Door 15

AKHF Welcomes New Board Member

The Alaska Humanities Forum is pleased to welcome John Haile Cloe to its Board of Directors.

John is a retired military historian and retired Army Reserve colonel who served two tours of duty in Vietnam as an Infantry officer. He is the author of two books: Aleutian Warriors: A History of the 11th Air Force and Fleet Air Wing 4, and Top Cover for America: The Air Force in Alaska, 1920-1983. John also has written several nationally published articles and has appeared on the History and Discovery Channels on various occasions as an expert on Alaska’s military past, including the popular 2009 History Channel documentaryThe Bloody Aleutians. John is the recipient of two Air Force Historian of the Year and Alaska Historian of the Year awards. 

John Cloe (right) on the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro

Until a badly broken shoulder stopped him, John was an active mountaineer with all the Cascade Mountains over 10,000 feet and all but one of the highest state peaks plus Kilimanjaro and the Everest base camp to his credit. He lives with his wife, Susan, the former president and general manager of Alaska Public Telecommunications, Inc., in the Rabbit Creek area of Anchorage.

Forum Seeks New President/CEO

The Alaska Humanities Forum is seeking a President/CEO responsible for overseeing the day-to-day functions of the Forum, while guiding and directing the planning and development, working in concert with the board of directors, administrators, program leadership and staff, constituents, government and funding agencies to grow the organization’s operational capacity and maintain production of meaningful programs that support the mission statement.

Education, Experience, Abilities: Applicants for the position must have earned a four-year degree from an accredited college or university. A Master’s degree is preferred. The applicant must possess strong communication skills, including cross-cultural capabilities, be well organized and be able to manage all aspects of a federal grant.

Please review the complete job description and requirements here.

Email cover letter and resume to:

alaskahumanities@gmail.com by May 15, 2012.

2012 General Grants Announced

Hoonah’s Heroes

Women Make Movies

New York/Hoonah

$10,000

 Hoonah’s Heroes is a feature-length documentary profiling the extraordinary stories of Vietnam War veterans from the village of Hoonah, a Tlingit community on Chichagof Island in southeast Alaska, about 30 miles west of Juneau. Thirty-nine Tlingit men from Hoonah experienced combat in the Vietnam War, adapting their outdoor survival and hunting skills to become expert snipers and infiltrators. All but one of the 39 men survived, making Hoonah not only the American town with the highest per capita enlistment rate in the war but also the town with the highest survival rate of combat soldiers.

Before they went to war, the Hoonah men made their living as commercial fisherman. While they served their country in Vietnam, a law was passed that prohibited fishermen from catching more fish than they had the year before – so when the men returned home, they were robbed of their livelihoods as their old jobs were taken over by white men.

Hoonah’s Heroes traces the tension between the soldiers' tremendous pride in service abroad and the racism they encountered at home. It’s being directed and produced by New York City independent filmmaker Samantha Farinella.

For more information on the film click here.

ICEBOUND

API Arts and Outreach Inc.

New York

$10,000

This 90-minute documentary tells the story of the 1925 Serum Run, in which at least 34 mushers and 150 sled dogs relayed antitoxin across the Alaska wilderness to save the people of Nome from a deadly outbreak of diphtheria. ICEBOUND will be broadcast nationally on PBS as well as on German and French television. The filmmakers interviewed more than 30 elders, scholars, mushers, journalists and descendants of those who participated in the Serum Run.

Kodiak’s Filipino Community Stories

Kodiak Historical Society/Baranov Museum

Kodiak

$8,500

Although Filipino-Americans have lived on Kodiak Island for more than 150 years and now constitute 35 percent of Kodiak’s population, until this project there have been no museum exhibits or published research on the island celebrating and exploring their culture and stories.

The Baranov Museum, in collaboration with the Filipino American Association of Kodiak, is engaging high-school students in ethnography and digital storytelling about the history of Filipino-Americans on Kodiak, culminating in a museum exhibit during National Filipino American History Month in October 2012. A digital story kiosk will permanently display the stories at the museum after the temporary exhibit is completed.

