Education
Historically the Navajo Nation resisted compulsory education, including boarding schools, as imposed by General Richard Henry Pratt.
Nowadays, education, and the retention of students in all school systems, is a significant priority. A major problem faced by the nation is a very high drop-out rate among high school students. Over 150 public, private and Bureau of Indian Affairs schools serve students from kindergarten through high school. Most schools receive funding from the Navajo Nation under the Johnson O’Malley program.
The Nation also runs a local Head Start, the only educational program operated by the Navajo Nation government. Post-secondary education and vocational training are available on and off the reservation. Kurt Caswell, a well-known writer and professor at Texas Tech University, taught at the Borrego Pass School on the Navajo Reservation. He wrote a memoir, In the Sun's House: My Year on the Navajo Reservation (2009) about his life-changing experiences during that time.
Because drop-out rates are high on the Navajo Nation, the people have adopted programs such as the Literacy is Empowering Project to help combat academic problems. The non-profit project promotes literacy and pre-reading skills for Native children to increase their understanding of standard academic language.
Read more about this topic: Navajo Nation
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“If the education and studies of children were suited to their inclinations and capacities, many would be made useful members of society that otherwise would make no figure in it.”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
“An acquaintance with the muses, in the education of youth, contributes not a little to soften the manners. It gives a delicate turn to the imagination, and a kind of polish to the mind in severer studies.”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
“Man is endogenous, and education is his unfolding. The aid we have from others is mechanical, compared with the discoveries of nature in us. What is thus learned is delightful in the doing, and the effect remains.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)