to start talking. Okay. And your life, can you hear yourself? Yeah, I
can't hear myself. This will be good. Okay. I'll just get going right,
okay.
Uh I wanted to first make a correction from yesterday's conversation and I
want to be absolutely clear on this issue. And then the right amount is
also stated yesterday. We talked about the windfall of Navajo revenues um
during the year after we won the case in the United States Supreme Court
And I think I used the figure 214 million was the amount that we realized
as an extra money coming into the neighborhood treasury. Uh last night I
checked my record. It's 217. So it's a lot better than what I thought. 217
is the number and the figure that we should use the second correction is
that as a result of two things that we did is how we recognize and realize
the additional revenue. Number one, of course is what I talked about
yesterday, which is the United States Supreme Court case. And the second
one was the renegotiation of mineral leases such as cole timbers, at least
on land and right of ways, oil and gas, natural gas, all of those things
during the previous administration, they were at an impasse on the
renegotiation of those leases through Navajo land. Uh the use of the land
by outside companies. Well, when I came in, I made that my number one
priority realizing that that's going to generate new revenues. And so
putting all of that together the Supreme Court case and the renewal of
these leases is what brought about the 217 million. and there was 217
million was in addition to what the general revenue was for the year or
the tribal government. And so I just wanted to make that correction and
then I also want to continue with what I was talking about in the area of
education and uh, so I'll stop here just for one minute.
Sorry traffic. Huh? More trying to do for things at the same time and not
getting all that stuff we're doing. Okay. Well, I'm not worried about you
are man was here. So he says, let's go ahead and get going. Good please.
So what I'll do is I'll just talk about education now and then what I
thought we should do. Peter is go From here because my voice keeps on
yesterday, go from here to 1230 and 1230. Let's see. Let's see how it is.
And we may just go to one and then just do whatever you want you want me
to.
Oh, I'll just be kind of listening and taking notes and then, and then we
can have sort of a discussion after you're done with that. Is that what
you prefer? We think so because otherwise I kind of interrupt your train
of thought. Okay, okay, okay,
continuation on education. Uh, some of the things that I observed during
my lifetime in in looking at the operation of the federal government in
terms of indian education is that on the Navajo? It was very, very
intriguing to me. What was going on right about this time upon graduation
from a shoe going back into uh neighborhood nation and becoming involved
at the Window Rock High School, 1st as a teacher, and then secondly,
becoming a member of the Board of Trustees for Window Rock High School.
And then all of the problems that I saw and heard as a member of the Board
of trustees. And then what we were trying to do to improve the facilities
as well as the teaching and the curriculum and the overall education are
the Navajo young people in that community. And, and when the Rock High
School was one of the very few first institutions on the Navajo. And, and
as a result of the success at Window Rock High School there came about
subsequently, the other, the institutions of higher learning such as
Navajo Community College and all the other uh, indian colleges throughout
the nation. And so I wanted to just express that and then express my
opinion about what was happening. Uh, the way I saw from a distance, as an
objective viewer in an education was that uh, the United States wanted to
educate the indian people, indian students as fast as they can and try to
have them assimilate to their way of thinking. And uh, and they use all
kinds of tactics, some questionable tactics and unethical tactics to try
to bring the american indian people to the mainstream of american society
and had them began believing in the system that they believe in. And uh
and that was something that was so obvious for me to see in terms of what
the, the federal government was trying to do. And one of the ways to do
that was to establish what they call boarding schools off reservation.
Excuse me. Uh huh
boarding schools after reservation. So they established these boarding
schools,
I think a couple of them in Oklahoma, some in California, some in Utah one
here in the state of Arizona. And they got all of the indian students off
reservation that were of school age and put them at these uh boarding
school institutions. And the whole idea was to educate them so that they
know the basic things, reading, writing, arithmetic and yeah, a care of
the home life and learning some trade, whether that's carpentry work or uh
plumbing, painting, uh all of that they thought that and then people
really need to get ahead to begin living in american society. And so
basically that's what the boarding schools were teaching and there were
none of what I would call cultural classes geared towards indian beliefs,
uh indian culture, indian land, which lifestyle history and all of that.
