The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 9 (1998)

Diné bi Olta or School of the Navajos:
Educational Experiments at Rough Rock
Demonstration School, 1966–1970

Yumiko MIZUNOI

INTRODUCTION

The Diné bi olta or “school of the Navajos,” the Rough Rock
Demonstration School, was established in 1966 in the isolated community of Rough Rock, Arizona. At that time, it was the only school thatwas honored by the Navajos with the name meaning “the school of theNavajos.” For more than a century, there were three types of schools
for the education of Indian children: missionary schools, Bureau ofIndian Affairs (BIA) schools, and public schools. How these schools
are perceived by the Navajos can be illustrated by the names in the
Navajo language for these different types of schools. In Navajo, missionary schools are called Eeneishoodi bi olta. This means “the schoolof those who drag their clothes,” a reference to the robes worn by theﬁrst Franciscan priests who came to the reservation. BIA schools arecalled Washingdoon bi olta, which means “Washington’s school,” andpublic schools are called Beligaana bi olta, meaning “Little whiteman’s school.”1
What is connoted by the different names for the schools? Why was
Rough Rock Demonstration School, in the 1960s, the only school honCopyright © 1998 Yumiko Mizuno. All rights reserved. This work may be
used, with this notice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of thiswork may be distributed, electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without permission from the author.
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ored with the name “the school of the Navajos”? In this paper, I willﬁrst review the historical background leading up to the establishmentof the school, focusing on changes in Indian education at the national
level in the late 1960s. The scope will then be narrowed down to innovative educational experiments at the small community on the Navajo
reservation called Rough Rock. There are many factors that may be
associated with the innovations at Rough Rock, but this paper concentrates on three clusters of those factors: organizational change, curricula reform, and community development. This paper seeks to describe
the process of creating “the school of the Navajos” at Rough Rock that
contributed to the change in perception by Navajo people towardschools in general. Thus, the thrust of this paper is to determine thehistorical signiﬁcance of Rough Rock Demonstration School by focusing on its formative years from 1966 to 1970.
Major studies concerning the Navajos began with anthropologicalresearch undertaken jointly as governmental projects. The Navaho, coauthored by Clyde Kluckhohn and Dorothea Leighton and publishedin 1946, is a general sociocultural account of the Navajos, which
spearheaded anthropological interest in Navajo culture in the 1940s
and 1950s. In contrast to anthropologists, interest in American Indian
history was discouraged in the training of American historians until
the late 1950s. As Wilcomb E. Washburn and Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr.,
noted historians, said, the history of American Indians used to be
regarded as a marginal topic of conventional history at best, and evenconsidered not a part of American history. The distance between
anthropologists and historians has been narrowed, as is well illuminatedin the articles that have appeared in Ethnohistory, a quarterly journal
issued by the American Society for Ethnohistory. At present, despite
the wealth of literature concerning the history of Indian affairs in general, relatively few surveys are available that focus exclusively on thehistory of Indian education. The ﬁrst major work in this regard is
Margaret Connell Szasz’s Education and the American Indian: The
Road to Self-Determination Since 1928. Covering only brieﬂy a crucial period of change in the 1960s, it nevertheless remains a competent
overview of the history of Indian education.2
From the late 1960s, Indian education became a major concern ofthe educational press, which carried an increasing number of scholarly
studies on the topic related to bilingual and bicultural programs.
Featuring sociopsychological data culled from their previous govern-

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mental research, To Live on This Earth: American Indian Educationby Estelle Fuchs and Robert J. Havighurst provides a well-documented
analysis of contemporary educational problems facing the indigenous
population nationwide. It is supplemented by a number of surveys by
educators and educational researchers devoted to, in this particularcase, Navajo education. Based on his profound experiences as an educator and administrator at Navajo schools, Robert A. Roessel, Jr. wrote
widely on Rough Rock School and Navajo education, including
Navajo Education in Action: The Rough Rock Demonstration School
and Navajo Education, 1948–1978: Its Progress and Its Problems.
Teresa L. McCarty’s unpublished doctoral dissertation, “BilingualBicultural Education in a Navajo Community,” thoroughly focuses on
the transition of language and cultural programs at the Rough Rock
Demonstration School.3
There remains, however, a continuing need to update and include
native interpretations of events in the history of Indian education in thepost World War II era. Consequently, my paper will draw on contemporary works that appeared in the 1960s and 1970s to supplement thescholarly works. Of special note are the voluminous Congressional
hearings and research, which remain the most complete documents onoral testimonies provided by tribal representatives.
II

EDUCATIONAL REFORMS IN THE 1960s–1970s

1. The Inﬂuence of World War II on Navajo Education
Even before the 1960s, when reforms of Indian education gained
momentum on a nationwide scale, many Indian leaders had emphasized a need for better schooling. World War II in particular madethem realize that formal education was a matter of survival. As threefourths of the out-of-school Indian children, nationwide, resided in the
Navajo reservation in the mid 1940s, a demand for formal education
was understandably greater among the Navajos than almost any other
tribe. In 1945 there were approximately 20,400 Navajo children between the ages of 6 and 18, of which only about 6,000 were in school.4
This is mainly due to the relative isolation of the reservation which
resulted in limited contact with the dominant society before WorldWar II. As Navajo culture then remained comparatively intact, traditional childrearing practices—raising the next generation not through146

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formal educational institutions but in kinship-based alliances—were
applied to children out of school. Sheepherding was the foundation of
instruction to form children socially even after its economic value
dwindled.5
A changing economy, due in part to the livestock reduction programin the 1930s, overgrazing, and the experiences of young Navajos in the
military service and defense works during the war accounted for an
increase in demands among Navajos for formal education, one thatwould provide Navajos with new skills and professions. By the mid
1930s, the increased population on the reservation was no longer supported exclusively by the traditional activities of sheepherding andfarming. During the war, approximately 10,000 Navajos found jobs inthe defense industry, which led to an unprecedented ﬂow of populationout of the reservation. While 3,300 Navajo men, including those whoserved as code talkers, were in the military service before the war
ended, many were rejected and discharged because of illiteracy inEnglish. Selective Service records then reported that 88 percent out ofa total of 4,000 male Navajos between the ages of 18 and 35 were illiterate. More importantly, as the result of inadequate elementary schooling, many Navajo veterans were unable to beneﬁt from the privileges
granted in the GI Bill of Rights, which enlarged educational opportunities for the veterans after the war.6
In 1946, a delegation of Navajos raised these serious problems andclaimed a right for adequate schooling in Washington, D.C. At a
Senate hearing, Chee Dodge, Chairman of the Navajo Tribal Council(the governing body of the tribe), ﬁrst referred to the Treaty of 1868
whereby the U.S. Government agreed to provide a house and an
English teacher for every 30 children of school age. Dodge insisted
that this provision of the treaty be fulﬁlled; otherwise, the Navajos
would remain unable to “compete with the outside world off the reservation.” Since the Navajos could no longer rely solely on the traditional economy of stock raising for a living, they urgently needed, in theunanimous opinion of the delegates, to acquire a command of English
and new skills through schooling.7
The Bureau of Indian Affairs then introduced several educational
programs geared to young out-of-school Navajos. These included theSpecial Navajo Educational Program started in 1946 and the Navajo
Emergency Education Program in 1954. These federal programs led to
expansion of school facilities and an increase in student enrollment. In

