Oral history interview with Carmelita Beauvais, March 26, 1977.

              Carmelita Beavais
Interviewed by Phyllis Boyes
March 26, 1977
Flagstaff, Arizona
Sound file 51748
Running time 00:51:35
Transcribed by Jardee Transcription, Tucson, Arizona, January 26, 2018

Boyes:  My name is Phyllis Boyes.  This taped oral history is being made for deposit in the Northern Arizona University Special Collections Room.  It is a part of a research project directed by Dr. Phillip R. Roonon [phonetic], associate professor of History at NAU.  The purpose of this study is twofold:  first, to obtain historical information on the education of Native Americans in the Southwest, and second, to obtain insight into the effectiveness of bi-cultural and cross-cultural programs for Indian Americans.  The project is funded by the Institute of Southwestern Studies of Northern Arizona University.
	Today is March 26, 1977, and I am talking with Carmelita Beavais, who teaches the first level of the Site Program at the Leupp Boarding School.  Will you give me some biographical data about yourself—your birthdate, something about your parents and their occupation and education?
Beavais:  I’m originally from Shiprock, New Mexico, which is located in the Four Corners area.  I graduated from Kirtland High School, which is between Shiprock and Farmington, New Mexico; and shortly after graduation from there, I started school at a Baptist college in Phoenix, Arizona.  And from there I was a business education major, changed my major and left school there, came to Flagstaff, started majoring in elementary education, and from there I got my degree in elementary education in 1971.  Shortly after graduation, I started [teaching] school at Leupp Boarding School, which I’ve been there since graduation from NAU.  And since being a teacher there, I’ve had training in the bilingual education program out there.  And since then I’ve gained my master’s degree in elementary education.  And right now I’m taking graduate classes, and hopefully to go back to school full-time at the University of Arizona, beginning August of this year.  There I’m going to either major in administration and supervision or curriculum development.  Right now I’m in process for—I will be getting a grant for a scholarship through the Navajo Tribe to go to school full-time, but I have been admitted to their doctoral program there, with the Education Department.
Boyes:  How long have you been at the Leupp School?
Beavais:  Six years now.
Boyes:  You said you teach the first level of the Site Program.  Could you give me some idea what exactly is the Site Program?
Beavais:  The Site Program was started on the reservation by Dr. Wilson.  He’s a professor at UCLA, and this program is especially designed for Navajo children, and he’s done a great deal of research with the Navajo students on the reservation.  But this particular program started in 1967, so it has been in existence for about ten years now.  There were at one time at least seventeen or more Bureau schools that were using this program, but I don’t know the exact data on it right now.  And there was a resolution that came out about two years ago where all the Bureau schools either had to teach the Site Program or a NALAP bilingual education program.  NALAP is an acronym for the Navajo Area Language Arts Project.  And this project was put together by a group of the BIA teachers that got help also from this Dr. Wilson that started the Site Program.
	[00:04:23]  Shortly after I got employed by Leupp Boarding School, I was in a regular self-contained classroom, and that following summer I went to a workshop over in Chuska [phonetic], my aide and I.  I was selected to teach the first level, which at one time was called the beginner level, or pre-first, but these are all the children that are six years of age, either who all have had kindergarten experience, or who all have had none.  So these are children that are coming from the home environment straight into the boarding school environment where they speak little or no English at all.  And I had to go for this workshop, my aide and I, but there is training where the teacher and the aide have to go to, and from there, when they get their training, they work in a classroom as a team.  I have been working with the Site Program now about six years.  Currently it begins with the first level, which are the six-year-olds, on up to the third grade.  And right now we do have two classrooms of every level:  first level….  Oh, I’m sorry, just this year, I guess, we only have one classroom of the first level, and then from there on to third grade there’s two classes of each level.
Boyes:  Alright, now can you tell me a little bit about your parents’ occupations?