There was really none of that. It was all learning the american way
learning the american system and I guess the federal government was hoping
that if we have these boarding schools in a major metropolitan area like
phoenix in Salt Lake city and Los Angeles, that ultimately the indian
students would graduate from those high school and they would just
eventually remain there in those cities. And so basically, that's uh, that
was the mentality of the federal government during that time, and that
happened for several years. That mentality was driven by trying to
assimilate the american indian young people of course, what a better way
to change the lifestyle of american end to go at the youngsters uh that
the Children of indian elderly. And so I guess at the end of a certain
period, they then evaluated the boarding schools and the students at the
boarding schools, then began questioning sometimes in the Mid 1950s, they
began questioning the tactics that the federal government was using. And I
remember all of the problems that inner martin Intermountain indian school
in Utah and what the students were saying what they were doing. They were
protest in some of the tactics that the federal government boarding
schools were using. Even in my own school here at phoenix indian school in
my senior year, there were a lot of unrest, There were questioning the
tactics of the federal government and I remember we had to go demonstrate
against the administration for doing what we thought was unethical in many
cases and then uh not having the school be conducive to learning uh new
things and to gain knowledge and be completely educated. They were, they
were failing in those areas. And so we had to put on a little student
demonstrations to have a administration improve on that. And so there were
a lot of unrest during this period
uh huh
and the United States Senate then got a hold of what was happening and I
believe it was people like robert Kennedy and others of his party, the
Democratic Party began questioning some of the things that were going on
at the boarding schools and on the neighborhood. There was the Marion
report that was produced how many many of the Navajo students of school
age that we're not going to school and that they should be in school, but
they weren't and many of them were over aged and I happened to be one of
those individuals That started out late in school when I was nine years
old. And so when I came to phoenix, I was put into a neighborhood special
program and uh, and there I had to accelerate and go at a faster pace than
most students to get into high school. But so many of the students didn't
meet the challenge. I was lucky, extremely lucky to have good teachers and
that tutored me through that process and thereby ended up uh, in high
school at phoenix indian school. And so basically that was what was
happening during that period. And uh, and then uh, because of the
involvement of the United States government at the Senate level and that
congressional level, there were these various hearings, various
investigation that was done by the federal government to really decide
where we stand and those kinds of issues. And then there came about a
gradual, a gradual transformation
from indian boarding school into beginning to build schools on
reservations close to their parents, in indian communities where the
indian people live. And as a result under Navajo all, there were a lot of
public schools that were built and then on a patchy reservation, the Saint
Carlos and then in White Mountain and then a lot of the other local tribes
, they built those local schools to try to encourage parents to enroll
their Children their locally and then began teaching the parents about how
to control school. And as a result of all of that movement during that
time, uh, people like about the late bob russell then got involved with
the federal program and started promoting a local control of schools by
neighborhood parents. And he established such an institution, that Rough
Rock where the, that there would be a community school completely
controlled by the Navajo people.
Yeah.
Where it would be completely controlled by the Navajo people. They would
become school board members and ultimately, when they already, and getting
their education, they would ultimately be responsible as superintendents
as principal of those schools. And Rough Rock was a pioneer in that
category. And uh, and they decided that what they should simply do is try
to get the money to be, I was using to educate the Neverhood students in
that community except bob changed that and just had the federal government
give that money to the local uh, school border was incorporated as uh
educational institution and as a nonprofit corporate entity. And then they
end up uh, doing their own school and being able to put themselves in the
position to have a lot of say. So as to what curriculum, what kind of
teachers and classes that were structured in such a way that they would
concentrate very heavily on Neverhood, This Navajo culture, neighborhood
history land, which in all of that would be talking by that school. And,
and that was the beginning of Navajo or indian control schools of schools
across the nation. And then all of these other schools throughout indian
country then start propping up design after what we're refracted. And then
as that was happening, the public schools then also began doing some of
the things that Rough Rock demonstration school was able to do. And in the
process of doing that. That was highly, highly successful by all uh
indication through research and studies, uh, either by the government or
by the state government, by their tribal government. Every indication was
that there was a tremendous amount of improvement. The students were very
proud of themselves as Navajo indians in our case and there were a lot of
indian parents even though they didn't speak english and never had
opportunity to go to school before they had their Children situated.
I could turn it off.
