Navajo families get creative to learn remotely in pandemic
BLUFF, Utah (AP) — Georgiana Simpson is an art teacher at Whitehorse High School in Montezuma Creek, Utah, a small community on the Navajo Nation. But since March, She’s been working from her home 20 minutes away in Bluff.
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, KUER-FM reported. That’s where she broadcasts video lessons for her students.
On a recent Monday morning, she introduced an art assignment related to evolution.
“I 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?” she asked her students.
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.
“Are you going to draw a local animal, or are you going to create a new animal that’s adapted to droughts or wildfires?”
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 8 of her 18 students were able to get on the call.
Mortality due to COVID-19 is around five times higher in San Juan County than in the rest of the state of Utah. That’s mostly due to 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.
To fix that, the San Juan School District is working on a $4 million project. But until that’s finished, teachers and parents on the reservation have had to find creative ways to help...