Beavais:  My parents are self-employed.  My step-father came from Houston.  He’s been on a reservation since, I believe, 1948.  He and another man that were in the navy together bought the place themselves, it’s a hotel.  And my parents, my mother has been with him since I was little, and they’ve ran the store and managed it since 1948, so they’re self-employed.
Boyes:  Okay.  That’s very interesting.  Could you tell me a little bit about the school, when it was built, how many teachers there are there, what your colleagues are like, what the facilities are like, and how many students do you have in your classroom?
Beavais:  [00:07:03]  Okay.  At the site where the boarding school is now, I think the school came into existence about a little over ten years or more [ago], and they have two….  I’m sorry, I guess it’s just this year, we only have one classroom of the kindergarten level, and they’re day students, they’re bused in every day for about four hours, and then they go home.  Then we have the regular boarding school children that start with the first-level Site kids, which are the six-year-olds, all the way up to eighth grade.  I believe we do have about maybe 403 students there, and it’s an all-Indian school.  I think there’s over twenty-one teachers, and we have numerous aides.  All the Site classrooms do have aides that the teachers work with.  And then from fourth grade on to about the sixth grade, there are no aides in the classroom helping the teachers.  Then sixth through the eighth grade, they don’t have aides, but they do have reading tutors that do work with fourth-grade children on up to the eighth grade, and they take all of the children from fourth grade up to eighth grade and I believe they’re in there about thirty to forty minutes per day, and they do have reading tutors in there, about seven of them.  So we have quite a few people that work out there.
Boyes:  What does your aide do with you, and with the students?
Beavais:  She helps me with every lesson.  She helps me perform, we give tests during the lesson, twice.  And she handles the carts.  There’s several things she does:  she sets up the materials, she gets materials ready for the next lesson.  She and I actually are a team, we do everything together.  She sets up the objectives with me before every lesson.  She works with the puppets.  There’s numerous things she does, but she’s involved at all times with every lesson.
Boyes:  With the puppets, what do you do with the puppets?
Beavais:  [00:09:32]  Well, for instance, if we’re going to do a syntax lesson, I may be the teacher asking the puppet a question, and she in turn will use the puppet and give me that answer, whatever it may be, but she and I do set up the objectives together.
Boyes:  You mentioned syntax.  What is that?
Beavais:  Syntax is where the children are learning to speak English, where they do come up with very simple sentences.  By the time they leave from there, they’re coming up with complicated sentences, as well as questions.  The first nine weeks of syntax, the children don’t have to answer anything in English:  they can just nod or shake their head, or if they choose to say “yes” or “no,” we accept that.  But the earlier the better that they try to explain in English, we encourage them to do so.  But somewhere along the line, we start this transition from speaking little or no English into where they are beginning to answer in small sentences.  Then eventually they’re beginning to answer more and more in English, longer sentences.  And then we get to the point, like after Christmas, where a child within this lesson, the child not only answers a question, now they’re required to ask a question.  And all our lessons are twenty minutes long, except for math, which may be thirty minutes long or more, but after every formal lesson we have an informal break, and the breaks are also twenty minutes long.  So the Site Program is highly structured, and it’s kind of like a [spiral? 00:11:31] to recommend where an objective is introduced somewhere, and it’s re-introduced somewhere else, or is integrated with another strand, like math or auditory or visual or tactile.  And at this level, the first level is a total program where the children are exposed to not only science or exposed to social studies, math, [phrenology?], pronunciation, verbalization, [fida electa? 00:12:00] switching—the whole works.  Then what the children do learn in syntax at my level, they’ll build on it the next level, and so forth.  The same thing with the math strand.  Right now we’re teaching addition, up to the sums of 5.  Then from there, the next year’s teacher will pick up where I left off, using the same math book, and picking up from there.  And the same thing with syntax, where they started with the concept these children don’t know any English, know nothing about English, and then they build on that.  The following year they do build on what they’ve learned in the first level, take it with them to the second level.
Boyes:  [00:12:52]  How long is the school day for you?
