Also... Over Valentines day weekend. I met up with the other female students and we went to Vegas. This was a great treat and was a nice way just to get out of everything here. It was a bit of a shock going from the nothingness here, to everything there. But it was nice to take a break from being Miss Bergsman for a weekend and really just enjoy myself.

First of all my adviser from IU came out to visit all of the student teacher. He told me that I am doing very well with the teacher aspect of my experience I just need to get more involved in the culture and the community. And this past week I have done that, The Personal secretary and her husband (the Dean of students) took us fishing. and i actually caught a fish! one of the High school teachers went with us, he made the trot for us. it was amazing, i have really missed fish around here and it was soon good.

Our Adviser took us to Dine College where we had the chance just to talk to our peers and learn from each others experiences. we also went had the chance to talk to the president of the college. we found us as we were getting lunch we kind of stuck out (who would have thought). After that we went camping in Canyon De Chelly, this was so much fun, we just relaxed talked and hung out the way normal college students would. I feel like we all broke away from being who we are and are stuck in Teacher mode so often. the only real downfall was how cold it was, we froze most of the night. but it was nice b/c us girls packed into one tent body warmth was needed. even our instructor who had a single tent decided it was too cold so he jumped in the tent with the boys. Also that night night we had a Rez dog and cat join us. well steal our food, the cat literally stole a hot dog out of the package to eat it. even though we froze it was still a great time and yet another way to get to know the people I am out here with.

We also went with some of the dorm students to see Sherman Alexi (who is a Native American author), talk at NAU. this was really funny, he talked about his life on the Rez, it was great to be back on a college campus and here college humor when I had to make everything PG living in the dorm and always being with students. Also the dorm counselor invited us to go to her mother to help her out. This can help us complete some of the project requirement that i need to do out here.

Lastly, the middle school S.S teacher is beginning to teach us to make fry bread. This is a traditional staple for Native Americans, it is so bad for you but it taste so good.

I am also heading into my last two weeks in the classroom before I start my reading practicum. I am really going to be sad to leave my class, it will be interesting to see how the reading program works from the other side considering how it goes against everything that i have learned.


for those of you who want to know a little more about the curriculum here is an essay that i wrote for my class back at IU.

The curriculum for the Shonto Preparatory School reading program is extremely standardized, which is failing to fit the needs of all the students. It is second for the second year for the Reading Mastery, which is a scripted reading program that the students often repeat after. The teacher it is very mechanical in the way they interact with the students. In general, this bores the higher achievers while the lower students have no idea what is going on. In addition to not satisfying the learning need for most students, many of the stories are not culturally relevant to the students. They read some stories about a tugboat and speedboats which some of the students might not have prior knowledge of to be able to connect to the story. There is very little cultural focus. I feel that so much more can be done, especially because these students have a culture rich with stories. If the students had the opportunity to read these stories in an educational setting, they could possibly be more emotionally involved and connect to the story better to comprehend it more. Furthermore, connected to their reading program is DIBBLES. The DIBBLES assess reading speed and very little comprehension. It serves as a benchmark to see where students fall and the amount of help they need. Yet it does not truly say what kind of help they need. The formative assessment does nothing but label the students and take away from the other languages they might know. Students are simply assessed on how fast they read without truly knowing the content of the text. In other subjects, there is no immersion in Bilingual education. According to the Navajo Nation standards, students learn better if they learn their second language as well. Yet schools do not use immersion practices to raise student achievement. In the other subject areas teachers have more free range to fit the needs of their students. That was they can bring in culture as they see fit and make things relevant to their daily lives, which makes students understand it more. The reading program is the only subject that is very strict on how it is implemented. I feel that the students’ needs should guide the curriculum rather than the standards. I understand the importance of standards, but they should serve as a guide rather than the whole lesson. There is such a strong focus toward reading, but the reading program only reaches the middle of the spectrum of children. To reach all children, students should be divided by their needs so we as teachers could work with those students who may need individual help. I just feel the reading program takes away from the individual.

Sorry everyone who has been reading this, I have just been super busy and haven't had the tune (or energy to make a new post. So to update everyone this might be a super long entry.

Well, first things first I have taken over most if not all of the instructional responsibility. so that is a new thing added to my plate. However I am still unable to use methods that I know might help the students. The reading program is so scripted the students are robots just repeating words and telling simple responses. Only a few of the students seem to really understand what is going on; the others just mouth along. The administrators say teachers should differentiation however, it is impossible because all the students are doing the same thing. It is a disappointment because I feel as though I am the teacher and have control over everything but this one thing.

There was a slight discipline problem in my classroom, I decided that I needed to do something to stop this problem. At then end of one day I asked all the children to write down what they thought was the most important rule that everyone needed to follow. I then typed out all the rules they told me and we talked about them. I told them these are the rules that they created. From there I asked them what they thought the consequence should be, they came up with very good consequences such as sitting alone, writing a note home, then talking to administrators. This is significant because I feel that it gives my students ownership over their rules and it also helps my students see someone who is there to help them, help themselves. It also should me as a facilitator not a dictator in the classroom. And it seems to be working really well, the students seem to be okay with writing a note home and telling their parents what they are not doing right.