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the process of implementing these programs, the Navajo Education
Committee—appointed by the Tribal Chairman from the Tribal
Council members—gained broad experience in coordinating these programs with the federal government. In addition, foresighted membersof the Tribal Council established a college scholarship in 1953 by setting aside revenue from the oil ﬁeld on the reservation. These federal
programs and Navajo leadership laid the foundations for educational
reforms on the Navajo reservation in the mid 1960s, thereby enabling
the Navajos to set a precedent for operating their own schools.
In the short span of two decades after the war, the Navajos made a
rapid transition from their traditional way of life to a new way of life
based on a wage economy. It is important to note that, in this transitional period when Navajo leaders began to advocate adequate education, schooling could be nothing but foreign to Navajo culture as to
how to educate future generations. A Navajo delegate to a House hearing in 1944 clariﬁed that the Navajos needed to learn “the white man’sways,” something outside of what they already had. Another even stated that teaching the Navajo language at school was unnecessary
because it was not the main language in the country.8 Schools were,
for the Navajo leaders in the critical periods of the 1940s and 1950s,
where children learned English and new skills in order to survive in a
drastically changing economy. It is within this historical context that,in 1966, people at Rough Rock launched themselves on educational
experiments to make a school identiﬁable to them.
2. Changes in Indian Education at the National Level: the 1960s–1970s
Scholars and Indian educators consider the late 1960s to the early
1970s to be a crucial period of change in the history of Indian education. Primarily as an offspring of the civil rights movement, educational reforms at that time gained momentum through the federal government’s willingness to tackle inequality and poverty in society.
If children retained a cultural background distinct from the dominant culture, equal opportunity in education seemed, in the 1960s, todemand more than equal treatment. Recognizing unique educational
problems facing minority communities, Congress moved to promote
new and experimental programs funded by the federal government.
Several laws, such as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of
1965, the Economic Opportunity Act, and the Bilingual Education Act
of 1968, provided access to federal funding to launch new programs.

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With the exception of Indian education, general schooling had been
under the jurisdiction of state and local governments since the latenineteenth century onward. The federal initiative in educational
reforms nationwide in the 1960s meant a distinct departure from conventional practices.
Although the passage of educational acts and the increase of educational opportunities for minority students were critical changes of theperiod, they did not necessarily by themselves solve unique problems
facing the native population. In accord with these changes, the 1960s
saw a surge of native voices demanding policy reforms in Indianaffairs, including educational practices. For example, the American
Indian Movement (AIM), a political organization founded in 1969,
was initially very active in criticizing discriminatory educational practices in several western states. AIM gave its overall support to a law
suit against the Minnesota Board of Education for the use of discriminatory history textbooks and helped to win the case.9
The upsurge of social movements and new debates over ethnic identity eventually focused attention on reforms in Indian education, followed by the publication of many studies on the issue, which in turnresulted in the passage of comprehensive educational legislation. In
1966, one study, commonly called the Coleman Report, revealed several problems regarding Indian education:
Dropout rates are twice the national average.
The Indian child falls progressively further behind the longer he stays
in school.
Indian children in the 12th grade have the poorest self-concept of allminority groups tested. These children often abandon their own prideand their own purpose and leave school to confront a society in which
they have been offered neither a place nor a hope. And the consequenceof this inadequate education is a life of despair and of hopelessness.
The average Indian income is $1,500 – 75 percent below the national
average.
His unemployment rate is 10 times the national average.
He lives 10 years less than average American.10

These statistics from the Coleman Report attracted the attention ofsenators, even though one study questioned the objectivity in thereport’s analysis of students’ self-esteem by stating “[i]t would seemthat a competent scientiﬁc study of the self-concept of Indian students
would hardly take the data from the Coleman study as a valid report

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on Indian high school students.”11 According to Senator Robert F.
Kennedy (Democrat-New York), the status of Indian education
described in the Coleman Report represented “a national tragedy and anational disgrace.” Convinced that effective education lay at the heartof any lasting solution, Senators Kennedy and Paul J. Fannin (DArizona) took the initiative by establishing a special subcommittee on
Indian education under the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare.
The subcommittee, chaired ﬁrst by Robert Kennedy and, after his
death, by Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), spent two
years in examining “the unique educational needs of the American
Indians and as a result create the legislation to bring the Indian theadvantages the Federal government has historically promised.” Seven
volumes of hearing reports and ﬁve committee prints were distilled
into the subcommittee’s ﬁnal report, Indian Education: A National
Tragedy—A National Challenge, commonly called the Kennedy
Report.12
Under the strong leadership of these senators, the 1970s saw theenactment of precedent-shattering laws affecting Indian education.
Examples include the Indian Education Act of 1972 and the Indian
Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975. These laws
authorized “self-determination” by Indian people, meaning the maximum involvement of Indians in the development and implementationof federal programs affecting them.
In fact, the 1970s was a decade of substantial gains for Indian education, especially in terms of secondary and post-secondary schooling.
The most signiﬁcant achievement of the period was the increasedenrollment in secondary schooling. Statistics show that 22 percent of
all Indians aged 25 and over completed high school in 1970, comparedto 55.5 percent of the same age group in 1980. Although there
remained a large gap between whites and Indians pursuing college
education, the percentage of Indian college graduates doubled between
1970 and 1980 from 3.8 percent to 7.7 percent.13
III

EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS AT ROUGH ROCK

1. From Lukachukai to Rough RockIn August 1964, Congress enacted the Economic Opportunity Act,
which was instrumental in providing funds for demonstration projects

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in underdeveloped areas. The implication of the act lay in its emphasison the maximum feasible involvement of the community members
concerned. Parallel with the enactment, several Navajo leaders werediscussing the problems and needs of Indian education. As recognizedby these leaders, particular issues required special attention andimprovement. These included meaningful local school boards, cultural
identiﬁcation, community development, and native language learning.
In 1965, the Ofﬁce of Economic Opportunity (OEO) approved a demonstration proposal submitted by those Navajo leaders and granted$214,300 to the Navajo tribe. A school at Lukachukai, located east of
Rough Rock, was chosen for the project. In this proposal, the BIA
would continue to provide funds for general school operation, while
the OEO would fund experimental projects. But, to borrow the wordsof Robert Roessel Jr., the ﬁrst director of Rough Rock Demonstration
School, “a two-headed horse rarely wins a race,” and the two-headed
administration failed within a year.14 The failure of the Lukachukai
project illustrated the kinds of administrative changes necessary toachieve maximum involvement of the community members.
As the Lukachukai school was about to revert to a regular BIA
school, the BIA happened to be completing a new school building at
Rough Rock. Given the cooperation among Navajo leaders, the BIA,
and the OEO, the time was ripe to try another experiment based on thelessons learned at Lukachukai. The BIA turned over both the schoolbuilding and funds, which had been appropriated to operate the school
as a BIA facility, to the Navajo tribe.
Rough Rock Demonstration School began operation on July 1,
1966. Initially, the school offered grades 1 through 6. It added the 7th
grade in 1967 and a high school in 1974. Rough Rock School wasbuilt to serve students from the immediate area; however, due todefective road conditions, it was impossible to operate the school asa day school. Of an enrollment of 317 children, 266 were boarding
students, ranging in age from 6 through 16 in 1968. Many children
enrolled in the ﬁrst year came from Navajo-speaking families and had
never attended school before. As an isolated and impoverished community of 1,200 persons, Rough Rock was separated from the nearest
hard-surfaced road by approximately 25 kilometers of unpaved roads.
Most residences in the community did not have the basic amenities ofrunning water and electricity.15
The seemingly moderate project at Rough Rock immediately