Beavais:  The children come at 8:30, but the teachers work from 8:00 to 5:00.  The children come at 8:30 and stay—my children do—until 11:15, until it’s time to eat.  Then we stay with them until they get through eating.  Then we have our lunch break from 11:55 to 12:55, then they come back at that time.  Then they stay until 3:30, whether they’re first level, six-year-year-olds, or eighth-graders, they all stay until 3:30.  Then they go back to the dormitories at 3:30.
Boyes:  What kind of activities do they have in the afternoon?
Beavais:  My children go to their regular P.E. class.  We have a gymnasium where the children do go to P.E.  On Mondays they go to the library too, so they do have things for them to come out of the classroom at a scheduled time.  And then if you and your aide feel like you want to take them out for a break maybe in the morning, take them out for recess again in the afternoon, that’s up to the teachers.  But most of the time we have our breaks right in the classroom where they have things to do that relate to what they’ve already learned, so they have kind of like interest centers where they feel free to do whatever they want.  If they choose to speak English, fine; if not, Navajo—either way.  And we do, in my classroom, have what we call a Navajo corner and an Anglo corner where they can play in either corner and feel right at home.  So with my thinking, I think you need both.
Boyes:  [00:14:42]  What are the other teachers like?  Are the other teachers basically on the same schedule as you are?  Or does it vary according to each level?
Beavais:  It varies to each level.  The next level may have their lessons stretch to thirty minutes, and they may have new strands that the children didn’t have when they were in my classroom.
Boyes:  What do you mean by “strands”?
Beavais:  Strands are the subjects that they’re taught.  Like in the next level, they’re taught English rhetoric, other things that I don’t teach in my classroom.  And strands are like syntax, strands are [phrenology?], things that they’re taught, and we identify the [unclear 00:15:29] same strands.
Boyes:  Have you had any kind of experience teaching in public schools?
Beavais:  Just when I student taught.
Boyes:  And where did you student teach?
Beavais:  I student taught down in Phoenix at the Garfield School, which is an inner-city school, close to downtown, and the majority of the students there were Spanish-speaking children—in fact, about 95 percent.
Boyes:  Did you use any kind [unclear 00:16:06] syntax?
Beavais:  No.  There it’s a different situation than the reservation, because most of the students there speak English, or they had a small amount of English students, and most of them spoke only English.  So you don’t have that kind of problem where a child doesn’t know English.  It’s a different situation.  
Boyes:  [00:16:28]  Could you give me some kind of a comparison between the public school in which you student taught, and the Leupp school in which you’re teaching now, as far as perhaps curriculum set-up or materials that are available for you, or methodologies that you might have used?
Beavais:  Well, methodology certainly is different, working with two different types of students, but then out at the boarding school they try to go along with what public school is trying to do.  Because when our eighth-graders leave there from the boarding school, quite naturally they’re going to go to the public schools.  So we try to work maybe with the public school teachers to say this is what these children need.  In fact, the principal is now trying to get the boarding school teachers and the public school teachers to kind of work together, especially with the high school teachers, to try and get them ready for the ninth-grade level, some of the things they need to have, like home economics, shop, other things.  So I think the education is kind of going that route where we realize that a lot of students do go into public schools now.  Before, it wasn’t that way.  They were sent off to other Indian high schools, but we find that a lot of students do go to public schools.  But with smaller children, where I taught in Phoenix, the Indian students there spoke only English; where out where I am it’s a total 100 percent Indian population students.  But since I’ve been there, I find every year that more and more children are being exposed to English.  So a lot of kindergarten children that come there speak some English.  And then where I am with the next level children, you can tell they’ve had some exposure to English.  So I wouldn’t say that this year the students were the same as the ones that I had about six years ago—there is a difference.  And I feel like more and more students are being exposed to English, because they go to Head Start back where they’re from, or they go to kindergarten somewhere at one time or another.
Boyes:  [00:19:04]  What would you say are the goals of Indian education when you started teaching?  You mentioned you’ve taught for six years.  In comparison to the first year you taught, to now, can you see a change in the general goals of Indian education?