The Alutiiq Word of the Week Book

Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository

Kodiak

$8,483

This project will result in the publication of a 276-page paperback volume compiling the complete set of 458 cultural lessons from the Alutiiq Museum’s award-winning education program, Alutiiq Word of the Week. The book will also include an introduction to the Alutiiq language plus about 50 previously unpublished historic photographs from the museum’s archives.

THE DEFENDERS OF ALASKA NATIVE COUNTRY

Perseverance Theatre

Juneau

$8,000

Supports the development of “THE DEFENDERS OF ALASKA NATIVE COUNTRY,” a new play by Tlingit/Inupiaq playwright Ishmael Hope that focuses on the story William Paul, an Alaska Native leader who for more than five decades was instrumental in the Native civil rights and land claims social justice movements in Alaska.

Dena’ianq’ Huch’ulyeshi: The Denai’ina Way of Living Catalog

Anchorage Museum Association

Anchorage

$8,000

Dena’ianq’ Huch’ulyeshi: The Denai’ina Way of Living will be a catalog to accompany the first-ever comprehensive exhibition on Dena’ina history and culture, organized by the Anchorage Museum in partnership with the Alaska Native Heritage Center and scheduled to open in May 2013. One thousand hardcover and 3,000 softcover copies of the catalog will be printed.

Documenting Art Technologies

Friends of the Sheldon Jackson Museum

Sitka

$8,000

Through interviews and photography this project will document three Alaska Native artistic technologies – fish skin processing, gut processing, and bentwood hat processing – during public workshops held in Sitka by master artists. This will form the basis for three new technical papers in the “Concepts” series published by the Alaska State Museum.

Traveling By Story Through Copper River Country

Copper River Watershed Project

Cordova

$8,000

This grant funds the recording of oral history interviews of individuals living in the Copper River basin, including original homesteaders and the last generation of Ahtna language speakers. Interviews will be posted to the Copper River Watershed Project’s Tour Our Watershed website.

Alaska Statehood Pioneers: In Their Own Words

KTOO – Capitol Community Broadcasting

Juneau

$7,500

In 2004 noted Alaska historian Dr. Terrence Cole conducted extensive on-camera interviews with living delegates of the Alaska Constitutional Convention (November 8, 1955 – February 6, 1956) as well as individuals who worked at the convention. Alaska Statehood Pioneers: In Their Own Words will digitize and archive these interviews as an oral history collection at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Alaska Film Archives. Additionally, Juneau-based public broadcasting network KTOO will use the interviews to create a ten-part television series that will be broadcast statewide, added to the Alaska Film Archives collection, and housed on the web as free video-on-demand programs along with the full interview transcripts. DVD copies of the interviews will be made available for libraries, schools and state agencies.

People, Place & Parkland: Oral Histories of Pre- and Post-Park Wrangell St. Elias National Park

Wrangell Mountains Center

$7,550

McCarthy

This project will help complete the oral history record of Wrangell St. Elias National Park & Preserve, the largest national park in the United States, by focusing on perspectives that are underrepresented in the existing record. Specifically, the project will focus on individuals whose familiarity with the area predates the establishment of the park in 1980.

Moose Jaw’s Cabin

Alaska Children’s Institute for the Performing Arts

Kenai

$7,305

“Moose Jaw’s Cabin” will be a four-episode children’s television series with each episode exploring a different time period in Alaska’s history and highlighting important events and individuals. The episodes will cover, in order: Russian America (The Baranov era); the Alaska Gold Rush; the history of Alaska aviation; and the contributions of Alaska Natives to the state’s development. The episodes will be hosted by Moose Jaw, an old sourdough who lives in a cabin that has a magic door leading back in the time. “Moose Jaw’s Cabin” will air on KTUU-TV on Saturday mornings during NBC’s children’s programming.

To view a trailer for the series click here.

