Parent’s Day in Ganado draws crowd

Leonard Anthony speaks durng Parent's Day at the Ganado Field House Thursday morning. He spoke to parents about coping with depression. [photo by Daniel Zollinger / Independent]

By Karen Francis
Diné Bureau

GANADO — Parental involvement has been increasing at the Ganado Unified School District over the past few decades, said Evelyn Begay, federal projects coordinator for the district.

Begay has helped to organize the annual Parent’s Day for the district for the last 25 years. This is the 27th year that the Parent’s Day has been held to help parents of pupils learn about parenting skills.

“We all come together — the school, the parents, the grandparents. We come together to help connect, to help them develop to be good citizens, good adults,” she added.

When she first started, there would be 15-30 people in attendance in one room. On Thursday, more than 300 people showed up even from beyond the district to take advantage of the workshops being held in breakout sessions.

“We want to provide our appreciation to the parents and providers,” Begay said.

“We feel that they’re the stakeholders. They have a real big part in child development,” she added.

One of the guiding principles in the strategic plan for the district is to involve the parents, Begay said. The Parent Day was co-sponsored by the school district and its Parent Advisory Committee. Representatives from each of the five chapters that the school district serves make up the committee.

“We always try to focus on student learning and child development,” Begay said. “We’re trying to share information with how they can help their kids at home and how to help with their development.”

She said it goes back to the Navajo teaching to do what needs to be done.

“It’s up to us as parents to raise young people to adulthood,” she said.

“As young people we’re told to learn how to do what your mom is doing, what your father is doing. That’s going to help you to develop character. That’s going to help you develop into a person,” Begay added.

Traditional teachings were the topics of several of the classes offered during the two break out sessions. Some of the topics included traditional food preparation for a healthy lifestyle, teaching the basic values of iina, and child development from a traditional perspective. Other classes were held on dropout prevention, understanding your child’s test scores and how to make toys with household items.

Navajo Nation Education Committee member Leonard Anthony was the morning guest speaker and presented on coping with depression or yilnill.

“A lot of our children, our students, even parents — they are in this stage of yilnill,” he said. “Our children are dealing with it, but we don’t recognize that as parents, because we’re not skilled as parents.”

He pre-warned the group that he would confront them with their family problems.

“We can’t step back from these issues. We need to confront these issues. As parents a lot of our responsibilities is dealing with these concerns,” Anthony said.

Part of the concept, he said, is acknowledging that the issues do exist. “It’s real. It’s there. Let’s do something about it today,” he said.

He added that parent involvement affects school performance.

“You need positive parental involvement,” he said.

Ella Jackson came from Gallup to attend the parent day.

She was impressed with the level of parental involvement that Ganado has cultivated. “Being the 27th annual speaks for itself. It’s always been successful,” she said.

She added that the speakers and presenters were very good and every school that serves Navajo children should have a parent organization as strong as the Ganado one.

“This is what we need at every school,” Jackson said.

“We always say our parents are first educators, so do we just leave them at home and do nothing more? There’s got to be continuity between the home and the school and this is a good example,” she said. “We’ve got to keep our parents partners with us as educators.”

She said that every time she attends a cultural presentation, she learns something.

Sophie Shorty-Brown spoke about a family’s journey to harmony. She told the parents that they are nat’aanis — or leaders — in their own homes because they do the planning, thinking and teaching for the family.

She said that parents have to provide rules for their children. She used her hometown of Chinle as an example saying she often sees teenagers out at night.

“I always pull over and say, ‘Have you done your homework?’” she said. She added that many of the children who are out at late hours are probably related by clan and people should be concerned.

She reminded the parents that sometimes they make too many rules. “When is your child going to be a child?” she asked.

She also told the parents that the children mirror their behaviors and that whatever is going on at home, the teachers hear about it at school.

The lunch speaker was Tom Chee from Waterflow, N.M.