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Map: Navajo Country

NAVAJO EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS
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attracted nationwide attention as a revolutionary experiment in Indian
education. During its ﬁrst year and a half, the school hosted more than
12,000 visitors from 42 states and 8 foreign countries, including representatives from 86 Indian tribes. Dillon Platero, the second director of
the school, recalled “it was as if we were in a ﬁsh bowl.”16
2. The First Contract School: Organizational Changes
When one sees the surprising publicity for such a small and remoteschool, the natural question to ask is what kind of experiments RoughRock School attempted to carry out. With respect to school administration, Rough Rock School took new and concrete steps to maximize
local voices in its operation. Unlike the Lukachukai school, RoughRock School established DINE, a private, non-proﬁt organization
composed of Navajo leaders, responsible for receiving and disbursing
the initial funds from the OEO and the BIA. DINE is the acronym for“Demonstration in Navajo Education,” and at the same time, it means,in the Navajo language, “the People” or “the Navajos.”17 The ﬁrst
Board of Directors for DINE consisted of three leading Navajos, Allen
D. Yazzie, Gun Gorman, and Ned Hatathli. The ﬁrst director of theschool was Robert Roessel, Jr., who was married to a Navajo and had
been devoted to Navajo education since the early 1950s. The School
Board then appointed Dillon Platero, former chairman of the Navajo
Education Committee, as director in July 1969. With Navajo leaders in
the top administrative positions, DINE was expected to provide themore ﬂexible organizational structure indispensable for maximizing
community involvement.
More importantly, Rough Rock School Board was different fromthose that existed in other schools with a substantial Indian enrollment.
Elected by the community members at a chapter meeting in June 1966,
the ﬁve members of the Board were all Navajos.18 The Board also
retained substantial power in the operation of the school, subject only
to the authority of the directors of DINE.
Only two of the ﬁrst Board members had received any formal education, whereas none of the other members had received a single dayof formal education. Only one member, the president, spoke English.
Yet, they were typical Navajos in their middle age with regard to theireducational background and language use. A study indicated that, as of1959, 37 percent of the residents in the Many Farms and Rough Rock
area were English speakers. The majority of them fell into the 14 to 29

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153

years of age category. Such information indicated that the younger
generation was more often exposed to English in educational and work
situations.19 In spite of their lack of formal education, consideredessential in the mainstream society, the Board members challenged thenorm and took the responsibility for promoting experiments with wisdom and insight. Of special signiﬁcance was the conducting of Board
meetings in the Navajo language which enabled community members
to identify the school as theirs.
Since Rough Rock School was separate from the BIA school system, the community enjoyed more freedom in the election of School
Board members and the hiring of teachers and staff members. Since
Civil Service requirements did not apply to Rough Rock School, theBoard and community were not bound by its rules, which required for
the Board members a speciﬁed period of formal education and, in thecase of a teaching position, training in education or relatively highscores on national teaching tests. In 1968, of 82 full-time staff members at the school, 60 of them were Navajos. Many community members, who could not be hired at other schools because of a lack of highschool diplomas and English proﬁciency, were employed in various
positions. These positions included dormitory aids, janitors, and trainees.20 At Lukachukai, the Civil Service requirements had proved abarrier, preventing the local School Board from functioning as thecommunity members wished. Rough Rock School had learned an important lesson from the failure of Lukachukai.
The unique experiment at Rough Rock created a new administrative
arrangement based on a contract between the tribe and the BIA. The
founding of Rough Rock meant that a fourth type, a contract school,
was added to the existing types of schools for the native population:
mission schools, BIA schools, and public schools.21
3. The School of the Navajos: Innovation in the Classroom
The organizational changes that brought about a new type of school
did not automatically create a new learning environment in the classroom. Rather, they served as a means to attain other objectives. John
Dick, a member of the School Board, explained Rough Rock’s educational goals in 1967:
We want to ﬁnd ourselves to renew our acquaintance with ourselves.
And this is what we are trying to do here. We want the English and the
Navajo cultures to be combined. The teaching of both cultures has been

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a major concern and purpose of this board in its role as the controllingand policy-making group of the school.

Anita Pfeiffer, then principal of the school, apparently shared thisgoal, stating “the best part about this school is that the children arelearning who they are.”22 In short, the school sought to realize a “bothand” approach which held that both Indian and Anglo ways should betaught. The Indian child would accordingly develop a positive identity
while learning to live and work in the mainstream culture. This approach differed entirely from the prevalent “either-or” approach, whichmeant that one should forsake one’s culture and traditions in favor of
the way of life of the dominant society.23
This new approach at Rough Rock also contributed to a change inattitudes toward schools on the part of the Navajos. Historically, theconcept of schooling was foreign to most native cultures, as was thecase with Navajo culture. Since the 1880s when the federal boarding
school system was introduced, a school was nothing but the productof Euro-American tradition, ignoring existing patterns of native childrearing. Indian students were often punished if they spoke their native
languages at school. Wade Hadley, former president of the RoughRock School Board, remembered that “[w]e were punished if theycaught us talking Navajo. There was yellow laundry soap which wasused to wash our mouths out if we spoke Navajo.” The comments of a
Navajo employee at Rough Rock showed that many students consequently suffered from low self-esteem:
When I went to school I was punished when I spoke Navajo. So I
became ashamed that I was Navajo. On questionnaires where they asked
if you spoke English at home I always said I did although it was nottrue. I did this because I was ashamed of who I was.24

It was therefore impossible for many Navajos to identify suchforeign institutions as their schools. Viewed against a history of theNavajos’ distrust of schools, Rough Rock School represented a major
breakthrough in Indian education. It did so by providing a learning
environment that incorporated Navajo language and culture. Ned
Hatathli, treasurer of DINE, said with conviction, “it is here at the
Rough Rock school that we are reviving our knowledge and culture.”25
At Rough Rock School, people were conﬁdent in calling it the schoolof the Navajos.
A change in the philosophy of education culminated in tentativeNAVAJO EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS

