spotlight on honors

Experiential Learning

cross-cultural experience With the Navajo Nation IN Arizona

April 2011 

In a cultural and educational experience spanning the week of April 24, Indiana State University and the Poverty and Education Seminar participants hosted a dynamic group of eighth and ninth grade students, members of the Navajo Nation in Pinon, Arizona. The visit, organized through collaboration with the students’ teacher and ISU alumna Kristin Monts, married the first-hand encounter of a university setting for the students with a cultural exchange for ISU. A laboratory project, an overview of ISU’s media technology, elementary education math, and small group discussions over "The Giver" characterized the hands-on engagement between the students and ISU – and that was just the first day. The rest of the week included places of interest in Terre Haute – a day at North and South high schools, and tours of the Clabber Girl, C.A.N.D.L.E.S. Holocaust Museum, the Children’s Museum, and even a ghost walk with Nan McEntire, associate professor of English at ISU.

The week’s activities were an introduction to ISU and our city, centered on the desire from the visiting students to travel to a place far from their home and, one day, attend college.

From the scope of ISU’s facilities and resources, to Indiana’s geographical characteristics (“So much green!”), to the  variety in everything from our living situations and food selection, many differences were noted between our environment and that to which the students are accustomed on their reservation. In a living portrait of these differences, following a slideshow of Pinon, Arizona images, the students   presented poetry, ceremonial craft traditions and dance, and personal stories to a rapt audience in Cunningham Memorial Library the day before their departure. Despite these deep contrasts in experience and background, the interactions among the participants from Indiana State and the Pinon Middle School and High School students revealed outstanding commonalities relevant to the Seminar’s focus: educational passion, and lifelong aspirations.

-Morgan Mayle, Pre-Law/Political Science major

view A video about this trip