VOLUNTEERS | Jordie Clifford, Immersion Kindergarten Teacher's Aide
Where did you grow up and go to school?
I started at another public school not far from Pine Ridge, but it wasn’t challenging for me. I eventually came to Red Cloud, for both the education and for basketball. I was at Red Cloud from sixth grade to my senior year, and I graduated last year in 2019.
In all honesty, it wasn't in my plans to stick around here for college. I had plans to go to [the University of Minnesota at] Morris, or Arizona State, just a bigger university. But junior year, toward the beginning of it, I went through a medical problem with my kidneys. I got hospitalized for a month because they didn't know why anything was happening, and I was so young. And I’m a really big sports person, so it was really hard not to be playing volleyball or basketball during that time.
When I got out of the hospital, they wouldn’t clear me for playing sports, because I had been put on blood thinners. They restricted me from running or jumping, I could only walk. But Matt [Rama, Red Cloud’s girls’ varsity basketball coach, and also a Lakȟóta language teacher] asked me if I wanted to be a stats keeper. And for basketball, he would only coach in Lakȟóta. He would only speak the Lakȟóta language to us, even in practice. The only time he ever spoke in English to us was if he really needed to explain something and we couldn’t understand what he was saying. And I think that really started all of the girls on our team on their journey wanting to know more Lakȟóta.
Is that what led you to become a teacher’s aide in the immersion classroom?
Yes. Before graduation, I finally made the decision to stay here and go to Oglala Lakȟóta College (OLC), and get my degree in elementary education. Growing up, that’s always been my goal—I’ve always wanted to work with kids and be in the classroom, to be a kindergarten through fifth grade teacher.
Before graduation, Matt was talking to me about going to the Lakȟóta language classes that they have here every day. And during the summer, he asked if I was interested in a job for during the school year, assisting Sierra (Concha, Red Cloud’s immersion kindergarten teacher) in her classroom. But he said, there’s one thing—it’s all in Lakȟóta. He said I know you know some of the language, but this year, you’ll really have to push for it, because you’re only going to speak Lakȟóta to your students. He told me how to start an application, and that's basically how I ended up here in the kindergarten immersion.
How has this first year in the classroom gone so far?
At times it’s been stressful, because there have been moments when I really didn't understand what Sierra was saying. But I’ve tried to listen closely to the sentences she would speak to the kids, and then I'd catch on. I think it was easier for me to catch on because I grew up in the cultural ways, and around people who spoke Lakȟóta, although I never learned as a child. I think it wasn’t until my eighth grade year that I decided that I really wanted to learn. As I got older, I understood how important it is for us to know our language.
How does it feel to be teaching a new generation the Lakȟóta language—and to support growing revitalization efforts?
It’s so exciting, but sometimes it also scares me. I fear that somebody is going to come in again and tell these kids that their language can't be spoken. There’s so much happening in the language right now: there’s a student from my own class at Red Cloud who is at Dartmouth doing Lakȟóta language classes and actually exposing our language to more people. And even after just a few months, we are seeing some of our kindergarteners are able to read the language on their own. This generation, these upcoming children, they're going to be something great, even if they don't know it yet.
Most of all, I want them to know that learning their language is okay. Now that the language is being revitalized, I want them to have confidence that, if someone tries to take it again, you have the power to bring it back. You may not think you can, but you can bring the language back.
My grandpa went here to [Red Cloud, when it was still called] Holy Rosary. And he has said that, if any of them spoke the Lakȟóta language, they would get hit with a ruler or something like that. It was just to get language out of them, so they would only speak English. Today he is okay with coming into the school buildings, the high school and elementary school, because they didn’t have those buildings back then, when he was here. But he won’t come into [historic building] Drexel Hall, because of the memories of what happened there.
He has widened my perspective on how important it is to be teaching these young kids the language. And if I had gone off to a bigger school, just to get a degree somewhere else, I probably wouldn’t have made that choice.
How are you balancing this important work with school?
I'm a full time student, so that's four classes, but I chose all evening classes, so that I can be in the classroom. Sometimes it's hard to balance it, but I always get it together. I feel like Red Cloud really prepared me for a lot of it. For example, I’m always way ahead in my math class. But if I ever fall behind on an assignment, I can talk to Sierra and she’ll help cover things so I can get my work done. Sierra also stays after the school day to teach me and my fellow teacher’s aide the language, and that’s how we’re expanding our language skills. So I’ve got a lot of support.
With this experience, do you think you want to continue to teach the language?
I think I would love to continue to teach the language as I go on and learn more. It was always a big goal of mine, even if I went off to a big university, to come back to my reservation and teach the kids here. My goal was to get my education and to come back and teach at one of the public schools, to help them improve and make sure every rez kid is getting the education they need.
Do you have a favorite moment from the classroom that you could share?
There’s so many. Our classroom is set up with four stations, and it’s just always so great when one of our students comes over to my station and says something in Lakȟóta. It just warms my heart. They are also learning songs now, and when the girls come to my station, they are always singing, and it's so cute because they just get every single word right.
But I think my most favorite moment of the day is singing the Four Directions song. I don’t think a lot of our students had heard it before coming into our class—so me and Sierra just started singing it each morning, and by the second week, they were all singing with us. So now, every morning, it's just amazing because we all sing together. Sometimes they forget little parts here and there, but they are always getting better, just like they are in the language. That’s definitely my favorite part.
Photos © Red Cloud Indian School
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