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Arizona

Volunteering: Navajo Nation Schools

Program No. 6262RJ

There’s a Navajo proverb that says, “We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” Give back as you volunteer in schools on the Navajo Reservation.

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Protecting the Environment

We offset a portion of the emissions created by your travel. Learn more

7 days

6 nights

17 meals

6B 5L 6D

Check-in, Registration, Orientation, Welcome Dinner

Cameron, AZ

Meet School Staff & Students, Native American Arts & Crafts

Cameron, AZ

Classroom Assignments, Contemporary Navajo Issues

Cameron, AZ

Classroom Assignments

Cameron, AZ

Classroom Assignments, Navajo Culture Lecture

Cameron, AZ

Classroom Assignments, Tuba City Market, Program Wrap-Up

Cameron, AZ

Program Concludes

Cameron, AZ

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At a Glance

Assist the students and educators from the Tuba City School District on the Navajo Reservation, grades K-8th, where many families continue to burn wood for warmth, haul water and use generators for electricity. Learn about educational challenges on the Navajo Nation. The only requirement of volunteers is flexibility and adaptability.

Activity Level

On Your Feet

Easy walking around lodge and school on mostly paved and flat surfaces. Elevations of 4,200 feet.

Small Group

Love to learn and explore in a small-group setting? These adventures offer small, personal experiences with groups of 13 to 24 participants.

Best of all, you’ll…

Explore the rewards of helping students and working with teachers as you interact with children and educational staff in a classroom setting.
Enjoy a field trip to explore additional aspects of Navajo/Diné culture and a visit to the weekly market in Tuba City featuring traditional foods and crafts.
Experience evening programs on Navajo/Diné culture that provide additional insight into the challenges faced by tribal members.

General Notes

Schools on the Navajo Reservation require volunteers to have a current State Of Arizona Fingerprint Clearance card before entering the schools. Information on this requirement will be sent to participants approximately 6 months prior to the program start date. /// Due to the nature of this program, listening devices are not available.

Featured Expert

All trip experts

James Bilagody

James Bilagody has been entertaining Road Scholar participants with his stories, wit, and music for many years. He has twice been nominated for the Native American Music Awards, as well as having received consideration for a Grammy Award. Skilled in both percussion and guitar, James is able to fuse traditional Navajo storytelling and culture into a modern perspective and sound.

Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.

James Bilagody View biography

Tracy P. Kee View biography

Tracy Kee, a native of the Deep South, grew up primarily in Tennessee. During her time working for a study abroad program in Italy, she met her full-blood Navajo husband, Eric, while he was teaching English to Italians. In 2007, after marrying, Tracy moved to the Navajo reservation. Tracy taught part-time business and computer classes at Diné College in Tuba City, AZ for many years. They have three children and enjoy a variety of outdoor recreational activities in northern Arizona.

Suggested Reading List (7 books)

Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop

You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.

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Volunteering: Navajo Nation Schools

Program Number: 6262

Dine Bahane: The Navajo Creation Story

by Zolbrod, Paul G

This is the most complete version of the Navajo creation story to appear in English since Washington Matthews' Navajo Legends of 1847. Zolbrod's new translation renders the power and delicacy of the oral storytelling performance on the page through a poetic idiom appropriate to the Navajo oral tradition. Zolbrod's book offers the general reader a vivid introduction to Navajo culture. For students of literature this book proposes a new way of looking at our literary heritage.

Native Roads : The Complete Motoring Guide to the Navajo and Hopi Nations

by Kosik, Frank

Using the mile markers of the US, Arizona, and Navajo highways and routes running through the Navajo and Hopi nations as her organizing principle, the author offers a travel guide to the sites found in the area. Natural, historical, and cultural points of interest are covered, along with some information on lodging and services. 280 pp

In the House of Rain

by Childs, Craig

In this landmark work on the Anasazi tribes of the Southwest, naturalist Craig Childs dives head on into the mysteries of this vanished people. The various tribes that made up the Anasazi people converged on Chaco Canyon (New Mexico) during the 11th century to create a civilization hailed as "the Las Vegas of its day," a flourishing cultural center that attracted pilgrims from far and wide, and a vital crossroads of the prehistoric world. By the 13th century, however, Chaco's vibrant community had disappeared without a trace. Was it drought? Pestilence? War? Forced migration, mass murder or suicide? Conflicting theories have abounded for years, capturing the North American imagination for eons.

The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing

by Alvord, Lori

The first Navajo woman surgeon combines western medicine and traditional healing. A spellbinding journey between two worlds, this remarkable book describes surgeon Lori Arviso Alvord's struggles to bring modern medicine to the Navajo reservation in Gallup, New Mexico—and to bring the values of her people to a medical care system in danger of losing its heart. 204 pp

Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West

by Sides, Hampton

In the summer of 1846, the Army of the West marched through Santa Fe, en route to invade and occupy the Western territories claimed by Mexico. Fueled by the new ideology of “Manifest Destiny,” this land grab would lead to a decades-long battle between the United States and the Navajos, the fiercely resistant rulers of a huge swath of mountainous desert wilderness. In Blood and Thunder, Hampton Sides gives us a magnificent history of the American conquest of the West. At the center of this sweeping tale is Kit Carson, the trapper, scout, and soldier whose adventures made him a legend. Sides shows us how this illiterate mountain man understood and respected the Western tribes better than any other American, yet willingly followed orders that would ultimately devastate the Navajo nation. Rich in detail and spanning more than three decades, this is an essential addition to our understanding of how the West was really won.

The Fourth World of the Hopis: The Epic Story of the Hopi Indians As Preserved in Their Legends and Traditions

by Courlander, Harold

Folklorist Courlander traces Hopi legends from the tribe’s search through the wilderness for its home location to its settling on the Hopi Mesas and development thereafter. 239pp

Diné: A History of the Navajos

by Iverson, Peter; Roessel, Monty

This comprehensive narrative traces the history of the Navajos from their origins to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Based on extensive archival research, traditional accounts, interviews, historic and contemporary photographs, and firsthand observation, it provides a detailed, up-to-date portrait of the Diné past and present that will be essential for scholars, students, and interested general readers, both Navajo and non-Navajo.

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Volunteering: Navajo Nation Schools

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Protecting the Environment

At a Glance

Best of all, you’ll…

General Notes

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