Formline Interpretation Project

Sealaska Heritage Institute

Juneau

$7,000

Sealaska Heritage Institute is creating a 30-page booklet titled An Interpretive Guide to Northwest Coast Formline. Using a combination of new illustrations and archived photos, the booklet will teach basic interpretation of traditional Northwest Coast art produced by Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian and other indigenous people of the Northwest Coast of North America, from pre-European contact to present. It will cover the history of formline as well as characteristic shapes and colors, and clan crests as proprietary intellectual property. The booklet will be distributed free to regional schools and libraries. A PDF version will be available for free download on the Sealaska Heritage Institute website.

 

Kachemak Bay Writer’s Conference

Kenai Peninsula College

Homer

$7,000

The annual Kachemak Bay Writer’s Conference provides writers, students and literary enthusiasts with an opportunity to explore the art and process of creative writing and contemporary literature while fostering connections among writers, editors, agents and the reading public. The 2012 conference will be held June 8-12 in Homer and will feature 18 nationally recognized authors of nonfiction, poetry and fiction from Alaska and the Lower 48. Barry Lopez, arguably the nation’s premiere nature writer, will be the keynote presenter. Lopez won a National Book Award for his non-fiction work Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape.

The Peratrovich Legacy

League of Women Voters Alaska Educational Fund

Juneau

$7,000

This project will purchase DVDs of For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska for distribution to middle and high schools, University of Alaska Southeast facilities, and libraries in Juneau and throughout Southeast Alaska. This 2009 PBS documentary film, which was funded in part by the Alaska Humanities Forum, brings to life the remarkable story of Alaska’s civil rights movement – the inspiring story of Alaska Natives who, through non-violent social change, overcame prejudice and bigotry to win justice for all Alaskans. The Peratrovich Legacy (named after civil rights activists Elizabeth and Roy Peratrovich) will also provide a discussion guide for teachers and moderators to be collaborative with the film.

Koyukuk River Traditional Place Names: Hughes to Koyukuk

Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association

Anchorage/Husila

$7,000

This project will map traditional Koyukon Athabascan place names and document their meaning and history of use. Place names and their significance were gleaned from numerous oral history interviews conducted in the Athabascan villages of Husila and Koyukok last September. These interviews will be transcribed, summarized and then archived by individual and community. Follow-up interviews for needed clarification will be conducted in Husila. Final products will include a coffee table atlas to be distributed to communities, schools and organizations in the region.

20^th Annual Last Frontier Theatre Conference

Prince William Sound Community College

Valdez

$6,000

Every summer the Last Frontier Theater Conference gathers around 300 playwrights, actors, directors and theater enthusiasts from near and far to spend a week immersed in classes, readings of new plays, panel discussions, and performances. Featured artists at this year’s conference will include internationally produced Australian playwright Timothy Daly; Artist Director of the William Inge Center for the Arts Peter Ellenstein; University of Alaska Fairbanks Assistant Professor of Directing Stephan Golux; Founding Artistic Director of the Circle Repertory Company Marshall Mason; and Alaska playwright Dawson Moore;

Homer Communities of Memory Project Jukebox

University of Alaska Fairbanks

Fairbanks/Homer

$5,000

In 1996 the Alaska Humanities Forum sponsored the Communities of Memory Project that held meetings in towns across the state where residents shared their remembrances about the history of their community and the qualities that made life there special. This 2012 grant will support the production of an on-line interactive program using ten oral history testimonies form the 1996 Homer Community of Memory project. These stories will be added to the existing Communities of Memories Jukebox website and available in digital form in the Oral History Collection at Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Prince William Sound Museum Exhibit Model Construction

Prince William Sound Economic Development District

Whittier

$5,000

Funds the construction of state-of-the-art scale models of aircraft, warships and submarines pertaining to the history of World War II and the Cold War in Alaska, 1941 - 1991. Models will include a 1/72^nd scale Soviet Tupolev TU-95 Bear long-range strategic bomber and a 1/48^th scale model of a U.S. F4E Phantom fighter jet for the “Cold War Over Alaska” exhibit, and a 1/350^th scale model of the WWII-era U.S.S. Hornet aircraft carrier made of 433 highly detailed parts.