155

yet concrete bilingual and bicultural instruction in the classroom. For
instance, the 1st graders, only one of whom had a command of
English, received language instruction in the following way. The
teachers divided one classroom into two sections, and children weretold to speak in Navajo on one side of the room and in English on theother. The Navajo area had books in Navajo and objects with which
they were familiar, while the English area had books in English andthings that reminded them of learning a new culture and language.
Teachers went back and forth between the two areas to teach each language. At the end of the year, the room was no longer divided andchildren could choose which language they would use.26
The regular schedule of language instruction was designed to offer
four hours of spoken and written Navajo and two hours of spoken
English from kindergarten to the 2nd grade, followed by two hoursof spoken and written Navajo and four hours of spoken and written
English in grades 3 to 9. Portions of regular classes such as arithmetic
and social studies were also held in Navajo on an experimental basis.
Besides cultural references within language instruction, Navajo culture
was implemented on a trial basis in social studies, art, home economics, and science courses. As for the lower three grades and pre-school
sections, 20 minutes of class were set aside daily and 30 minutes ingrades 3 through 6 for cultural identiﬁcation lessons. The lessons covered Navajo history, traditional ceremonies, tribal government, andbiographies of successful Navajos.27
Implementing such an innovative “both-and” approach, however,proved difﬁcult because there were few textbooks, teacher guides, andworkbooks on Navajo culture suitable for a classroom setting. In spiteof ﬁnancial difﬁculties, in March 1967, the Navajo Curriculum Center
was thus established. The principal functions of the center for the year
1968–69 included producing curriculum materials based on Navajo
culture and heritage, providing technical assistance to any school willing to implement a Navajo social studies program, and serving as arepository for resource information and data on Navajo history andculture. Initially, the center was dedicated to publishing seven books
for Navajo children such as Black Mountain Boy, Grandfather Storiesof the Navahos, and Navaho Biographies.28 In this book project, local
Navajo people were involved in the whole process of publication frominitial interviewing to translating, illustrating, and evaluating materials.

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4. The Community School: Economic Development
Conceived of as a community school serving not only children but
also adults, the school was intended to provide needed services forthe whole community. A school laundromat project illustrates its community development orientation. In the 1960s, most BIA boarding
schools contracted with outside laundry ﬁrms in “border” towns adjacent to the reservation such as Gallup and Farmington to provide linen
services for dormitories. At Rough Rock, by purchasing washingmachines and placing them in the dormitory, the school gave employment to unskilled local residents who were hired to do the laundry.
The laundry appliances were also made available to the community.
As most residents in those days hauled water from ﬁve miles away andhad no artiﬁcial light at home, except for kerosene lamps and lightgiven off by the stove, the project had more signiﬁcance than one
might expect.29 Other projects included basic English and arithmetic
programs geared to the adults, an arts and craft program, and a Navajo
mental health project.
The Rough Rock community was regarded as a lower-income area
in comparison to other sections on the reservation. A survey reported
that incomes for the families in the Many Farms and Rough Rock area
appeared to be far lower than that for the Navajo reservation as awhole ($586 per annum compared to $2,335). Given the economic situation, the School Board had a strong interest in community development. Robert Roessel, Jr., as an experienced school administrator,
once proposed that the school should pay its employees at least as
much as other BIA schools did in order to secure capable staff members. The Board members including John Dick declined the proposal
and decided to pay half as much and hire twice as many workers.
Later, Roessel admitted that their decision served best the needs of thecommunity. It turned out that the school enjoyed twice as many supporting voices from the community. In the ﬁscal year of 1967, schoolrelated jobs raised annual per capita income more than twofold, fromapproximately $85 to $214.30
VI

THE IMPACT OF EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS

1. Pros and Cons Surrounding Rough Rock School
As is true for any educational experiment, there were pros and cons

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concerning Rough Rock School. Some Navajos were critical of inadequate instruction in Navajo culture and language. A memo to allschool staff members issued by the School Board in November 1967
clariﬁes their disappointment. It stated “[w]e were both shocked anddismayed to hear the reports that our children in Phase I (lower elementary grades) are not receiving instruction in Navajo culture.” The
Board asserted that both Navajo language and culture be taught every
day of the school week.31
Some critics, on the other hand, questioned the validity of RoughRock’s culture and language instruction. Donald Erickson of the
University of Chicago pointed out that “a surprising number of unlettered parents complained that the school was devoting too much attention to Navajo culture” at the expense of skills the children would laterneed to secure employment.32 Erickson conducted research on RoughRock School from September 1968 to April 1969. As the ﬁnal reportof his research was submitted to the Ofﬁce of Economic Opportunity,
the school’s major funding source, it stirred controversy among the
Navajos. Although it recommended continuance of the OEO funding,the underlying tone of the report was rather negative. It stated that
Rough Rock’s lofty ideals and publicity tended to overshadow its
weaknesses and obscure its accountability, that its highly advertisedbilingual and bicultural programs were less effective than similar
instruction offered at Rock Point BIA School—a school operated
within the traditional bureaucratic structure without the liberal funding
Rough Rock enjoyed—on the Navajo reservation, and that similarinnovations were occurring within the existing organizational structure.33
An article in the Navajo Times described Erickson’s report as“a blanket indictment.” When asked for comments on the report,
Campbell Pfeiffer, a former staff member of the school, questioned
the objectivity of Erickson’s ﬁeldwork methodology. It seemed that
Erickson almost urged people to gossip about other people by focusing
too intently on negative and personal problems. As for bilingual andbicultural programs, Anita Pfeiffer commented that because of theircumulative nature, one could not evaluate any bilingual and bicultural
programs until students completed at least the 7th grade. Erickson’s
study appeared in 1969, only three years after the foundation of theschool. “We need to believe in bicultural education, and be patient,”
she added.34

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In response to the critical study on Rough Rock, the Rough RockSchool Board sent a telegram to the OEO, denouncing the biased interpretation of observations by the principal investigator. Then the Board
requested that four prominent Navajo leaders evaluate the school. The
Board expected constructive and straightforward suggestions and comments instead of “some high sounding mishmash of research terms
that do nothing but add further confusion.” After the investigation,
Navajo evaluators afﬁrmed the signiﬁcance of the school as a catalyst
for further educational reforms and the importance of local control
with continued federal funding. At the same time, they recommended
that the coordination among subjects and between grade levels be
improved, especially in the bilingual and bicultural areas. Interestingly
enough, their evaluations considered the happiness of the students,
which was a vague but crucial indicator of success of the school.
Navajo evaluators observed that the children enrolled in Rough Rock
Demonstration School enjoyed their environment, which enhanced
their motivation to learn.35 This evaluation implies that the level ofsuccess should be measured in a subjective manner in addition to an
objective one such as test scores.
The Board and staff members of Rough Rock School were notdisturbed by Erickson’s report since they were conﬁdent about controlling their own school. Dillon Platero afﬁrmed that he believed inwhat he was doing as director of the school. Negative evaluations in
the future, however, seemed likely to disrupt the operation of experimental projects. Consequently, the Board had forbidden future evaluations until 1975 when federal legislation made school evaluation a requisite for contract schools.36
2. The Signiﬁcance of Rough Rock Demonstration School
The ongoing controversy over Rough Rock School illuminates how
difﬁcult it is to determine whether educational programs are adequate,
successful, or efﬁcient. It also sheds light on the question of objective
evaluation on any discussion of Indian affairs. Estelle Fuchs andRobert J. Havighurst related their experiences as researchers for a major study on Indian education funded by the U.S. Ofﬁce of Education:
Objectivity is peculiarly hard to achieve in relation to Indian affairs,
because knowledgeable people generally believe that Indians have been
mistreated by the dominant American society, and we are under moral
obligation to make up as far as possible for past mistakes and mistreat-

