From ICT:
SANTA FE, N.M. – Long-talked-about efforts to infuse Native culture and language learning in the public education system have resulted in action in New Mexico.
A textbook co-authored by Evangeline Parsons Yazzie, a Navajo professor at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, has been selected by the state’s education department as a high-quality resource that will soon be made available to all school districts in the state.
State officials believe that New Mexico is the first state to adopt a Navajo textbook for use in the American public education system.
So far, officials from 10 districts have already signed on to have teachers in their systems use the book and its companion teaching guide. BIA schools are also eligible to review the text and decide whether to use it starting in the 2009-10 school year.
”It’s just wonderful that an Indian language is being honored in this way,” Yazzie said. ”It’s so important that American Indians learn about their people, their language and their culture from their own people, rather than just reading about it in a textbook that’s written by a non-Indian.”
Yazzie’s book, ”Dine’ Bizaad Binahoo’ahh,” or ”Rediscovering the Navajo Language,” is filled with cultural and language lesson plans that are suitable for all ages of students, according to the author. It is illustrated with many historical and contemporary pictures of people who have lived on the Navajo reservation. It’s also accompanied by a CD with the voices of Yazzie and her brother, Berlyn Yazzie, a former educator on the Navajo Nation.
Turtle Talk 