With Tutoring from 6-9 things get frustrating, especially when we are with the boys. The boys react to us than the girls; we switch off tutoring the boys and the girls depending on the night. When we are helping the girls, they are all ready for us to help them. They come to us for help before we have the opportunity to ask them. It is great that they are seeking the help they know they need. However, with the boys we have to pull them away from whatever they are doing - watching TV, playing violent games on the computer - and force them to do their work. Some of the Dorm staff had to call over to the girls’ dorm because the boys lied and said they had no homework. It disappoints me because it makes my job, which is to help them, more difficult, and I feel like I am being a horrible person by trying them to get their work done.

Song and Dance- There was a Song and Dance fundraiser at the school. The idea of the song and dance originated from a ceremony that would go on until a bonfire would go out. At these ceremonies, people would dance in a circle around bonfire; the same way they danced around the table. It was very weird because the person that were announcing picked us out and asked us whom we were. The announcer also started to explain things in English for us; I guess we kind of stuck out. Overall, this was very interesting to see, although at first we were not sure what was going on. I really enjoyed seeing the traditional dresses along with hearing the Navajo singers, even though I did not understand what they were singing about. It sounded really awesome.


One of the highlights of past two weeks is when my class tried to give me a clan my first clan is salt. My cooperating teacher is the one who indicated it, but I told them that I wanted them to create clans for me then teach me how to say it. The Clan system is very important to Navajo relate to one another, everyone has four clans, your moms clan (your first clan) your second clan (your dads) and then your Maternal grandparents and your paternal grandparents. (i think that's write).

The Dorm students attended a Storytelling, as part of their culture night. We heard an elder, Jesse Daisy tell a story of the coyote and winter tradtions. Before he spoke, Dr. Yazzie explained about oral tradtions and word of mouth. He described the coyote as someone who teaches you and will help give balance in life and something that will try to trick you. I was unable to understand the speaker
however, he used his hands a little to give emphases to things he was saying.

Some people, will try to say anything to get something from people they see as an outsider. I was at Bashas (A grocery store), and someone asked me about my sweatshirt, it was the Cultural immersion sweatshirt, so I did not think much about it. However, he then said he was going to Gallup and needed a ride, he also asked for some money. I told him I could not help him and walked away.

Just to let you all know i made it so anyone can comment now!

Yesterday, I went to Canyon De Chelly. It was absolutely amazing, I will try to see if I can put pictures on here once my computer is back up. It decided to die on me, but I should be getting the CD to fix it by the end of the week. But, the pictures do not seem to capture beauty of it. it was truly breath taking and I cannot wait to see the Grand Canyon when we go (probably in February). I just don't think there would be a way to compare them. if Canyon De Chelly looked that breath taking I wonder what the Grand Canyon would be like.

But after that we meet up with some of the other IU teachers out here in Many Farms, and it was so much fun. We went to a Rez Ball game (basketball), to see the Many Farm Lobos play the St. Johns Red Skins (NO JOKE). it was a Norman school from just outside the Rez. On the Charter bus they took there was a picture of a completely white "Indian" it was so offensive. It was evident that there was a lot of drama between the students. We only watched the girls play but they were catty and vicious toward one another. It was pretty bad that some of the team members didn't realize that their Mascot was offensive, they thought it was perfectly okay. The team members even had their mascot on their warm up jerseys. it was just very wrong to see them there. I think part of the reason behind the mascot is because they get a lot of money from power plants on the Rez, but it is still something that should not be brought on the Rez. However, I must say that when the team played another school on the Rez, their bus got stoned.

After the game, all of us girls just hung out, we swapped teacher/dorm stories. We shared pictures from the day. The other girls had gone to Window Rock. It was really fun just sharing stories and talking about what we were doing and things that we had planned. Then we went to find something to eat at the "7 2 11" yes they don't have 7-11, its 7211. So that was a fun adventure trying to find food among all the dust in the store. But it was our only choice at 930 at night, when there are no other stores around. After our little journey to find food, we talked and hung out, until we realized that we are old woman, it was a struggle for us to stay up past 12. (wait we are becoming Adults). haha

On the way back from Many Farms we stopped at Bashas, the local grocery store, just so we can have food throughout the week if we don't like what is being served. this is about 30 minutes from us, and it really is the closest grocery store we have.

So what has happened since I last wrote; Well to say the least a lot. Last weekend we went to Page, here we went to Walmart, and Lake Powell. We say the Glen Canyon Damn, which was beautiful; i really did not think that the Colorado river was that blue. During the week, I of course taught and finalized my reading placement when my IU supervisor came to visit. I will be with the reading coaches and learning all sorts of new reading methods. Many of which IU failed to teach me, but it is going to be a great experience.

