{"id":48074,"date":"2021-03-10T09:08:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-10T16:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/different-pathways-to-learning-during-the-pandemic-on-navajo-nation\/"},"modified":"2021-03-10T16:08:00","modified_gmt":"2021-03-10T16:08:00","slug":"different-pathways-to-learning-during-the-pandemic-on-navajo-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/different-pathways-to-learning-during-the-pandemic-on-navajo-nation\/","title":{"rendered":"Different pathways to learning during the pandemic on Navajo Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Art
Art teacher Georgiana Simpson broadcasts class videos from her Bluff, Utah, home to students who have internet. Simpson usually teaches art at Whitehorse High School in Montezuma Creek, Utah, a small Navajo Nation community.<\/span>Kate Groetzinger\/KUER-FM via AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

BLUFF, Utah (AP) \u2013 Georgiana Simpson is an art teacher at Whitehorse High School in Montezuma Creek, Utah, a small community on the Navajo Nation. But since March 2020, she\u2019s been working from her home 20 minutes away in Bluff.<\/p>\n

She set up a makeshift studio there full of art supplies in colorful drawers, and she hung posters on the wall behind her standing desk. That\u2019s where she broadcasts video lessons for her students.<\/p>\n

On a recent Monday morning, she introduced an art assignment related to evolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want you to imagine a bird-like animal, and it cannot fly, the food it needs is found in tall trees. What adaptations does that animal need to survive?\u201d she asked her students.<\/p>\n

She showed them an example of an animal she drew. It had a chicken head and a long, scaly body, along with bright green with yellow polka dots. And it stood upright on two legs. Then, she asked them to draw their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you going to draw a local animal, or are you going to create a new animal that\u2019s adapted to droughts or wildfires?\u201d<\/p>\n

By the end of the lesson the students were excited to start. They posted ideas in the chat box, like a mule deer or a lion with hooves. But only eight of her 18 students were able to get on the call.<\/p>\n

Mortality because of COVID-19 is about five times higher in San Juan County than in the rest of the state of Utah. That\u2019s mostly because of a high number of deaths on the Navajo Nation. So parents there are not ready to send their children back to school, despite the fact that poor internet access has made at-home schooling on the Navajo Nation difficult.<\/p>\n

To fix that, the San Juan School District is working on a $4 million project. But until that\u2019s finished, teachers and parents on the reservation have had to find creative ways to help students learn \u2013 and their efforts appear to be paying off.<\/p>\n

Only about 30% of the 289 students at Whitehorse have reliable access to the internet, said Whitehorse Principal Kim Shaefer, because of a combination of poverty and poor infrastructure in the area.<\/p>\n

So, the school has been delivering paper packets to every student, twice a semester, since March 2020. But Shaefer said the school isn\u2019t allowed to accept the packets back because of safety concerns, so the students have to find a way to submit them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re either texting photos, emailing photos or in those times where they do go to town, then they are uploading their assignments,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In some cases, she said, the students will even call in their assignments by phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a fair amount of teachers and paraeducators accepting verbal responses, where they talk through the question, or they write down the answer and then read it to a teacher or paraeducator,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Driving 30 to 40 miles<\/div>\n

Rowena Littlehat is one of those paraeducators. She\u2019s a school counselor at Whitehorse, and she said her job has always been to help students get their assignments done. But the pandemic has made that harder.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing in the school, interacting with scholars, it was way easier,\u201d she said. \u201cI would stand in the hallway and greet them and make myself visible to let them know I\u2019m there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, she has to track down her students. She said in some cases, students don\u2019t have any way to connect with her or their teachers because their parents work and they don\u2019t have their own phone.<\/p>\n

When that happens, Littlehat drives out to their houses, some of which are 30 or 40 miles away on dirt roads.<\/p>\n

\u201cI honk, and I tell them, \u2018How far did you get? Is there anything I can help you with?\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Then she\u2019ll go over the assignment with them through the window of her car and write down all of their answers on her phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I\u2019m done listening to them, I email the whole conversation we had to the teachers. And so they earn a grade that way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Trying to connect<\/div>\n

In other cases, parents are trying to find solutions to the internet problem.<\/p>\n

Cheryl Johns has a son in seventh grade and a daughter in elementary school. The school district gave out wireless hot spots and Chromebooks to all of the students when schools closed last year, but Johns said they didn\u2019t work well enough to stream video.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt so helpless because my kids were missing out on live sessions, and I was worried they could fall behind,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

To fix it, she and her husband bought them both iPads with wireless internet through Verizon. She said the iPads work well most days. She even set alarms on them to remind her children when they have a class.<\/p>\n

But there are days when the internet on the iPads doesn\u2019t work, so Johns has to connect her laptop to a hot spot on her phone and let them use it.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of a week, maybe once or twice I have to figure a backup,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s always trying to figure out what you can do to get them connected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tisheena Phillips has a similar problem. She also has a son at Whitehorse and a son at the elementary school. She said she was able to buy internet service for her home through a local provider, but the connection is spotty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are days where the internet won\u2019t cooperate,\u201d she said. \u201cLike yesterday, the internet was really slow and it was hard for them to get on.\u201d<\/p>\n

When that happens, her children call her at the clinic where she works as a nurse. She said she can go online there and look up their assignments. Then, she either talks them through their work by phone \u2013 or helps them when she gets home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been crazy,\u201d she said. \u201cI work 12-hour shifts. And then it\u2019s late in the evening, and you don\u2019t want to bug the teacher, and you\u2019re like, \u2018OK, we\u2019ll figure this out together.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Students evolving<\/div>\n

Despite these challenges, Shaefer said about 80% of the students at Whitehorse are on track to be promoted or graduate. That\u2019s just 7% lower than the graduation rate in 2019.<\/p>\n

She said they had to pare down the curriculum this year because of the internet issues, so they\u2019re not asking students to master the same amount of content. But she said there is a lot of growth this year that\u2019s not captured in grades or graduation rates<\/p>\n

\u201cDealing with the pandemic, our teacher and paraeducator teams have become stronger,\u201d she said. \u201cThey are able to have honest, frank conversations about what\u2019s needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the students are evolving, too \u2013 just like the animals Simpson asked them to draw.<\/p>\n

Back in her studio, she went over the submissions for the assignment.<\/p>\n

Johns\u2019 son, who excels in art, drew a lion-like animal with hooves and scales to deflect heat. Another student drew a human saving a koala from a burning tree, based on the wildfires in Australia last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see things like that and it just breaks your heart and endears you at the same time,\u201d Simpson said. \u201cBecause they\u2019re just so thoughtful in what they\u2019re trying to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said some students texted her photos of their work and some turned it in online, while others talked it through with her on the phone, or in-person in their driveway from 6 feet away.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing our students find these different pathways to their learning,\u201d she said. \u201cYou know, that there isn\u2019t just one way to show it. There\u2019s ways to do it visually, as well as with the language that they\u2019re developing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twelve of 18 students had turned in the assignment. But Simpson said she\u2019s not worried about the rest because they have her phone number \u2013 and they know how to find help if they need it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Online, by text or phone, even a staff member driving 30 miles, students turn in work<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,121],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-utah"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48074"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}