Beavais:  Well, I think it’s self-determination, where if it’s going to work, you need to be educated to intermingle with other cultures.  I think you have to consider that.  And hopefully what we try to teach our children is to take what’s good from both cultures and work with that, rather than just say, “I’m Indian,” and stick to just that one side, because you’re going to eventually get exposed to some other culture.  So I think if we take the good in both and go from there….  And I think a lot of people feel that way.  Well, maybe not, but there’s a lot of talk about this “Indian-ness” coming out, you ought to be proud of what you are.  That, I believe, and it’s due time.  But on the other hand, it’s good to be identified with a certain group, but I think to really relate, you have to understand the other person as well.
Boyes:  That more or less leads into my next question about what you think are the strengths and the drawbacks of assimilation.
Beavais:  I think that somewhere, if you want to be integrated with another culture, I think you’re going to have to have a good positive self-concept too.  You have to know who you are.  If you’re Indian, I think you have to know that and be proud of it, but at the same time, you eventually will have to intermingle with other people.  So in that respect, I think if you can realize that you are Indian, but you need to go beyond that, and not just be stuck with that.  But on the other hand, if you go over on the other side, you cannot forget your language, you cannot forget your culture.  I mean, to me, language is the culture.  I mean, if you don’t know your language, it’s almost like having no culture.  And I think it’s very important to know one’s language.
Boyes:  [00:21:53]  Could you give me any personal illustrations or examples of the effects of assimilation?
Beavais:  Assimilation?  Well, there’s more and more students that I know, the younger they are, they only know English and that’s all.  They don’t know their native tongue.  And I don’t know whether it’s parents who haven’t time to teach them….  In my case, that’s my excuse, where you talk about Indian education.  Well, it’s history, Indian education hasn’t been very good.  You were told years back, “You can’t talk your language.”  It’s almost like you were made to be ashamed of your culture.  And then Indian people have sensed this, and a lot of Indian people are afraid to admit they know their language, and I know a lot of Indian people that don’t know their language because they were forced to speak only English.  In that respect, I think it’s hurt a lot of Indian people, and it’s almost like you’re ashamed to admit you’re even Indian.
Boyes:  When were they first [forced] not to speak their language?
Beavais:  Back in the early 1920s when a lot of Indians were forced to go to boarding schools, to board there nine months out of the year without ever going home.  They were told not to speak their own language.  I mean, you got in trouble for it.  But things were looking up, where we do….  It’s on the other side now, where we’ve finally realized being Indian, knowing your culture and your language, is a good thing.  Now we have this thing about bilingual education where we do want to stress teaching the language, the writing, the reading, everything now, in Indian—in Navajo, whatever have you—and a lot of Indian people are going that route too.
Boyes:  [00:23:58]  There are programs now to teach teachers to teach these children to read and write in Navajo?
Beavais:  Uh-huh, right.  There are different levels of bilingual education, and I think the highest level is where you place a lot of emphasis on culture, where a Navajo child coming to school will be taught Navajo—all the subjects, the cognitive subjects, all subjects will be taught in Navajo, where a child at that age will probably learn to write in Navajo, or learn to read in Navajo.  Everything is done in Navajo.  People have gone that route.  And when a child gets out of the second grade, he at that time will be exposed to English for the first time, where they get instruction maybe half a day in Navajo, and then the second half will be English.  And the further they go up in grade, they’ll be exposed more and more to English.  So there are schools that do practice that.
Boyes:  What kind of other teaching assignments do you have at the Leupp School?
Beavais:  What’s my particular situation?  Well, I don’t really give homework as such, because we do everything there in the classroom.  But I don’t know what the other teachers are doing, but I don’t give that much homework.  We do everything in the classroom.
Boyes:  You more or less are spending most of your time instructing, rather than doing any kind of extracurricular activity with these students?