I also had a day long meeting where we analyzed data from DIBBLES, which is a Standardized Assessment where we see basically the reading speed and we talked about what the students needed to work on. Right after that I had a staff meeting, were I was just bombarded with more information. That same day, I went on a home visit with the Residential Counselor; this was really interesting. I was able to see what some families live like, this family happened to live in a Hogan and we needed a lot of dirt roads to get there, well the roads were more or less mud.

The next night I chaperoned a Dance for the Dorm students this was hysterical it seemed like boys and girls are the same everywhere No matter how old the children are they are still afraid of each other. For most of the dance, the older girls stood around the middle of the “rumpus” room, and the older boys sat along the wall. However, the little kids had no problem dancing and socializing with each other. As much as a tried to get the older children to dance with each other, it did no good. I don't know maybe they have cooties or something. I also Chaperoned a field trip to see a movie, we saw Australia and during every kissing scene the students would giggle, i forgot how much 13-15 year-olds giggle.

During school... We had parent teacher conferences and almost all of the parents came. we had 14 out of 18 parents come to talk to us. which was really nice and surprising. And now it is a three day weekend, currently i think are going to many farms to visit some of the other students out here.

Also have made at least two kids cry...

One Student, he got in trouble for talking back to me, when i sent him to the back of the lunch line after warning him about not going in the snow. another one when I told one of my girls she needed to sit in her seat. I think these are just extra sensitive students.


Other things that I have learned: it is tradtions to stretch when you first hear thunder during the first storm to represent the waking of animals that have been hibernating all winter.


It also seems that teachers are a lot tougher on younger students than I have seen in at schools back home, however I realize that children have many of the same tendencies. It is an over reaching tendency that when it comes to there personalities, that boys will be boys, playing and pushing each other, they will wait until you are not looking to do exactly what you told them not to do.


Some things I want to do are:
I would like to have a Presidential Inauguration Party for the students in the dorm. The Reservation seems very Liberal; our school principal is even going to the Inauguration. I feel that it is an important event for the students, not only because it is the future of our country, but because of how historical it is. Even though some of the students will not quite understand how important this truly is yet, they might regret not watching it later in life. This will enrich their lives because they will be able to tell their children where they were when President Obama officially became President of the United States of America.
In the classroom, I am planning on setting up small groups to help them with the reading. The skill I will be focusing on is short vowel sounds; ideally this will strengthen their reading skills while we try to have some benchmark in reading.


I also Learned that my cooperating teaching is retiring at the end of the year, i have had many people tell me that they want me to stay out here, which is great I am just not sure I can live this far out form civilization. Although I have made some great connections with some people, one of whom is a first year teaching from outside Chicago. Which is good to have the ability to do something with some other people my own age.

well today i really got immersed in the cultural setting. They had an activity at the dorm called "dummy roping." Basically, this is lassoing, it was a very interesting experience.. given with my total lack of coordination I failed miserably it was a great way to learn about something new. There were two staff members who tried to help, and really wanted us to rope the fake steer; and the children.. well middle schoolers thought it was hysterical that they could get this and I couldn't. Yet that is the point of me coming out here. I get to try new things, experience things from a new cultural, and most of all gave fun with it.

As for my teaching, I have been talking to my class about Martin Luther King, I plan on doing a bulletin board where the students write there own "I have a Dream" speech. I have also been trying to do read alouds with the students. I don't feel as though they get a lot of authentic texts used with instruction. For me this is the total opposite of what I was told to do. Teachers here use scripted lesson plans for reading because of how low some of the test scores were. In math, the children are doing story problems. After going through papers I am really able to see the difference in abilities between students already. I hope as I take on more ownership of the classroom I am able to help the students by using more hands on activities. Although I am already starting to talk to my teacher about ideas I have it is only my first week. I am however reviewing differnt things with the students throughout the day.

as for out of school activities... from 5-6 I help serve in the cafeteria then we wipe down the tables. I find this really fun, the kitchen staff has become really helpful with many things, and trying to help me find food to eat (because of my interesting eating habits hehe). from 6-8 I will be helping in the dorms either tutoring or assisting/participating in more structured activities. I have been helping out some of the girls with their homework until I have an assigned group to tutor however, I feel they are becoming really dependent on that help. They know how to do the work, they just want someone there telling them if they are right or wrong. Another, school activity could end up be supervising an art club.

Other dorm related activities aside from tutoring will be helping with Parent Meetings. We will help create power-points to help parents understand varies academic portions dorm life and school life... such as understanding standardized exams and ways they can prepare their children for them, understand the scores, and knowing what is on them. I will was also asked to help create a news letter. in the news letter we will hopefully get students involved we will basically be monitoring it (with all hopes)

Lastly, we have already have had people invite us to various community events... one of the personal people wants to take us to a basketball game (rez ball)... one other person said he will take us to heard sheep (this was an example for what we can do for a service learning project. also we were invited to go with the residential director to pick up students on a Sunday, this would really show us the types of homes the student's come from. In Shonto, there are homes with no running water or electricity and it would be really interesting to see the wide range of home these student come from to really understand what they deal with on daily basis.