Small Things Count for Big Things| Professional Development

Small Things Count for Big Things photo of Myra Shawaway

Myra Shawaway, manager of the tribal Culture and Heritage Department, was born in Warm Springs of a Paiute father and raised by a grandmother who spoke Sahaptin, the language of the Warm Springs people. Typical of her generation, she did not learn a native language. For the last 20 years, Shawaway has worked for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs in various programs. But with the Heritage Language Program, she has found "the place where my heart lies."

Shawaway describes the program's evolution:
"A charter school grant in 1995 helped us get started on planning and implementation. All our staff trained for one month at the American Indian Language Development Institute at the University of Arizona. It was an experience. Many of us had never been in a college setting, but by the time we left we had studied linguistics and curriculum development, and we knew how to use the library and computers.

"Then we came back home and sat down and said, 'now, where do we start?' The written language developed by the linguists was good, but we felt it was too complicated for teaching young children. So we simplified it, keeping it as phonetic as possible but making it user-friendly. Some of those who had learned the linguists' way of writing dug in their heels a little bit and said this was not the way we should go. But we faced our critics and said that's fine for writing, but what we're looking for is the ability to teach a way to speak.

"In 1997 three Sahaptin teachers began teaching the kindergarten kids at Warm Spring Elementary. The following year a curriculum developer came on staff to help develop a syllabus and ongoing curriculums for each grade. We had to start from the bottom up because there is no information on a curriculum for the Sahaptin language. We're barely staying one step ahead of the classes. The kids learn so quickly.

"One of our reasons for introducing our language program in the schools is that we have a captive audience. We could not generate enough interest in the community in language classes, but now we're seeing that as the children learn in school, the grandparents and parents are also beginning to use their native language. Grandmothers will correct the kids when they're not pronouncing a word right, for example, and when I see people in the supermarket, they'll greet me in Sahaptin. That's never happened before. Small things are counting for big things.

"Most of our teachers are fluent speakers, 50 years or older, who didn't have the opportunity to go to college, but we are continually doing professional development. Right now the teachers are taking college courses to build a foundation to apply for teacher certification. The professional development here has really contributed to our ability to keep the languages in the school.

"In the future we hope to develop content standards and benchmarks equivalent to what the state of Oregon requires. Right now we have a group from the University of Oregon and the Oregon Department of Education working with us to develop benchmarks that will be culturally sensitive to Native American languages.

"If we can grow with the school system and get heritage language curriculum into the high schools, we'd be really happy. In 10 years, our hope is to have 300 fluent speakers coming out of the schools."

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