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159

ment. The authors of this book share this belief.37

Leslie Marmon Silko, a distinguished Laguna Pueblo author, articulated the passion involved in Indian issues:
Most Americans, while they may not know much about Indian cultures
or Indian treaty rights, tend to harbor a special sentiment for American
Indians that is not held for other minority groups in America.38

These statements suggest that issues of Indian education are of anemotionally compelling nature and that political and economic conditions of the dominant society can have a direct inﬂuence on such a single educational institution as Rough Rock School.
Moreover, the special relationship between Indian tribes and thefederal government accounts for the intrinsic complexity of Indianaffairs, entailing Indian collective rights (treaty rights) such as waterand ﬁshing rights, tribal land ownership, and inherent sovereignty overcertain tribal affairs. Dennis Banks, a co-founder of AIM, characterized the treaty rights by stating that the ultimate goal of AIM was toassert not the civil rights but Indian treaty rights.39 It is certain that
AIM was inspired by the civil rights movement led initially by prominent Black leaders. However, a disparity in causes stemming from thetwo distinct rights was getting wider, rather than narrowing, in the
1970s among those minority leaders.
While it is this complicated backdrop against which the innovations
at Rough Rock must be viewed, the controversy over the school did
not in itself eclipse the importance of its educational experiments.
What, then, is the signiﬁcance of Rough Rock School? Dillon Plateroanswered the question this way: “It is simple. The Navajos run theirown school.” Rough Rock School sought to realize the fundamental
thesis of local control; that is, the Indian people themselves were best
able to determine the content and direction of education for their children. The leaders at Rough Rock took the responsibility of making
decisions and asserted “the right to be wrong” as a part of the learning
process indispensable to any experimental project. It also proved thecapacity of Navajo leadership regardless of the lack of formal education. The school inspired a sense of belonging and pride: they had a
School Board that “decides what it wants for their children,” claimed
Dillon Platero in 1969. “We feel this makes our school quite different
from the other schools.” In a 1976 interview, one high school student
observed, “I like this school because Navajo people are running it. If

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something is wrong you can go up to them without being ashamed.”40
In this respect, Rough Rock School was the ﬁrst school of the Navajos,
breaking down a psychological barrier between a community and aschool. Even Donald Erickson, the prominent critic of the school, admitted this effect by indicating “when asked to name the two most important Navajo leaders in the community, ﬁfty percent of Rough Rockparents mentioned the school board members, as compared with ﬁve
percent or less in other communities.”41
At the administrative level, Rough Rock School inﬂuenced thecourse of Indian education not only by creating a model for future contract schools but also by serving as a catalyst for innovation for existing BIA and public schools. After Rough Rock School laid the administrative foundation for receiving direct funding through contracts,
several other communities began to negotiate for similar arrangements. By 1977, twenty seven schools were contracted to Indiangroups for operation. It should be noted, however, that no unanimity
exists among various tribes concerning which type of schools is best
suitable for their community. White Mountain Apaches, for instance,
preferred their school to remain under the auspices of the BIA than to
become a contract school.42
Meanwhile, in 1968, the Navajo Tribal Council established the
Navajo Community College, the ﬁrst tribal college in the U.S., with
Robert Roessel, Jr. as president. He was soon succeeded by Ned
Hatathli, a former member of the Board of Directors of Rough RockSchool.43 It shows that many of today’s Navajo educators gained ﬁrsthand experience and conﬁdence at Rough Rock School. Later on, theNavajo Community College Act of 1971 and the Tribally Controlled
Community College Assistance Act of 1978 were enacted, providing
funds for the college and other similar institutions.
Even within the existing administrative structure, innovations at
Rough Rock were instrumental in accelerating several experiments
among other schools. In 1960, Rock Point BIA School on the Navajo
reservation, while far less publicized nationally than Rough RockSchool, launched a modest English as a Second Language program.
The principal of Rock Point School commented that the existence ofRough Rock School extended Rock Point’s freedom to experiment
within the structure of the BIA.44
Rough Rock School elicited considerable support from Congress,
particularly from the Senate. The graduation address at the end of theNAVAJO EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS

161

1968-69 school year was given by Senator Edward Kennedy. President
Richard Nixon also turned his attention to Rough Rock School. In
his Special Message to Congress on Indian Affairs on July 8, 1970,
President Nixon observed that the Rough Rock School was a notable
example of “local Indian control.”45 These events symbolized the exceptionally favorable political climate Rough Rock enjoyed in its earlyyears. Many national studies and ofﬁcial statements on Indian affairs
repeatedly mentioned that Rough Rock School had set a precedent for
local community control of schooling.
The area of economic development, however, became problematic
as liberal federal grants gradually decreased. Erickson’s report attributed the initial success of Rough Rock’s community development programs to their total dependency on rather precarious funds from outside sources. It stated that “few people would doubt, demonstration ornot, that using federal funds to create rotating employment opportunities for at least 50 percent of family breadwinners (a very conservative
estimate at Rough Rock) would contribute considerably to the wellbeing of an impoverished community.”46 A similar criticism is thatcosts on a per-pupil basis are higher at Rough Rock than those at other
BIA and public schools.
Although Rough Rock did rely on remarkably generous ﬁnancial
support, these assumptions overlook two critical points. First, RoughRock School operates non-educational programs including a sewer
system, ﬁre department, and housing. At other BIA and public schools,
the expenses involved in these programs, if any, are charged to accounts that are not for education. The second point has to do withtreaty rights. With no local tax base, schools under the jurisdiction of
the BIA are mostly dependent on federal funds. Therefore, in the caseof Indian education, local control over education “does not mean complete local ﬁnancing of that education,” said Dillon Platero. This is notcontradictory, in the opinion of Navajo leaders, because the Treaty of1868 clearly states a federal obligation to provide Navajo children
with a formal education.47
Curriculum reforms turned out to be controversial as well. A feasibility study conducted in 1976 by a private consultant conﬁrmed
several problems on curriculum development at Rough Rock School.
It concluded that the school lacked well-deﬁned policies, procedures,and written guidelines pertaining to coordination among the grades
and with the community.48 It implies that, after a decade of operation,