Sharing Our Knowledge: A Conference of Tlingit Tribes and Clans

Tlingit Readers, Inc.

Sitka/Juneau

$5,000

Bringing together Native and non-Native cultural experts, students and scholars in a multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural atmosphere, the “Clan Conference” concept was pioneered by the late writer and educator Andy Hope III in 1993 in Haines/Klukwan. The 2012 conference will feature presenters speaking on linguistics, archaeology, cultural anthropology, ethnohistory, indigenous law and other topics.

Sitka Lutheran Church Oral History Project

Sitka Lutheran Church

Sitka

$4.536

 In the 1970s and 1980s, project director Harvey Brandt interviewed Sitka Lutheran Church congregants to record an oral history of Sitka. This project will preserve this oral history by digitizing 30 VHS tapes and 40 audiocassette tapes of edited interviews onto archival quality DVD/CDs. Mr. Brandt will also conduct follow-up interviews to clarify selected issues concerned the 1966 fire that destroyed most of downtown Sitka, including the Sitka Lutheran Church archives. Copies of the DVD/CDs will be sent to the Alaska Historical Society, Sitka Historical Society, Kettleson Library, Sitka Lutheran Church Archives and the Library of Congress.

Alaska History Ledgers Digitizing and Transcribing: Lost Aleutian Logbooks 1875-1907

J. Pennelope Goforth

Anchorage

$4,470

Alaska Commercial Company (ACC) agents in the Aleutian Islands kept detailed logbooks chronicling their maritime fur trading with the Aleutian people. As part of this project about 700 fragile pages contained in six tattered ACC ledgers will be scanned, digitized, transcribed and archived in keyword searchable PDF format. Each page will also be scanned and saved as a high-resolution tagged information file (.tiff).

Traveling Exhibition of “When Crab Was King: Faces of the Kodiak King Crab Fishery 1950 – 1982.”

Kodiak Maritime Museum

Kodiak

$4,000

The photography exhibit “When Crab Was King: Faces of the Kodiak King Crab Fishery” had a highly successful run at the Kodiak Maritime Museum last year. This grant supports the creation of a traveling version of the exhibit, including a cell phone audio tour, which will be shown at museums and cultural centers throughout Alaska.

Alaska Native Hybrid (working title)

Rob Kinneen

Anchorage

$2,000

Directed by Tlingit chef Rob Kinneen, a proponent of using local, indigenous foods in groundbreaking Alaska cuisine, Alaska Native Hybrid will be a documentary based on a series of webisodes (short online documentaries) designed to inspire young Alaskans around the issue of cultural identity, using modern takes on traditional food as a means of opening dialogue.

 

“The Blue Bear” Opens in Anchorage

Juneau-based Preservation Theatre, the largest and most acclaimed theater company in Alaska, launches its first-ever Anchorage season this weekend with “The Blue Bear.” The play chronicles the friendship and adventures of Juneau wilderness guide Lynn Schooler and renowned Japanese wildlife photographer Michio Hoshino.

PT’s production of “The Blue Bear” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, February 10 and 11, and at 4 p.m. on Sunday February 12. Performances continue next weekend with shows again on Friday and Saturday (February 17 and 18) at 7:30 p.m. A Sunday matinee on February 19 begins at 2 p.m. 

For tickets click here.

“The Blue Bear” is presented in conjunction with the Anchorage Concert Association and is based on Schooler’s 2002 book, The Blue Bear: A True Story of Friendship, Tragedy and Survival in the Alaskan Wilderness. The Alaska Humanities Forum supported PT’s adaption of the book. “The Blue Bear” debuted last year in Juneau.

Here’s a description of the play from the Anchorage Concert Association:

Lynn Schooler was guiding in Juneau when he met Japanese photographer, Michio Hoshino. Both loved writing, photography, and Alaska's wilderness, and searched to find and photograph the rare glacier bear. Before they could find a blue bear, Hoshino was tragically killed by a 700-pound grizzly, and Schooler dedicated himself to getting their photograph to honor his friend. THE BLUE BEAR stages Schooler's achingly intimate portrait of a remarkable friendship, and combines Schooler's words with Hoshino's photographs in a stunning production.

