Classroom management in a Navajo Middle school

Theory Into Practice, Autumn, 2003 by Jane McCarthy, Joe Benally

The clan system and social behavior

The Navajo clan system controls all social interaction and dictates appropriate behavior in all situations. At one time, clans were responsible for dealing with all criminal activities as well as the social welfare of all clan members. If a child was born out-of-wedlock to a young girl, for example, the clan provided for the child. In many cases, this still occurs today. Navajo society is matrilineal and a man marries and goes to the home of the bride's mother. Inheritance is through the mother as well. Clan membership determines who one's eligible marriage partners are. No one may marry into his or her mother's or father's clans. This is considered incest.

Clan membership dictates one's social behavior to clan relatives--the respect that must be shown to clan brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, and grandparents. The concept of family in the clan system is much broader than in other societies. A child raised in a traditional Navajo family knows how to interact with others in the proper way.

Breakdown of the Clan System and Cultural Norms

Vadas (1995) also noted the correlation between strong cultural knowledge and ties and academic achievement of Navajo students. In Pinon Middle School, we observed that the students who have been raised with traditional Navajo teachings or the students who are almost totally acculturated to the dominant culture are rarely seen for discipline referrals. The majority of the referrals are for those students who are raised in nontraditional Navajo homes where there has been a cultural breakdown and no values have taken the place of the traditional ones. This is a situation that was warned against years ago in the Meriam Report (Meriam et al., 1928, as cited in Lomawaima & McCarty, 2002, p. 287). This report cautioned against removing all vestiges of traditional American Indian culture before replacing it with a new culture, stating that such attempts might well be disastrous.

The early boarding schools established for American Indians, including those living on the Navajo Reservation, stripped native children of all symbols of their culture and heritage. Their hair was cut, their clothing was replaced, and they were forbidden to speak their native languages and were severely punished for doing so. Boarding school education, then, played a role in the breakdown of Navajo language and cultural identity. Economics and the fact that people had to move off the reservation to make a living, was another contributing factor. The result is that there are large numbers of Navajo students who do not completely identify with any culture.

Certainly, knowing the characteristics of the students who are coming to school is important for both managerial and instructional effectiveness. Although it is true that approximately 90% of U.S. teachers are White, and many of these teachers are teaching children of diverse ethnic groups (Johnson, 2002), simply having a teacher from that ethnic group is not a guarantee of successful teaching and learning. Some recent thinking about diversity seems to indicate that class is an extremely significant variable that influences behavior (Wilson, 1978). Very few teachers come from the lowest socioeconomic strata. Many Navajo teachers themselves have not been raised in traditional Navajo homes, and some have lived off the reservation for many years. Thus it would seem that all teachers need some insight about the characteristics of the students in the school.