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YUMIKO MIZUNO

Rough Rock School was still struggling with the difﬁcult task of making two antithetical goals compatible.
As far as its early years are concerned, the whole community, except for one or two families, supported Navajo culture and language
instruction. Many students as well as staff members appreciated theopportunity to learn about their own culture and language at school. In
a 1977 interview, one high school student commented, “I like to learn
Navajo language and culture at school because it is my heritage.
Perhaps your parents don’t know it all and besides it’s good to get adifferent point of view.” A Navajo administrator articulated:
English was forced into my mouth without any respect to my own language. Even today I see many Navajo kids who have lost or never had
their culture. When I came to Rough Rock I saw them teaching Navajo
culture and language. That was when I woke up. This is what I missed
and what I had been searching for.49

Rough Rock’s efforts to integrate Navajo culture into its regularcurriculum must be regarded as a landmark in Indian education. Most
educational programs, however, lacked systematic provision and longterm coordination. Many teachers, being uncertain of how to use newmaterials, failed to utilize the materials developed at the Navajo Curriculum Center. It reveals the fact that curriculum development was, toa considerable extent, beyond the control of an individual school, for it
requires consistency of funding and personnel.
V

CONCLUSION

Historically, schools responsible for the education of Indian children
had been based on the mainstream ideas of what constituted formal
education. The concept of schooling itself was not only foreign tomost native people, regardless of the diversity of cultures, but also
contradictory to existing native childrearing practices. This is not tosuggest that Indian leaders never acknowledged the value of formal
education. In the case of the Navajos, World War II as well as a changing economy on the reservation in the 1930s made Navajo leaders turnto formal education. In the 1940s, they had no choice but to regard
schools as foreign agents not of their making where their children were
supposed to learn new skills including the English language ability.
The late 1960s was a crucial period for educational innovations

NAVAJO EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS

163

nationwide. The emergence of ethnic identity served as a stimulus
to reforms making schools accountable to political and social pressures from various cultural groups. It is in this supportive climate foreducational reforms at the national level, together with tireless efforts
by local people, that a small community called Rough Rock was able
to launch into unprecedented educational experiments. Local people
called the school Diné bi olta, meaning the school of the Navajos. It
was indicative of a new perception on the part of the Navajos towardschooling.
The signiﬁcance of Rough Rock School lies in the fact that it
was the ﬁrst Indian-controlled educational experiment. Viewed from
Washington in the 1960s, Rough Rock School might be considered
as an ideal political showcase, for it followed the dominant trends ofthe period. Criticism of Rough Rock from certain educators andresearchers, on the other hand, tended to be severe and occasionallyeven emotional. In spite of all this, from native perspectives, the implication of Rough Rock School is clear: however controversial andimperfect, it was the process of making a once foreign institution
meaningful and accountable to them in economic, political, and cultural terms.
The innovations at Rough Rock School also inspired similar educational experiments in other Indian communities elsewhere, which
eventually culminated in legislative and administrative changes directly affecting Indian education in the 1970s. Rough Rock School also
afforded an opportunity for local people to exercise leadership in operating their own school. More Navajos held top administrative positionsin 1976: of the top nine positions including Director and Principals,
seven were ﬁlled by Navajos and one by a Hopi. More than 60 percentof the teaching positions were held by Navajos. Many of the former
students later returned to the school as fully certiﬁed teachers, administrators, and supportive staff members.50
Given the impact of Rough Rock School, one might want to address
the problem of what kept a Rough Rock School from emerging in
the past. It is beyond the scope of this essay to explore this question.
Sufﬁce it to say that the federal initiative in the educational reforms in
the 1960s facilitated the local control of schooling in the area of Indian
education. With the exception of Indian education, a tradition of local
control has been deeply rooted in American educational life. In contrast, the assumption of federal policy in Indian education was previ-

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YUMIKO MIZUNO

ously characterized by paternalism over every aspect of school operation. In view of this, Rough Rock School was the ﬁrst school to be
run by a locally elected governing board which had the right andresponsibility to make decisions concerning school policy and administration. Too often there is a disparity between legislation and theactual reforms; however, the ﬁnancial aid made available through the
OEO and other educational laws such as the Bilingual Education Act
were indeed a signiﬁcant contribution to make Rough Rock School
experiments possible. These changes were initially made throughevents outside the reservation such as the civil rights movement followed by federal initiatives. Yet, one needs to be aware of inherent
collective rights to account for Indian affairs in such a way as tounderstand the fundamental issues unique to Native Americans.
Also, there remains serious questions native educators confront
today: on what aspects of culture are the curricula based? How can one
balance the two major educational goals of instilling in Indian children
a sense of identity as individuals with distinct cultural backgrounds
and providing them with skills to cope with the world beyond thereservation? There is no consensus among the Navajos on this matter,for they, like other groups, are not monolithic in social, cultural, andeconomic terms. The fact is that there are some people, both Navajos
and non-Navajos, who consider Navajo culture and language as an
obstacle to success. They assert that “the school must not waste its
time teaching these because the key to success is the ability to competewith the white man on his own terms and in his own way.” The opposite position on cultural instruction often stemmed from the same
experiences in the past. While many Navajos value Navajo language
and culture instruction at schools, some insist that “education shouldbe all bilagaana,” which means “the white man’s way.” The contradictory responses among people often frustrate teachers and staff
members at schools. A staff member at Rough Rock explained thesituation as follows: the past experience of being punished for speaking Navajo “put a latch in your mind against your culture. You say, ‘I
don’t want to go back to that!’ That’s what we’ve got to deal with,when your own people are against this bilingual-bicultural philosophy.”51 There is also a controversy over the content of cultural instruction. Some people believe a certain element of culture, in particular ofa religious nature, should not be taught at school.
Undoubtedly, the case presented here is very much in progress,

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165

with many issues yet to be resolved, and Indian education at present
faces many challenges and difﬁculties. After thirty years of operation,
Rough Rock School is not immune to problems commonly shared byon- and off-reservation schools: inconsistent federal funding, highteacher and staff turnover, high drop-out rates, and alcohol and othersubstance-related problems among students. Navajo culture and language instruction is still controversial as well. Navajo studies is regrettably no longer at the core of the school’s curriculum regardless of
support from many parents and students.52
Such a lack of direction is felt to be disheartening in view of theenthusiasm and integrity commonly shared among people involved in
the earlier experiments. The school’s ﬁnancial condition has deteriorated mainly because of economic and political changes at the national
level. In this respect, the Kennedy Report had foresight in predicting
future situations. It observed in 1969:
We are shocked at what we discovered.
Others before us were shocked. They recommended and madechanges. Others after us will likely be shocked, too—despite our recommendations and efforts at reform. For there is so much to do—wrong toright, omissions to ﬁll, untruths to correct—that our own recommendations, concerned as they are with education alone, need supplementation
across the whole board of Indian life.53

