Photo courtesy of Jeffrey S. Hall Photography
Jan Kelley-Standford
A retired educator from the Upper Arlington City School District has spent more than 30 years in the classroom in the Columbus area, but her experience teaching on a Navajo reservation for two years is something she looks back on with particular fondness.
Jan Kelley-Stafford taught special education in Columbus City Schools for 20 years before leaving for Upper Arlington High School in 2002. She worked there until 2013, when she decided to retire.
She began working with special education students when she was a student at Bedford High School in Cleveland and often gave up her lunch period to help teach swimming lessons at the YMCA across the street. That eventually led her to determine she wanted to be a teacher, a role she feels is an important one.
“I just want students to enjoy learning,” Kelley-Stafford says. “I want learning to be lifelong, I want to help kids become conscious decision-makers and I would like the world to know that all children are valued and they have equal value. I’d like to see myself working to transform the social conditions that support (the idea) that all children are valuable.”
It wasn’t until she attended a conference for the Council for Exceptional Children, an organization for special education teachers, in Washington, D.C., that she learned about an organization that was recruiting for teachers in northeast Arizona on a Navajo reservation at Red Valley/Cove High School. Kelley-Stafford exchanged information with a recruiter and eventually traveled to Arizona to nurse her son, who was injured in a motorcycle accident.
She also drove nine hours to the reservation school where she was being recruited, proof that this was a new path she was determined to pursue.
“I thought, ‘When I retire from Upper Arlington, I can come out here to work,’” Kelley-Stafford says. “I knew I wanted to be there, although it took a lot of contemplation to be leaving my family here in Ohio.”
Photo courtesy of Jan Kelley-Stafford
Ruby, who Kelley-Stafford calls “an exception Navajo weaver,” designed and wove the rug she is holding, alone with the two in the background.
Kelley-Stafford moved to Arizona in July 2013, a month after retiring from her job at UAHS.
She stayed in a traditional Navajo eight-sided house, where she was able to enjoy nature every day. The decision to relocate out west was one she had discussed with her children, her parents and her husband, Michael, all of whom were supportive.
“I’m a pretty independent wife and he’s not a very needy husband,” she says, laughing.
She taught on the reservation during the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years, and says the experience was unique in that there were only four certified teachers and 52 students at the high school.
“We did a lot of crossover – the English teachers did some life skills classes, science teachers taught math – and I even taught a geometry and trigonometry course,” Kelley-Stafford says. “So … I had to teach was different, but the students were pretty much the same.”
She also enjoyed learning about students, their families and their culture, which granted her the opportunity to eat fry bread, an important staple of the Navajo culture, in addition to Navajo tacos.
“I had people invite me to their homes and I just had to gain their trust, and I did that by letting them know I cared about their children and I honored their culture as well,” Kelley-Stafford says. “I think gaining the parents’ respect and trust was important.”
1 of 5
Photo courtesy of Jan Kelley-Stafford
A younger sister of one of Kelly-Stafford’s students.“I went to his home several times a week, and always took treats,” says Kelley-Stafford. “Apparently, pigs like gummy worms.”
2 of 5
Photo courtesy of Jan Kelley-Stafford
One of Kelley-Stafford’s graduating senior students sits in a rock formation in his back yard.
3 of 5
Photo courtesy of Jan Kelley-Stafford
On the last day of school in 2015, students and faculty release balloons.
4 of 5
Photo courtesy of Jan Kelley-Stafford
“Basketball is important to the students and community. Our team, from our high school of 52 students, was two games from going to the state conference,” says Kelley-Stafford.
5 of 5
Photo courtesy of Jan Kelley-Stafford
A silhouette of a mountain range where Kelley-Stafford lived for two years in Arizona.
Kelley-Stafford believes students learn best when they know their teachers and vice versa.
“I really try to make learning meaningful and encourage discovery, and whatever I can do to get them to see how it will relate to their lives now and try to get them to see how it could relate later,” Kelley-Stafford says. “I think what’s been important to me is that the students inspire me and I celebrate their learning, … but I celebrate that they’ve accomplished something, that they’ve made learning their own and taken charge of their own process.”
The experience on the Navajo reservation is one she looks back on as an enlightening experience, and she would consider the opportunity to teach there again.
“It helped me learn about another culture and it expanded my view of the world and people and children in the world,” Kelley-Stafford says. “It was a great retirement experience.”
Kelley-Stafford still remains busy as a special education tutor in Columbus schools and feels it’s important for her to stay involved.
“I feel like I’ve got enough life in me to continue teaching and be a productive member of society,” she says. “I get a satisfaction out of watching kids learn, and I do get joy out of celebrating their accomplishments.”
Matthew Kent is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