Beavais:  Right.  Well, I think so, since this program, like I said, is structured where the teacher has to do “X” number of lessons for each strand by the end of the year.  In other words, the teacher that starts in that classroom, the first week of school she knows exactly what she’s going to do; the second week; and so forth.  In other words, the whole nine months it’s all written out for you what you’re supposed to do.  Because in this program, for each strand, there’s a certain number of lessons you have to do by the end of the school year, and hopefully you will get done.  So it is structured where you do spend a lot of time instructing.
Boyes:  [00:26:32]  Do you find that within this program you have any time to deviate at all, or do any kinds of things you think might be interesting for the students, other than what’s written down in the program?
Beavais:  What kinds of things do you mean?
Boyes:  Oh, different activities for the students.  It’s not necessarily written down in the program, but something that you think would relate to what they are doing.
Beavais:  Well, if you mean in the way of P.E. instruction or library, those are the kinds of things that they do every week.  But on Fridays, we do have a strand there called Friday lessons, where you take the children either in the gym or in the hall or outside, and you teach them informally, some of the concepts they’ve learned that week.  And this is set aside for Fridays.  The first semester, from the time they come to school to about December, we do have our lessons also on Fridays where children are taught Navajo stories by the aide, in Navajo.  That is written into the curriculum.  It’s something that we do too.
Boyes:  But you don’t really necessarily have time to more or less deviate from the lesson plan?
Beavais:  I don’t think, not that much, since it is structured.  But we’re flexible.  I think the more and more you’re in any program, you know what has worked for the students.  I think a lot of times since I’ve had experience with this program, I know what I’m going to do this year:  I’m going to introduce a strand a little earlier, or maybe sometimes a little later.  I know what to emphasize.  So I think it’s been a learning experience for me too.  I don’t stick by the book like I did the first year, where it had to be this way, but it’s no longer true.  But I still have to stick to the dialog, whatever the teacher has to say, whatever your concepts are, you have to stick to that, your objectives.  That remains the same, but the methodology might be a little different, but you try not to get away from that too much either.  What I’m saying, if you wanted to introduce a particular strand earlier, I’ll do it.  Or maybe this book I’m going to maybe teach is a different concept.  I’ll do that first before I do Book 1.  Or I’ll do Book 6 before I’ll do Book 1—something like that.  So I guess I would say, yeah, I deviate somewhat, only because I’ve had the experience with it.
Boyes:  [00:29:25]  What kind of budget do you have for equipment or materials?  By this I mean audio-visual equipment that you might want to use, or other reading materials or something you’d like to get for your [unclear 00:29:43].
Beavais:  BIA has money set aside, money coming from Title I, where most of the time, or every year, we order our books, materials, whatever we need in the classroom, without any problem.  Then with equipment we’re pretty well stocked, where sometimes we may order things, we may not get it for two years, but then there is money set aside for it, as well as school supplies.  So I would say we do alright in that department.
Boyes:  Do you get any kind of relationship with these students’ parents?  I know they’re in a boarding school, but do the parents ever come into the school to see what their students are doing, visit the students?
Beavais:  [00:30:39]  We  have parents that come, and it seems like the years that I’ve been out there, there are a certain number of parents that are particularly interested in their students or their children.  And it seems like it’s the same parents every year.  We have some students that you feel like you want to know their parents, but because of certain reasons—it could be anything—where you don’t see the parents.  There’s kids that I’ve known out there, and I’ve never met their parents.  You’d be surprised, we do have parental involvement.  We have an organization, in fact, that met yesterday, which is kind of like PTO that public school has, and it’s called Home and School Organization where this is an organization for the parents, that’s run by them.  And I’ve had the experience being the secretary for it for two years.  It just started two years ago.  But we just had the election of new officers last month where now we’re hoping that the parents will pick up where we left off.  And the lady that was the chairman was a counselor, but she’s this year teaching home economics, but she did a real good job, and I just feel like the parents have had enough experience coming, that we hope that they can run the organization themselves.  But we have any number of parents that come out on a Friday to attend the meeting once a month.  Most of the time it’s a luncheon meeting where the parents can come to the school and eat, and then hopefully that we’ll have the meeting long enough, and then they’ll be able to check out their child at 3:30 or whenever they choose to do so.  And we do have parents that come.  The principal encourages parents, when we do have our monthly meetings, or just in passing when they do visit the schools, to visit the classroom.  And we do have parents that will come in and observe, and there are parents that do come to the school every Friday to check out their child.  So they are usually around the school building, in the halls.  Sometimes they do come in and observe.  Some parents are real shy, they just will not really relate to the teachers.  I think if they do know that you are an Indian, a Navajo perhaps, they will probably be more at ease in coming in to talk to you.  Out there this year we only have—I think I’m the only Navajo teacher out there.  We have a couple of Hopi teachers, and the rest of them are Anglos.
