Navajos from the reservation),
with the rest a mix of white, black, and Hispanic. Giving them a
solid grounding in reading, math, science, and other academic
subjects is key, Mr. Sorenson says.
But as someone who has
taught in Indian communities for decades, he's convinced that
inculcating respect, responsibility, and service to the community
is the best way to achieve that. These concepts resonate for
everyone, he says, although he draws on their centrality in
traditional Navajo culture. (Sorenson's background is
Scandinavian-American, but he says his heart is with the Navajo
people.)
"It's important to
us that the kids learn how to get along in the world.... They have
to feel good about who they are.... And we want the kids to
develop friendships across racial lines," Sorenson says,
surrounded in his small office by books, Indian art, and school
awards. Test scores are one measure of success, he says, "but
the really essential thing is to get kids to be excited about
learning."
The idea of
interconnection is most visible in the school's discipline policy.
A disruptive student typically gets pulled aside for a few hours
of character-building lessons with a staff member. There are also
opportunities to draw on Navajo peacemaking methods by talking out
solutions with peers and staff. One boy who's been here two years
after repeated suspensions in other schools is now doing his
homework and managing his behavior much better, "but it's
been a struggle," Sorenson says.
The four-year-old school
is still striving to meet Arizona's measure of "adequate
yearly progress" because its attendance rate was just shy of
the required 94 percent. But on Arizona's Measure of Academic
Progress for 2003-04, 71 percent of students made the expected
gains in reading, matching the state average. In math, 88 percent
did, beating the state average of 71 percent.
"They are encouraged
to make their own observations, as opposed to all learning the
same way," says Jacobo Carranza, a recent college graduate
and teacher in training. He points to Brandon, in the classroom
for third- and fourth-graders, who loves to sketch, and excels at
hands-on learning. Brandon also took a leadership role in the
school's garden, so the teachers try to link that back to reading
and writing, areas where he lags.
"Sometimes we go
outside and look at the temperature and how much rain there is,
and we write it in our learning logs," Brandon says quietly.
"When it was snowing, we put some hay on there so it could
keep growing."
"There's a Western
tradition of science, and then there's native traditions for
observing and interacting with the world," Mr. Carranza says.
"STAR is trying to teach these kids, 'Your ancestors are
scientists as well, and so are you.' " It's the kind of
affirmation Carranza wishes he'd had as a Mexican Indian attending
schools in Los Angeles.
The campus created beauty
where there once was a junkyard. It has a view of the San
Francisco Mountains, a range that is sacred to many Navajos and
Hopis. And its solar-powered buildings signal that traditional
respect for the environment can go hand in hand with modernity.
Students are encouraged
to link their learning to the community. They're currently writing
a play about a missionary who averted a war here 100 years ago by
communicating between white cowboys and Navajo hunters.
Thanks to a mother who
offered to launch Navajo lessons, the school is also doing its
part to perpetuate one of the dwindling number of native languages
still spoken in the United States. Of about 155 native languages
still spoken here, only about 20 have child speakers.
"Our language is
slowly dying; it's a shame - our parents are having to learn
English so they can communicate with our kids," says Elaine
Riggs, the mother and former STAR business manager whose language
instruction was so popular with older students that the third- and
fourth-graders demanded to have it, too.
With sunlight streaming
onto the cafeteria table, four of the older students practice
saying the Navajo words for colors, which Ms. Riggs has written
out on a giant pad. So far, they've learned the alphabet, numbers,
months, and shapes. One boy in the group is half Apache, and now
his mother hopes he'll learn that language, too, Riggs says.
And she's not just
teaching the native American students. Opposite her at the table
is Kelly, a white eighth-grader who claims a bit of Navajo and
Apache ancestry. She attended school on the Navajo reservation
when she was small, and now is glad to be relearning the Navajo
she forgot.
Her friend Nia, also an
ethnic mix, says she likes this school better than the prep school
she had attended before. In schools where Indians are the
minority, she says, "they're usually talking about, 'The
Navajo raided places' ... and stuff like that - if they talk about
it at all."
Incorporating native
culture into the life of the school is not without occasional
controversy, Sorenson acknowledges. A white parent recently
stopped by to express some concerns about a lesson that included a
Navajo prayer in chants and songs. Among Navajo parents who have
embraced various nontraditional religions, he says, there are
sometimes issues with teaching Navajo, "because so much of
the language itself implies values that can be thought of as
religious, or certainly spiritual," he says. But the staff
strives to frame lessons in ways that aren't specific to any
particular religion.
Elmer Gambler embodies
some of the cultural blending that's typical in the Navajo
community here - which suits him well in his role as coach and
home-school liaison for STAR. At 60, he's bilingual, despite his
time in a boarding school where he wasn't allowed to speak Navajo.
(" 'That's not good for you' - that was the attitude, but we
knew different," he says with a wink.)
For students'
grandparents, especially, he's a point of connection with the
school. Some of them speak only Navajo, and Mr. Gambler
understands that they might have a different view of education
from what children are encountering today.
"In the native
American setting, most learning is by doing. Nobody brings out
their chalk and magic marker or puts statistics on the
board," Gambler explains. "My grandpa used to set me on
his lap and he kind of gets in his own little world and tells
stories.... That's how they tell you your values and the
traditional way of thinking."
Gambler is also a Mormon,
an elder in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and
he lauds any kind of spiritual grounding that kids can get.
"That's just as important as cognitive thinking or physical
growth," he says.
Loren Begay, a Navajo
with two daughters at STAR, is another male role model Sorenson
recruited. He's a classroom aide and oversees the school's
computers, and now he's doing coursework with the thought of
becoming a teacher. "My daughter in second grade is reading
at a third-grade level," he says, radiating pride. And his
older daughter is no longer bored in class as she was at the
school in Leupp, he says.
Many of the staff and
students are related. Of 14 full-time staff, nine are native
American, a high percentage for nonreservation schools. So it's
not too surprising that STAR resembles a nurturing family.
At daily meetings,
students can talk about whatever's on their minds. At the extreme,
that has sometimes meant an outpouring of emotions at having
witnessed murder in their families.
"For kids to trust
the adults, they have to know the adults really care about how
they feel. And at the same time, they have to know that the adults
will set limits," Sorenson says.
"It gets so basic.
You try to hire people who have a lot of integrity and who are
willing to do whatever it takes to make the dream happen. But
there are many, many schools that don't have a dream."
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