Education milestones: Examples for the 'long run'

Posted: March 18, 2005
by: Editors Report / Indian Country Today

People dedicated to the good and proper development of the young are still too rare. There are more than a few superlative educators in Indian country, but always there is great need for more. Never before have Indian youth (and all youth) needed more guidance in reaffirming their core identities in a positive and overwhelming manner.

American Indian people across the Western Hemisphere recognize that a Native intelligence must guide the education of their young people. Grounded in traditional cultural values, this education would be expansive of the knowledge incorporated, studying everything, debating everything that humanity has conceived and produced.

This week we ponder the beginning of a new Indian university in Mexico, the seeming demise of a classic Indian college in California and words spoken on the life of David Risling Jr., whose example in gentle persuasion is worthy of emulation.

In the center of the Mazahua region of Mexico, a university was founded recently that has become the first such institution for Indian people sponsored by the federal Education Secretariat of Mexico. This is great news for a country where not 20 years ago, the notion of an exclusively ''mestizo'' nation, countenancing little to no survival for indigenous people, was the dominant concept for society.

The new ''Intercultural University of the State of Mexico'' is dedicated to the education of Mazahuas, Ottomi, Matlazincas and Tlahuica tribal Mexicans. The first-year class is comprised of 70 percent women and 30 percent men; most of the Native students are primarily monolingual in their indigenous languages. The first-year courses concentrate in adaptation to Spanish and other languages and in improving science and math proficiency. The Indian university, which offers the equivalent of bachelor's and master's degrees, will matriculate 270 students in three main fields: sustainable development, languages and culture (interpreters) and intercultural communication.

As always with these trend-setting projects, special people provide inspiration. In Mexico, widely revered historian and professor Miguel Le?n Portilla is a major player in the inspiration for an Indian-guided education. Portilla has for many decades led the fight for more respectful understanding and recognition of Mexico's indigenous populations, which number over 10 million (monolingual speakers of Native languages), and the cultural and linguistic legacy they provide for the country. Local doctor Jose Gardu? and bilingual educator Sylvia Schmelkes are also among those credited with helping the successful campaign to launch the university. Schmelkes announced last September that the new institution is the first of eight indigenous universities that will be built throughout Mexico.

Throughout the 20th century, Indian people of the Western Hemisphere have fought to gain control of their own education and to fulfill the aspiration to base their curricula for Native students upon their own languages and cultural values. However, many such schools have come and gone. Certainly there are those in Mexico who would call Schmelkes unduly optimistic; nevertheless, the quality of those who sustain this most heartfelt of Native aspirations is to create new opportunities, regardless of temporary setbacks.

Northward to the U.S., a vanguard Indian school seems to have folded in California during a time of mourning for one of its luminary founders and major individual spirits. That school is D-Q University, a venerable and trend-setting college named after two American Indian mytho-historical characters, the Aztec hero, Quetzalcoatl and the Iroquois Peacemaker, whose name is generally spoken only in ceremony.

The Western Association of Schools and Colleges, after warnings last year, withdrew accreditation for DQU in January. The loss of accreditation came as the second semester was slated to begin and left many students in a lurch. A new 13-member board of American Indian professionals, including five of the original board members, joined to tackle the issues last year, but these proved insurmountable.

Among the numerous problems confronting the college is maintaining the necessary 51 percent American Indian enrollment to satisfy BIA funding requirements - a particular challenge in California, where many tribes don't have federal recognition. Accusations of fiscal mismanagement, a lack of qualified administrators and diminishment of educational standards have surfaced, and apparently even the university's land is in jeopardy as a result of loans. Largely the moves of desperation as budgets dwindled, the fiscal mismanagement issues loom large and this long-struggling and pioneering Indian educational institution appears to be in terminal trouble.

Doubly sad for this demise is that it comes among days of mourning for a California Indian elder who consensus indicates was a man of great wisdom and dedication, among many superlative characteristics.

This was David Risling Jr., California educator and leader of many decades, whom Delaware professor Jack Forbes called ''a giant for two millennia'' at an honoring just three years ago. Risling was a founder of DQU and several other important Indian organizations, including the California Indian Legal Association, the California Indian Education Association, the Native American Rights Fund and the Native American Studies Department at UC-Davis, among others.

In the same tribute to Risling in October 2001, Forbes eloquently praised the beloved educator, who he said ''learned how to pace himself, how to aim for the long-haul not for the quick knock-out'' and who taught that although ''victory does not come quickly,'' we must learn ''how to be tenacious without being bitter, to be tough without being angry.''

It was Risling's possession of ''a very broad vision,'' Forbes emphasized, that made the beloved educator ''able to see into the past and from that into the future, so as to be able to create, or help to create.''

While the closure of promising institutions such as D-Q University becomes seriously traumatic, in the example of exceptional lives of educational leaders such as Miguel Le?n Portilla (79) in Mexico and of David Risling Jr. in the United States, we are reminded that the great legacies of Quetzalcoatl and of the Haudenosaunee Peacemaker remain alive and active in those who have made substantial contributions. This is why we can believe that whatever our temporary setbacks, in the long run, the truth of the Native people will prevail.

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Last updated on March 18, 2005