Boyes:  [00:33:46]  What kind of activities are available for the students after school?
Beavais:  They have all kinds of activities.  They have different buildings, like Building 1 is the small girls’ dormitory.  And Building 2 is the small boys.  And then 3 is the girls I think from fourth grade on up to eighth grade.  And Building 4 is the same thing, the fourth-graders on up to eighth-graders.  And then there’s certain nights during the week that different buildings come into Flagstaff for ice skating or hockey, or they come in to see movies.  And they have their own, right now they started practicing for their baseball, where they are taken to different schools for baseball games, or they have them right there at the school.  We just got over with basketball; and we do have football too.  So they have a lot of things that they do, coming into Flagstaff for.  And even the small children, and I think it’s Building [2], the small boys, they come in on Tuesday nights to go swimming.  So they have all kinds of things that they can do, even on weekends.  So it’s never a dull moment.
Boyes:  Do they have activities for them on the weekends?
Beavais:  Uh-huh.
Boyes:  Would you give me an example of what they might….
Beavais:  Sometimes the school will have, like this weekend, they have a men’s basketball tournament sponsored by the school.  So the kids are exposed to that, like this weekend and last weekend they had a powwow out there sponsored by the Indian Club.  And they had children there, the community was there.
Boyes:  [00:35:29]  If you were having any kind of discipline problems with any of your students, would you feel free to contact their parents?  Perhaps if this was a child whose parents are not members of this group of parents who have not frequented the school at all?
Beavais:  Well, sometimes it’s possible.  Sometimes we have a liaison that does go out and checks up on the child, why he’s missed maybe a week, two weeks, whatever.  So the teacher can go that route, where she might talk to this person to say I have a problem with this child.  And this person would in turn mention it to the parents.  Or if you have people there, the dorm people, the community, there’s a number of people you can contact if you want maybe someone to talk to a child.  In fact, I have a foster grandparent that has been with me three years, a lady that works right there in the classroom.  She weaves with the kids, or she makes [plastics? 00:36:38], tells them stories.  So a lot of times I feel free to call on her, maybe just to talk to the students.  They don’t necessarily have to be bad when someone talks to them, or just talk to them any time.  So there are a number of people you can contact.
Boyes:  How would you handle a severe discipline problem in your class?  Would you handle it yourself, or would you refer the student to the principal, or how is this handled?
Beavais:  I think it depends on how well I knew the child.  If I felt like I could handle it, I can possibly relate to a child, I would go that route.  And if I feel like somehow or another I can’t relate, most likely I would call on an Indian person, whether she works in the dorm or in the school building, or an aide, or a foster grandmother.  I would probably most likely get an Indian person to talk to the child.  And then from there, it may go to the principal or someone else.
Boyes:  [00:37:52]  When and how did you learn of the Red Power concept, and was it an idea which developed in or outside of the reservation?