Nevertheless, the past two decades have seen further involvementof native leaders in federal Indian affairs and an unprecedented cooperation among the indigenous peoples of the world. The cooperative
networking among indigenous people on a global scale has provided
more versatile perspectives on similar problems confronting them. In
1983, for instance, collaboration took place between the Kamehameha
Early Education Program (KEEP), created in Hawaii in 1970, andRough Rock Demonstration School. It sought to apply the Kamehameha program to Navajo children who were culturally different from
native Hawaiians but had similar academic difﬁculties. The KEEP/
Rough Rock experiment was shared with educators and administratorsfrom other indigenous communities worldwide at the World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education held in Albuquerque, New
Mexico in June 1996.
These changes were reﬂected in the ﬁnal report of the Indian
Nations at Risk Task Force chartered by the U.S. Department of Edu-

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YUMIKO MIZUNO

cation in 1990. Unlike the Kennedy Report, many members of thisnational study were Native Americans, headed by William G. Demmert, Jr., a prominent Indian educator at the time. Demmert and Terrel
H. Bell, former U.S. Secretary of Education, elucidated the current situation in the ﬁnal report:
The issues facing Native communities and Native education in the
United States are similar to issues facing Native populations worldwide.
In effectively responding to these issues, we can offer model solutions
to a world that is becoming increasingly culturally diverse yet interdependent.54

By offering a concrete model for further constructive discussion andaction in educational reforms, the educational experiment at RoughRock School in the 1960s retains a considerable degree of signiﬁcancethat goes beyond national boundaries.

NOTES
I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Anita Pfeiffer and Dr. Margaret
Connell Szasz of the University of New Mexico, under whose auspices I began myresearch on the School. I wish to thank Ms. Mary Alice Tsosie of the Center forSouthwest Research of the University of New Mexico General Library, Dr. Robert A.
Roessel, Jr. and Mr. Dillon Platero.
U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Indian Education: Hearings before Special Subcommittee on Indian Education of the Committee on
Labor and Public Welfare, 90th Cong., 1st sess., 14 December 1968, 14. In 1967, forinstance, the BIA schools nationwide enrolled approximately 36% of the Indian students while the public schools enrolled nearly 60% of those students.
2
Clyde Kluckhohn and Dorothea Leighton, The Navaho (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1946; reprint, 1974); Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., “Cultural Pluralism
Versus Ethnocentrism in the New Indian History,” Wilcomb E. Washburn, “Distinguishing History from Moral Philosophy and Public Advocacy,” in The American
Indian and the Problem of History, ed. Calvin Martin (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1987), 35, 91; and Margaret Connell Szasz, Education and the American
Indian: The Road to Self-Determination Since 1928 (Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1977). For discussions of the intersection of history and anthropology,
see, for instance, William C. Sturtevant, “Anthropology, History, and Ethnohistory,”
Ethnohistory 13, no. 1–2 (1966): 1–51; Robert C. Euler, “Ethnohistory in the UnitedStates,” Ethnohistory 19, no. 3 (1972): 201–7; and James Axtell, The European andthe Indian: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1981), chap. 1.
3Estelle Fuchs and Robert J. Havighurst, To Live on This Earth: American Indian
Education (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972; reprint, Albuquerque: University of
New Mexico Press, 1983); Robert A. Roessel, Jr., Navajo Education in Action: The
1

NAVAJO EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS

167

Rough Rock Demonstration School (Chinle, Ariz.: Navajo Curriculum Center, RoughRock Demonstration School, 1977); Robert A. Roessel, Jr., Navajo Education,
1948–1978: Its Progress and Its Problems (Rough Rock, Ariz.: Navajo Curriculum
Center, Rough Rock Demonstration School, 1979); and Teresa L. McCarty,“Bilingual-Bicultural Education in a Navajo Community” (Ph.D. diss., Arizona State
University, 1984).
4
Robert W. Young, comp., The Navajo Yearbook: 1951–1961: A Decade ofProgress, Report no. 8 (Window Rock, Ariz.: Navajo Agency, 1961), 356.
5
For a discussion of the response of Navajo representatives to educational reforms
in the 1930s–40s, see Mizuno Yumiko, “Ibunka toshiteno Gakko: Nyudiru-ki no
Kyouikukaikaku to Nabahozoku” [Schools as Foreign Institutions: Reforms in Navajo
Education in the New Deal Era], Amerikashi-Kenkyu [Studies of American History]
20 (1997): 58–74.
6
L. Madison Coombs, Doorway Toward The Light: The Story of the Special
Navajo Education Program (Lawrence, Kans.: Haskel Institute Publication Service,1962), 5; “Resolution of Navajo Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion,”
quoted in U.S. Congress, Senate, Navajo Indian Education: Hearing before theCommittee on Indian Affairs on S. J. Res. 79, 79th Cong., 2d sess., 14 May 1946, 17.
7
U.S. Congress, Navajo Indian Education: Hearing, 2, 3, 12, 15.
8
U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Indian Affairs, Investigate Indian Affairs:
Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Indian Affairs, pt. 3, 78th
Cong., 2d sess., 14 November 1944, 864, 875.
9
Morita Yuri, Seinaru Tamashii: Gendai Amerika Indian Shidosha Denisu
Bankusu wa Kataru [A Sacred Soul: Dennis Banks, the Leader of AIM Speaks](Tokyo: Asahi Shinbun Sha, 1989), 29, 133.
10James S. Coleman and others, Equality of Educational Opportunity (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce, 1966), quoted in U.S. Congress, Indian Education: Hearings, 5.
11
Fuchs and Havighurst, To Live, 296.
12
U.S. Congress, Indian Education: Hearings, 8, 9; U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Indian Education: A National Tragedy—A National Challenge, Senate Report no. 501, 91st Cong., 1st sess., serial 12836–1, xi.
13
C. Matthew Snipp, American Indian: The First of This Land (New York: Russell
Sage Foundation, 1989), 189–90.
14
Roessel, Navajo Education in Action, 7, 8.
15Anita Pfeiffer, “Educational Innovation,” Journal of American Indian Education
7, no. 3 (May 1968): 24.
16
Mr. Dillon Platero, interview by author, tape recording, Albuquerque, N. Mex., 14
October, 1996. Mr. Platero was deputy director of Rough Rock School from 1967 to1968 and director from 1968 to 1973. He became director of the Division of Education of the Navajo Tribal Council and later joined the College of Education at the
University of New Mexico in 1977.
17
The nature of federal funding required a responsible corporation, in RoughRock’s case, DINE. Later, in 1970, DINE went out of existence and the School Board
became the legal contracting agency. Roessel, Navajo Education in Action, 28–9.
18
A chapter is the local unit of Navajo tribal government and Rough Rock became
the one hundredth chapter in February 1968. School Board membership was increased
to seven in the fall of 1967. Broderick H. Johnson, Navaho Education at Rough Rock
(Rough Rock, Ariz.: Rough Rock Demonstration School, D.I.N.E., Inc., 1968), 29.
19
Tom Sasaki, “Socioeconomic Survey of the Many Farms and Rough Rock
Navajos,” in Young, comp., The Navajo Yearbook, 106; Johnson, Navaho Education,

