lg. survival prsnt'n help?

[samuels at anthro.umass.edu]

I'm going to Arizona later this month to do a language revitalization
presentation at the school district on the San Carlos Apache reservation.

Feeling like I'm reinventing the wheel, I wanted to appeal to anyone who
has done something like this for guidance. I need to be practical rather
than abstract, and also need to anticipate the questions and objections of
the people I'll be talking to, not just bringing up things that are
unrelated to their actual concerns.

So I'm wondering if anyone can help figure out what primary and secondary
school teachers and administrators need to hear?  I'm guessing that things
might be of the level of "why should the school be involved," "isn't this
really the parents' responsibility," "doesn't speaking Apache detract from
English competence." But if I'm wrong, then my preparation for the trip is
wasted.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. If people respond to me
personally, I can prepare a digest of comments. (Is this something that's
on the linganth website - which seems to have disappeared - and if not,
shouldn't it be?)

Thanks and best wishes,

David Samuels
UMass-Amherst

(Related footnote: for those don't know, Arizona has a Ron Unz-sponsored
"English for the Children" initiative (Proposition 203) on the November
ballot. The text of the initiative, as well as that of a Navajo Tribal
Council resolution strongly opposing the initiative (the vote was 64-0), is
available in the Spring newsletter of the Arizona Language Education
Council:

http://www.alec2000.org/

James Crawford also has information on prop 203 linked to his language
policy website:

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/az-unz.htm )


David W. Samuels
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
212 Machmer Hall
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003

VOX: (413) 545-2702
FAX: (413) 545-9494
email: samuels at anthro.umass.edu
http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~samuels/

wot 2 be got 2 be