Beavais:  When I first really heard about the Red Power concept was about four years ago during the time that there were some AIM [American Indian Movement] members that came from South Dakota, and I think a couple from Minnesota, Chippewas.  They came down here for the Fourth of July celebration.  And at the time, I knew people that were of Sioux origin, and in passing they knew the person that I was with at the time, and asked for his and my help.  And they wanted people here in Flagstaff that could testify, saying that they do believe that they were discriminated against, whether it was in a store, or anywhere here in a public place.  And I think that’s the first time I really heard about it.  And there were [unclear 00:39:03] I think it was the same night that this group of people took over the microphone and tried to announce that the Indian dances that night at the performance, that what they were doing was wrong, performing or getting paid for what they were doing.  And quite possibly they felt like the Indians that were performing there were being underpaid, and they weren’t getting enough for what they were doing.  And I think that was part of it, and there was a commotion that went on.  And I think the men that took over the microphone were put in jail.  And we went to a meeting—I don’t know whether it was a few days, or the following week, or what, where a group of Indian people that were notified to go to this meeting, to testify, get up in public and say yes, I’ve been discriminated against.  And there were quite a few Indian people there that stood up and said they actually believed that they were.  And I really just went over there to find out what it was about.  But that was my only contact with it.  And I think that AIM, the way it’s going now, originally they might have had a good concept, where they felt at the time it is a neat idea to go back to the Indian way of living.  I think at the time when people were going that route, started off with a good concept.  And I think somewhere along the line, the concept is not the same.  In other words, they’re using violence to get things across, that they’re Indians or whatever have you.  And I think when I first heard about AIM, it started out with the tribes like the Sioux, South Dakota, and you heard it around that area.  And then eventually it spread down this way, and a lot of Navajo people got involved with it.
Boyes:  [00:41:03]  How long ago was this that you first….
Beavais:  About four years ago.
Boyes:  Do you think that it had any impact on the children in your classroom?
Beavais:  Yes, it did.
Boyes:  How so?
Beavais:  Well, a lot of even my own relatives, young kids, they really wanted to identify with AIM—they dressed like they wanted to be Indians.  I don’t know, it just put a new concept in their….  They just had pride being maybe influenced by AIM indirectly, or whether it was a personal contact, I think people started believing that the Indian way was good.  And that, in a way, I think it was good.  But, on the other hand, I don’t believe we need to use violence to get that across.
Boyes:  Did you find your students exhibiting any kind of violence at all?
Beavais:  I think when AIM first started, yes—especially with maybe even students back home that were in public schools.  They were gung ho on AIM, whether they were involved with it or not.  But I really think it had an impact on the Indian people.
Boyes:  [00:42:34]  Could you give me an illustration on how any of the students would have demonstrated any kind of violence?
Beavais:  Well, I remember when one summer back home, AIM, people that thought they were affiliated with AIM, got people to testify in public that they’re tired of being pushed around, being discriminated against.  They’d hold these meetings almost every weekend back home.  They would even march, maybe fifteen miles, to get their point across.  I know one particular bar, they didn’t like what was happening to the Indian people there, being drunk and lying out on the highway.  The bar is right next to the highway.  And they would march from there all the way up to the bar.  I remember they were meeting, a whole bunch of Indian people, there.  And they were saying that it was wrong that they had that bar there, and they just didn’t like the white person running that bar.  And there were a lot of good Indian men that were going downhill because of it.  And they had marches in Farmington weekend after weekend.  So even around my home area, AIM was really the thing.  And even after that, AIM people from up north somewhere, they took over the Fairchild Plant and laid off maybe a few hundred Navajo people.  Some of the people that worked there, they believed in some of the principles AIM stood for.  But then there’s some Indian people that worked there that really didn’t want any part of it.  But the end result, because AIM had marched there in town, took over the plant for a few days.  The plant just shut down completely, all the employees there were laid off.  So in that respect, too, I think that wasn’t good, but it happened.
Boyes:  [00:44:46]  You mentioned in your hometown.  Again, where is your hometown?
Beavais:  Shiprock.
Boyes:  Okay.  In retrospect, are you happy with your career choice?
Beavais:  I really am, yes.