They had their Children situated where they were learning something about
their culture and that gave them a lot of pride and the parents were happy
and of course when you're happy, when you are in full control in the
education of your own Children, that's going to make you happy parents
because you are now given assistance to the local school in terms of what
the kids were learning. And so that was a big success throughout the
nation. And uh, and then ultimately, the neighborhood nation wanted to
transfer that idea over to the public school. And I believe it was at this
point that we, from the Navajo nation, I started talking about education
policy and it was just extremely lucky to have the kind of council
delegates that we had, like David Soc, who was the chairman of the
Education Committee, bought into the idea and we produce uh, never who
education policy, which was a model at that time for all the other indian
tribes in the United States to follow and use it as an example as an
example in the process of taking control of their own schools by the
tribal government and the tribal government had finally spoke in terms of
what they believe in terms of the education of their own Children. And so
, uh, this was something that took place now when you were, when we were
trying to transfer the same rough rock idea and the successes over to the
public school. There was a lot of resistance from the public schools and I
remember going to several of those school board meetings where the
superintendent would uh arise to be heard. And one of the things that they
almost always said was that if the Navajo nation government wants to get
involved in the education, then they have to produce some money, make some
money available so that we can teach a lot of the things that their men
men dating us to do because the education policy says that neighborhood
kids have to learn neighborhood language, that neighborhood kids should be
taught the history of the neighborhood tribe, the neighborhood nation. And
uh, and that all these kinds of things that make them who they are proud,
never who youngsters that all of that should be taught and made available
to the school. Well, the school superintendents were indicating that they
don't have the money to do that. And we kept on saying that of course you
do have the money to do that. And it was just a matter of a desire by you
and the desire by the school board to uh, go ahead and hence, and hence
the tradition of the Navajo people. And so there was a tug of war that
went on between the Navajo nation government and local schools and we
could never get together and on the
on the agreement between the two parties as to what responsibilities we
had and what responsibilities that they had to teach. This new thing that
we had mandated the schools to do. And unfortunately that kind those kinds
of situations lasts more than four years. And so I just had that little
Shadow of opportunity for about four years to to promote that and other
people that came after me were the ones that had to deal with that. Also
we'll take a little break. Ok? To No, no, but I just want to make sure we
need to uh we need to turn the power off. Uh let it go. Okay. Alright,
that makes it easier. Yeah. Yeah. I ran late this morning and I just I
just one of those mornings you want somehow to be able to divide yourself
into four parts and going in directions. Doesn't work. No, not even if
you're Birthday is 4444. You still you don't get much help from that? Well
, I just wanted to say thank you. What about 11:30? and I'm not really
sure if I'll be back before you all leave as Matt said you were gonna
leave around one. Well, it depends a little on dr shaw's voice. He's been
using it rather extensive. Yeah. Yesterday. Uh
Mhm. But what we're gonna do is probably Around a little after 12 hours
from now, we'll stop and then Peter is going to ask questions and we'll go
over that well. Sounds good. Well just call matt and he'll take care of
everything good and then if I am then and I heard you're not coming in on
friday so we won't set anything up. Okay. But he's been making noises
about doing another session. Okay. Right. We're talking about one, I don't
know. Sometimes before too long we'll just let me know. I'm going to be
out in july but maths around in between taking care of. Thank you. Good
start. Thank you. Joyce you take care. Uh huh.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Uh huh. So essentially the education policy of the
Navajo nation served its purpose during that period of time. And I as the
chairman of the African Nation did what I had to do uh two help produce
the never education policy. We knew all along the uh that education policy
had to be updated, updated every so often to get in line and be in line
with uh the community's wishes. And so very recently uh the Navajo
education saw fit to do that and they pass another
to strengthen the original neighborhood nation policy and I think at some
point I'll have to devote some time to discuss and that more specifically.
Uh But for the for the time being, if you look at the national level and
then contrasting that with the Navajo, I think what was happening on the
Navajo, which was a little different than what was happening at the
national level, was that many of the new things indian education uh, was
really spearheaded uh, and we as a neighborhood nation and as a trail
blazers, uh, in indian education had to produce what we did and then at
the same time prove what we were doing to be successful. Uh, In other
words, if you look at what happened at, reference the original name that
was attached to that experimental program was a demonstration school,
Rough Rock demonstration school and it was put in place to demonstrate to
the federal government and to other people that, yes, uh, these kinds of
innovation, new innovation could be successful. Uh, the federal government
, all the other people didn't buy into it. Initially, they wanted a proof.
They wanted a proof and they wanted some kind of a demonstration project
to demonstrate to them that this kind of education, our own way of
educating our own Children could be successful. And so all these years
that it was given that title, I think, reflected a very good job of
demonstrating to the powers at hand whether that's locally or at the
national level, that it demonstrated the success of parental involvement
and indian control of education. And so, Navajo is always in the forefront
, uh, showing to the federal government and other entities that we're able
, we're capable of taking their own, if own, taking care of our own
education in our own affairs. And so basically, the way I see it is that
that's what really happened and we as tribal leaders, we came alone and
all we did is strengthened what was happening. All we did was support what
was happening in the local community. And, uh, that's at least how I saw
my role as a chairman of the Navajo nation.
Okay.
He wanted to turn it off a little.
Let's see.