in textbooks and tourist guide photos of these places and yet they never seem to capture the awe inspiring appearance of a mountain in the background of rolling hills and cities tucked away.

Going through Texas was somewhat what we expected: Cattle, Oil wells, a lot of land and the occasional drawl from a gas station saying "ya'll come back now".

The sky seems massive here, on the Interstate we could see the storm cloud coming towards us and easily make out the sunshine behind it that we were driving through. You can tell the beauty of the land for miles around and in some ways you can't help but feeling the rugged nature of many of the places and the kindness of many of the people who live here.

In other news: They market an off road store for 3 miles with signs spaced approximately 10 miles apart. It sells everything from Fireworks to Blankets.

J.L

Brown V. Board of Education

"Segregation was, is, the way in which a society tells a group of human beings that they are inferior to other groups of human beings in the society." - Dr. Kenneth B. Clark

We are here, we who volunteer, we who travel great and small distances for this project are here to serve, but more importantly to learn. To learn that which we don't know about Navajo culture, that which we don't know about the art and craft of teaching and that which we don't know about the role that others have played in the shaping of the American fabric.

Today, Steve, Danny and I had the pleasure of visiting Monroe School in Topeka, Kansas. It is the school made famous by the Brown vs the Board of Education case that made "separate, but equal" unacceptable. We spotted it as we continued our journey towards the reservation and thought it might serve as a great place to both learn more about what has become merely a name in the great cases of the civil rights movement and educational history, as well as, a great photo op to show those who may have never seen the place.

Monroe Elementary School. Topeka, Kansas

During the trip we saw a video that discussed, why education, it's supposed to give people power, allow them to challenge the system in a manner that is understood, articulate and powerful. This idea has been adopted into the words of many universities, individuals and organizations, but here is a place that is iconic, for talking the talk and walking the walk. All one can hope is that we are all as bold.

In other news on the status of our trip: Currently in Liberal, Kansas. On the way into town a sign proudly proclaimed "Welcome to the Land of Oz". Personally, I'm hoping there is a scarecrow that can dance and sing like Michael Jackson.

J.L

Into the Southwest

The education profession is often defined by the things that we don't plan. The student that unexpectedly needs us, the change in standards, the problem child that we find out has home problems. Everyday, education is defined by the unplanned or rather the "teachable" moments that occur everyday.

Currently, I am sitting in a hotel in Kansas city. Through this, I have been able to reflect on one thing at the beginning of this trip: that which we don't plan requires more care to pull off. Recently we: Maurice and Samantha McDavid ('10), Danielle Daly ('11), Daniel Gonshorek ('11), and Alix DeWald ('11), have been in contact with Professors Diana Beck and Stephen Schroth, as well as the representatives of the Navajo Evangelical Lutheran School. Through these e-mails, what began as a trip to the southwest to present lesson plans and work with teachers of the school to increase cultural education has turned into a renaissance of sorts. Core Knowledge, meets curriculum development, meets the essential air that is the Knox College Educational Studies department.

The work will be, from what I was told of last year: difficult and confusing, but also one of the most influential and life changing experiences that one could undertake. Both for the service that is offered to the Navajo people and to the understanding of our history as a nation and to the inter- and intra-personal relationships that are formed.

The Knox/Navajo Teaching and Learning Project rides again...

J.L.