Saad Naakih Bee'enootííłjí Na'alkaa: Restructuring the Teaching of Language and Literacy in a Navajo Community School

In formulations of school improvement and change, teachers all too frequently are positioned as the passive recipients of top-down curricular mandates. This is especially problematic in indigenous settings when school administrators are imported from outside the community. Here we describe one school change effort in which those relations are being reversed, as Navajo bilingual teachers take charge of pedagogical transformation. Especially significant are the ways in which teachers use their own language and culture resources to create classroom environments in which students can do the same. The process and mechanisms for these types of change are related to larger issues of bilingual/bicultural/biliteracy education in indigenous schools.