This paper describes a microethnographic pilot study describing, analyzing, and interpreting how culture is transmitted and retained in one Navajo public school system. The study is both historically and educationally significant because it presents a portrait of the everyday realities of art teaching and learning in a school system during a period of transition as new teachers were hired, and new programs were developed. The aim of the study was to understand education in this context and to come to know the participants in order to offer a vivid education picture and some sensitive insights. Comparisons suggested that Navajo art education had changed greatly and was centered around the student as a Navajo and an American. Conflicts in the meanings of culture and education existed between the Navajo conception of education as a process of cultural preservation and harmony and the dominant culture emphasis on cultural change. The quality and quantity of art teachers have improved greatly. Even Anglo teachers adopted some Navajo teaching strategies such as being patient, flexible, gentle, and offering more individual technical and perceptual guidance, to relax and exchange good natured teasing. The Navajo word for teaching is showing. The culture teachers showed more than just technique. They shared ethical values like persistence, self-esteem, sharing, and the aesthetics of beauty. They were more repetitive in teaching and used more personal story telling, an appropriate art history method to adopt. (DK)