For more background on the subject matter and creative process of “The Blue Bear,” click here.

A scene from "The Blue Bear."

Leadership Transition at AKHF

Alaska Humanities Forum president and chief executive officer Greg Kimura, Ph. D. has been named the new president and chief executive officer of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.

The AKHF board of directors has selected former Alaska commissioner of education Jerry Covey to serve as interim forum President/CEO while the board undergoes the process of selecting a permanent replacement for Dr. Kimura.

According to a 2006 Alaska Journal of Commerce profile, Mr. Covey grew up in the small town of Oscoda, Mich., near Lake Heron. He attended Central Michigan University, earning a bachelors degree in social studies and a master's in guidance and counseling. Mr. Covey first came to Alaska in 1976 after taking a job as principal of the K-12 school in Kiana, a village in Northwest Alaska. He later became superintendent of the Northwest Arctic Borough School District. From 1990 to 1994 he was commissioner of education for Alaska under Gov. Walter Hickel.

Deadline for 2012 ECCI Applications: Feb. 10

The deadline for applications for the Summer 2012 Educator Cross-Cultural Immersion (ECCI) program is coming up fast – February 10.

ECCI is open to third through 12^th grade teachers from the Anchorage, Fairbanks and Mat-Su school districts, as well as educators from the University of Alaska Anchorage and Alaska Job Corps.

It offers a unique opportunity to learn, work and play at an Alaska Native summer culture camp. These experiences foster a greater understanding of Native cultures and ways of teaching, learning and living.

To download an application form and read instructions for submitting completed applications, click here.

For more information on ECCI, click here.

To access Camp Diaries recorded by past ECCI participants, click here.

2011 ECCI partcipants Anne Morris and Julie Zundel cutting fish in the smoke house at Klukwan Traditional Knowledge Camp.

Participants in ECCI receive:

• An invitation to visit a rural Alaska Native culture camp

• All expenses paid, round-trip airfare, meals and accommodations

• All expenses paid for two-day sessions with participant peers-cultural training and debriefing sessions

• 3.0 CR grad-level multi-cultural course through UAA - free! (valid only for 3-12 grade teachers)

Program Requirements:

• Attend required two-day cultural training and two-day debriefing session

• Submit a journal and/or a reflective essay

• Develop a community presentation based on your experience.

• If applicable, enroll in a 3.0 credit graduate level course on communication and culture.

Let's Learn Tlingit!

The Tlingit alphabet is almost twice as big as the English alphabet, and four of its 50 characters stand for sounds not found in any other language.  As with other Alaska Native languages, the number of birth speakers of Tlingit is decreasing, threatening its survival.

To help young Alaskans enjoy learning the Tlingit alphabet, the Sealaska Heritage Institute sponsored the interactive learning tool  “Let’s Learn Tlingit!” a set of whimsical flash cards with accompanying audio CD and web page. The project was funded by a grant from the Alaska Humanities Forum.

ANCSA @ 40 Series Continues

ANCSA @ 40, a seven-part original documentary television series commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the passing of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, continues this evening with the broadcast of episode four, “Politics and the Pipeline,” featuring commentary by former U.S. Senator from Alaska Mike Gravel.

“Politics and the Pipeline” airs at 8 p.m. tonight in Anchorage on Channel 15 (KAKM) and in Juneau on Channel 11 (KTOO), as well as Dish TV and DirectTV satellite television channels statewide. For regional where to watch programming information click here.

ANSCA @ 40 episodes are also streamed live online here.

Smells Like Teen Spirit – 20 Years On

Editor's note: This column by Alaska Humanites Forum President and C.E.O. Greg Kimura observing the 20th anniversary of the release of the landmark grunge rock album Nevermind was originally published in the Fall 2011 issue of The Forum, the newly redeisgned magazine of the Alaska Humanites Forum. To obtain a free copy, email: dholthouse@akhf.org.