Boyes:  How so?
Beavais:  Well, I think just working with Indian students and being able to relate to them in their own language, it’s a good feeling—especially with the small children.  They need someone that can relate to them in their own language—at the same time maybe encourage English, and where you feel like a child needs help….  I mean, they can mimic beautifully, but what good is it when they don’t even know what they’re saying?  In that respect, where you feel like you can relate to them and tell them what they’re really saying, what you’re trying to teach, I think that really—it’s a good feeling, because a lot of Indian students years back, they didn’t have Indian people working as teachers.  They were forced to speak English from the first moment they got to the boarding school situation.  I think we need more and more Indian people that are educated, that are certified and qualified to work with the Indian people.
Boyes:  Do you have any of your former students coming back to you for counsel, or just to talk?
Beavais:  Yeah, I do.  They come around just any time.  They talk Navajo to me.  They’re a little bit shy, but sometimes they come to the room, they’ll talk, fool around a little bit, and then leave.
Boyes:  What type of relationship have you had with the Bureau of Indian Affairs?  Have you ever had any communications with them or anything?
Beavais:  [00:46:43]  Well, I never went to boarding school before in my life.  I never went to a BIA school.  But the only experience I’ve had with them, before that time, was just hearing from other people, saying that they’d been in a boarding school situation, and some of them didn’t care for it, and some did.  The first time I’ve had experience with a boarding school was when I went to work out there at Leupp.  Then a lot of times I feel like it’s not good to have a small child being away from home all week, and never seeing their parents.  But sometimes on the other hand, the parents may not be able to provide for a child the way he should be.  I mean, a child comes to the boarding school situation and eats three meals a day, he’s got a place to stay.  Things aren’t that bad in the boarding school situation, I don’t think, nowadays.  I mean, we can’t really say what’s going on today was the same twenty, thirty years ago.  They made mistakes, Indian education hasn’t been the best, but I’d like to say that it’s starting to look better now.  I do feel sorry for small children being in the boarding situation, but many times I look at the parents, some of them drink, these children are left alone.  You have to look at those kinds of things and look at it like that, and say that maybe this boarding school is the best thing.  But then on the other hand, who’s to say?
Boyes:  Are there any pieces of legislation that you’re aware of that have been passed by Congress that you think are particularly good, or particularly bad?
Beavais:  Well, not so much now.  I mean in the past it has been that way.  But as a result of maybe AIM or Indian people speaking up for themselves, saying what education ought to be like, I think people are beginning to notice that for once we are human too, we have feelings.  I think it’s beginning to look better all the way around.  But this where they believe an Indian person should have the same opportunities as anyone else, I think that’s good, where they’re trying to get more and more Indian people to teach their own kind, their own tribe.  I think that’s good too.  I know that the Navajo Tribe has a teacher training program where they try to work like Teacher Corps does—maybe two years have a certain number of interns that go through a university, but work at the same time at the boarding school situation, and at the end of two years graduate then with teacher certification.
Boyes:  [00:49:58]  In conclusion, would you summarize for me where you think Indian education is at present, or where it is projected to go?
Beavais:  Well, with the act that was passed a number of years ago on Indian self-determination, I think if that says that an Indian person should get an education, then hopefully they’ll turn around and educate their own people.  If this can go that route, I think that’s really good.  I think we need more and more Indian people in education, not only as teachers, but lawyers and doctors, what have you, to work with their own kind.  And I’m not saying that a school should have an all-Indian staff either.  But on the other hand, you always need this exchange, where I would like to have other nationalities to work with Indian people, so we can get an exchange.  And I think that in itself is really educational, where you can’t be one-sided.  In other words, I mean, you’re going to always come into contact with other groups of people, and I think it’s kind of like, you know, this culture, this one, this one, this one, that one, as a person you understand maybe.  And that way you learn to live with other people and understand other people more.  To me, that in itself is education.
Boyes:  Alright.  Thank you very much.
[END OF INTERVIEW]