Haigo Hane’
January 20, 2016
Tuba City High School Pavilion
A Continuing Indigenous Cultural Education Series of the Americas
Harold G. Begay, Ph.D. – District Superintendent – Tuba City Unified Schools
In our Native Traditional Teachings, we are taught that with each generation the mist of the early morning
dew is a summons, a calling to architects and keepers of dreams and promises, those with remarkable vision, to
continue to link together the hopes and visions of the past, present, and future for our Native Peoples. Cultural
education, cultural orality, our cultural exegesis, is continuously orchestrated stemming from the mind, body, and
spirit where we each are inextricably linked generation-to-generation. There is an unspoken communal bond that
binds us together, a deep abiding cultural bonding of faith, courage, and determination to overcome all challenges
in life. As we promote and support the ever evolving education, inter/intra-cultural education, we are taught to
bear in mind that, “…we are all part of something larger, more important, more enduring than ourselves. We are
making a difference in someone's life, as someone has made a difference in ours.”
Our cultural aphorism is that Cultural Diversity is to be viewed as a source of human strength, not a
weakness of the human mind. It is in this light that we see among us today, many among us whom with their
remarkable vision, energy, courage, and optimism, have shown the resiliency to support, understand and live our
cultural World View to this day. It is in this vein that we as parents, grandparents, and kinship relatives, as
architects and keepers of dreams and promises, must continue to link together the hopes and dreams of the past,
present, and future.
As we gather here today, let us bear in mind a simple expression from our elders, our elders who continue
to silently speak to us with their hearts and minds, who convey to us with their eyes and smile, and sometimes
tears, a seemingly simple adage the heartfelt expression, “Welcome Home, My Child” (Ya’at’eeh Shiyaaz,
She’iiwee” woshdee’, ya’at’eeh nihaaneedza’). And to many others, they say with warmth, Welcome to our Native
Homelands, as you discover who we are, who we have always been, and who we will always be. That we continue
our cutting edge interdisciplinary cross-cultural work district-wide as we seek new transformative discoveries for
the future of our children is truly a calling and profound. Where there is no vision, cultures, peoples, vanish.
Welcome to the 2016 Winter Solstice Oral Traditions Educational Series, an unrivaled extraordinary journey
cultivated over thousands of years.
Synopsis of Our Cutting-edge Work in Cross-cultural Transformative Education – The Stanford SPICE Project.
Stanford University has invited us to the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education
(SPICE) to further develop and incorporate our cultural teachings not only in our schools but to exchange our
Indigenous philosophies and teachings with other Indigenous world language groups and communities in other
parts of the world. We have the digital capability to engage in transcultural education with the Ainu Indigenous
Peoples of Japan, the Quechan Indigenous Peoples of Peru and Bolivia and other Native Peoples in other parts of
the world. With transcultural education, our students and staff will be able to gain awareness of the challenges,
successes, and hopes of other Indigenous world communities. The mission of SPICE is to build, “… a bridge
between Stanford University and K–12 schools and community colleges by developing multidisciplinary curricular
materials on international topics, conducting teacher professional development seminars, and teaching distancelearning courses.”
Our cutting-edge work in cross-cultural transformative education consists of our TCUSD Dine’ and Hopi
Language and Cultural Studies program. Our work in this area is fundamentally a culture-friendly learning
redesign and initiative intended to empower our students so that they will have the applied knowledge base
critical to a meaningful education and a quality life. We believe that by reaching out to the local community to
embrace community cultural values and wisdom, our Indigenous Heritage Language and Cultural studies revamp
will promote harmonious concordant educational growth. Our Native Studies revamp is intended to broaden the
current educational programs in our district so that our students will enjoy a more inclusive educational menu for
a meaningful education for our Native Peoples.
Our Native Studies revamp and our Cultural Winter Oral
Traditions Series are intended to heighten our awareness of our core traditional Indigenous Native community
values and wisdom as a means to empower, promote and revitalize healthy human growth and development.
The centerpiece of our education system then is to cultivate and have in place the T’aa Dine’ Bo’O’oo’aah
Bindii’a’, or the Dine’ Philosophy of Teaching and Learning, and the Hopi Lavayi Language & Cultural program,
which serves not only as a cultural lighthouse but as critical teaching and learning resources to promote high
quality rigorous teaching and deep learning. Substantial evidence suggests that Native students grounded in their
own traditions are far more resilient and are likely to succeed in education and in life endeavors (Roessel, R. nd ).
We strongly believe and take the position that a school with an essentialized identity of this form will embrace and
value the “various rites, rituals, celebrations, life-style and allocated tasks” of the community children and
students, in the process shaping “the child’s personality and [making] it feel secure within its cultural setting” (
Bapat & Karandikar, 1998, p. 8 & 9.).
Our cultural program goal, design and strategy then is to transform cultural education that will allow a
child to “know who it is, what it is expected to do, in what way, and how to relate itself to the kinship structure
and the neighborhood.” (ibid, p. 9) A school of this nature and form welcomes a child to learn “a tremendous
amount about nature and develops emotional bonds with its different seasonal manifestations.
All this
knowledge, gathered at first hand, infuses self-confidence in the child and forms its cultural identity.” (ibid, p. 9).
We believe that our Dine’ and Hopi Cultural Education revamp in this form will insure cultivation of a sound sense
of self-efficacy critical to acquiring the very best world education for the Good Life.