2008 Teacher of the Year Robert Kelty, Colleagues Making ‘Bridge of Beauty’ Vision at Puente de Hózhó a Reality

FLAGSTAFF – As Puente de Hózhó Elementary School teacher Robert Kelty addressed the crowd after being named the Arizona Educational Foundation 2008 Teacher of the Year, he shared his passionate belief in the power of teachers as change agents for their students and for education.

After all, Kelty and his colleagues have witnessed that power of change on three different cultures first hand since Puente de Hózhó first opened its doors in 2001.  Roughly translated Bridge of Beauty, the innovative trilingual immersion school has, according to the Puente de Hózhó Navajo Revitalization Project website, http://www.puentedehozho.org, “…worked to build bridges of beauty between the rich languages and cultures of the American Southwest.”

Kelty and his colleagues have worked to address three major educational needs within the northern Arizona community during the 1990’s:

• The desire among English-speaking parents in the Flagstaff community for their children to be educated in two languages
• Rising drop-out and failure rates among Hispanic and American Indian students
• Distress among Navajo elders that fewer and fewer children could speak their tribal language.

In order to address all three concerns, the school sought to “create an educational environment where students of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds could learn…while pursing the ‘Power of Two,’ or the ability to speak, read and write proficiently in two languages.”

That vision continues at Puente de Hózhó today as English students are learning Spanish, Spanish speakers are learning English and Navajo students are connecting more deeply with their native culture while acquiring their tribal language.

Kelty has helped make that vision a reality, teaching second and third grades in English in the Navajo immersion program. As part of that program, students who already speak English are immersed in Navajo for most of the day in Kindergarten.  Each year thereafter the amount of English instruction is increased until there is a 50/50 balance between the two languages.

The Spanish/English program allows children to learn both languages with half of the school day taught in Spanish, and the other half taught in English.

Both programs are paramount to Puente de Hózhó’s three primary goals for its students – academic excellence, bilingualism and cultural enrichment.  Michael Fillerup, a director of bilingual education for the Flagstaff Unified School District, said in an article on the website ultimately each Puente de Hózhó student, “…will play a part in preserving and embellishing that rich multi-cultural tapestry that is the American Southwest.”

That’s the kind of change that Kelty and his colleagues can be proud of!