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YUMIKO MIZUNO

42.
Johnson, Navaho Education, 38; Roessel, Navajo Education in Action, 10.
It should be noted that there were several precedents of tribal schools. In thenineteenth century, the ﬁve main southeastern Indian tribes—the Cherokee, Creek,
Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole—developed school systems operated andﬁnanced by themselves. These tribal schools were abolished by the year 1906, when
the state of Oklahoma was created and came under the control of the federal government. See Fuchs and Havighurst, To Live, 6–7.
22
Broderick H. Johnson, ed., Indian Community in Action (Tempe, Ariz.: Bureau of
Publications, Arizona State University, 1967), 85; Estelle Fuchs, “Learning to be
Navaho-Americans: Innovation at Rough Rock,” Saturday Review 50 (16 September1967): 99.
23
U.S. Congress, Indian Education: Hearings, 15.
24
Roessel, Navajo Education in Action, 39, 133. In the 1930s, under the leadershipof John Collier as Commissioner, the BIA introduced several bicultural programs
which reﬂected some aspects of native cultures and languages. Few Indians took the
initiative in this reform, and it was phased out as the U.S. entered World War II. See
Szasz, Education and the American Indian, chap. 5–7.
25
Johnson, Navaho Education, 59.
26
Ms. Anita Pfeiffer, interview by author, tape recording, Albuquerque, N. Mex., 9
November 1995. Ms. Pfeiffer worked at Rough Rock from 1966 to 1972 ﬁrst as anelementary school teacher and then as principal. She later became the executive director of the Division of Education of the Navajo Tribal Council, and is currently on thefaculty of the College of Education at the University of New Mexico.
27
Fuchs and Havighurst, To Live, 209; Johnson, Navaho Education, 38; andJohnson, ed., Indian Community, 212.
28
Gary Witherspoon, “Navaho Curriculum Center,” Journal of American Indian
Education 7, no. 3 (May 1968): 39; Vada Carlson and Gary Witherspoon, Black
Mountain Boy: A Story of the Boyhood of John Honie (Rough Rock, Ariz.: Navaho
Curriculum Center, Rough Rock Demonstration School, 1968); Sydney M. Callaway,
Gary Witherspoon, and others, Grandfather Stories of the Navahos (Rough Rock,Ariz.: Navaho Curriculum Center, Rough Rock Demonstration School, 1968); andVirginia Hoffman and Broderick H. Johnson, Navajo Biographies (Chinle, Ariz.:
Rough Rock Demonstration School, 1970).
29
Mr. Campbell Pfeiffer, interview by author, tape recording, Albuquerque, N.
Mex., 9 November 1995; Donald Erickson and Henrietta Schwartz, “Community
School at Rough Rock: An Evaluation for the Ofﬁce of Economic Opportunity,”
Document PB 184571, Springﬁeld, Va.: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1969, 2.11.
Mr. Pfeiffer worked for Rough Rock Demonstration School from 1966 to 1971 as
adult educator and community developer.
30
Sasaki, “Socioeconomic Survey,” 103; Dr. Robert A. Roessel, Jr., interview byauthor, tape recording, Tsaile, Ariz., 12 September 1996; and Teresa L. McCarty,“Bilingual-Bicultural Education,” 78.
31
Roessel, Navajo Education in Action, 50.
32
Donald Erickson, “Failure in Navaho Schooling,” Parents’ Magazine 45(September 1970): 111; Donald Erickson, “Custer Did Die for Our Sins!,” School
Review 79 (November 1970): 80.
33
Erickson and Schwartz, “Community School,” 1.7, 9.4–5.
34
Mr. Campbell Pfeiffer, interview by author; Ms. Anita Pfeiffer, interview byauthor.
20
21

NAVAJO EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS

169

35
McCarty, “Bilingual-Bicultural Education,” 94; John Y. Begaye, Samuel W.
Billison, Herbert Blatchford, Sr., and Henry D. Gatewood II, Navajo Evaluators Look
At Rough Rock Demonstration School (Chinle, Ariz.: Rough Rock Demonstration
School, 1969), preface, 32–3.
36
Roessel, Navajo Education in Action, 142; Mr. Dillon Platero, interview by author.
37
Fuchs and Havighurst, To Live, 298.
38
Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., Now That The Buffalo’s Gone, 3d ed. (Norman, Okla.:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), n.p.
39
Morita, Seinaru Tamashii, 148.
40
McCarty, “Bilingual-Bicultural Education,” 83; Roessel, Navajo Education in
Action, 134.
41
Donald Erickson and Henrietta Schwartz, “What Rough Rock Demonstrates,”
Integrated Education 8 (March-April 1970), 29.
42
U.S. Department of the Interior, Statistics Concerning Indian Education: Fiscal
Year 1977 (Lawrence, Kans.: Haskell Indian Junior College Publication Service,1977), 34; Fuchs and Havighurst, To Live, 319.
43
The Navajo Community College, renamed as the Diné College in 1997, eventually was located in Tsaile, Arizona, and a number of branch campuses were scatteredthroughout the Navajo reservation. As of 1972, the Navajo Tribal Council had contributed over $2 million and received no funds from the BIA. See Fuchs andHavighurst, To Live, 271.
44
Erickson and Schwartz, “Community School,” 9.1.
45
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, Containing
the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Ofﬁce, 1971), 213.
46
Erickson and Schwartz, “Community School,” 9.8.
47
Roessel, Navajo Education, 1948–1978, 248; Roessel, Navajo Education in
Action, 139. For excerpts of the treaty, see U.S. Congress, Navajo Indian Education:
Hearing, 8–11; KC Publications, Treaty Between the United States of America and the
Navajo Tribe of Indians: With a Record of the Discussions that Led to Its Signing (Las
Vegas, Nev.: KC Publications, 1968).
48
Richard F. Tonigan and others, 1976 Evaluation: Rough Rock Demonstration
School, Rough Rock, Arizona (Albuquerque: Richard F. Tonigan & Associates, Ltd.,
June 1976), 18, 25.
49
Roessel, Navajo Education in Action, 133, 139.
50
Roessel, Navajo Education, 1948–1978, 216, 221.
51
Ibid., 210. McCarty, “Bilingual-Bicultural Education,” 148–9.
52
As of 1994–95, total enrollment from kindergarten to the 12th grade was 946, andthe number of drop-out students was 287. See Rebecca L. Izzo, Statistics on Navajo(DINE) Education 1994–1995 (n.p.: Navajo Division of Education, 1995), 123;
Marley Shebala, “Protest at Rough Rock Continues,” “Student Feeling Frustrated,”“School Trafﬁc Flow Stopped,” Navajo Times, 25 April 1996, A1, 2, 8.
53
U.S. Congress, A National Tragedy, xi.
54
U.S. Department of Education, Indian Nations At Risk: An Educational Strategy
for Action: Final Report of the Indian Nations At Risk Task Force (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Ofﬁce, 1991), v.