Humanities folks like me are fools for historical anniversaries. 2011-12 marks the sesquicentennial, the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, of the Civil War. In Alaska, where we commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of statehood in 2009, it marks the fortieth anniversary of both the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) and the creation of the Alaska State Park system.

This autumn also marks twenty years since the release of Nirvana’s Nevermind, an album that I and twenty-six million others had on 'repeat' on our CD players.

Every generation possesses its own soundtrack. The music imprints on the collective consciousness. Or reflects it. Think of the big band swing of Duke Ellington, the crooning of the Rat Pack, Elvis’s rockabilly, or the different phases of the Beatles.

For those of us in Generation X (born between 1964 and 1980), for at least a sliver of time at the beginning of the nineties, it was grunge music.

Epitomized by Nevermind and, a few months later, Pearl Jam’s album Ten, grunge was the first and last time that “alternative” or experimental “college” music topped the pop charts, displacing the era of manufactured arena rock bands. It was also the last time guitar-based rock and roll ruled before the rise of hip-hop/urban music.

Equal parts metal, art noise, and post-punk, grunge reveled in fuzzy guitars and stream-of-consciousness lyrics more often screamed than sung. It articulated all the angst and postmodern irony of the generation that grew up in the looming shadow of the Baby Boomers. 

Generation X was told it would be the first in America’s history with a lower standard of living than its parents. In 1991-92, before the rise of the Internet and social media, it looked like America’s first failed generation.

The media glommed onto the moniker “Generation X.” The disposable “Brand X” generation. The name rankled, but stuck.

Then came Nevermind with its raging Generation X anthem “Smells Like Teen Spirit” that yelled what we were feeling.  Its loud-soft-loud formula, purposefully ragged edges, and the world-weary cynicism of its lyrics turned the soft hippie values of the Baby Boomers on their head.

But cynicism is not nihilism. Grunge was a musical statement of our generation’s search for authenticity. Of the value of substance over style. Of the very human impulse to reject being written off. The music spawned a whole aesthetic, from slacker cinema and genre fiction like Douglas Coupland’s eponymous Generation X, to flannel shirts and pole climber boots.

It is important here in Alaska to remember that the grunge aesthetic as well as the music was rooted in the Pacific Northwest, signaling another cultural shift. Its stars looked and dressed like us, and, for once, what mattered came from outside the New York-LA paradigm.  Soon the region would be identified in the national imagination with more than the outdoors and grunge, as Microsoft and Starbucks became economic and cultural ciphers. 

Yet, it was just for a sliver of time.

Two years later in 1993, Kurt Cobain, Nirvana’s lead singer, killed himself with a shotgun blast to the head. Baggy jeans replaced grungy ripped jeans. Rap/hip hop grew to outsell rock and roll. It has every year since 1994 to become not only the reigning pop idiom, but “Generation Y” and the “Millenial” Generation’s musical voice.

Twenty years on, Generation X is graying into middle age, but, Dylan Thomas-like, rages against the dimming, if not the dying, of the light. For all the 21st century optimism, the US and Europe again teeter on the edge of recession, raising questions not only about Generation X’s economic legacy, but also the outlook for future generations.

And what about music? The entertainment press waxes on about the moribund state of pop. Hip-hop seems to be  running out of ideas. People are numbed by the indistinguishable Disney/American Idol/X Factor flavor of the moment being marketed to them.

I, for one, await the new Nevermind to shake things up, like happened twenty years ago. Until then, in honor of the anniversary, I’ll listen to the old one. Except now it will be on my Ipod, not a CD.

                                                                                                                                – Greg Kimura, Ph. D.

 

Editor's note: To the right is a recent photo of 20-year-old artist Spencer Elden, who, as a baby, was photographed underwater for the cover of Nevermind. Elden recently told CNN that he celebrated the 20th anniversary of the historic album with friends. "We hung out ... and just listened to Nirvana music, drank beer and hung out. It was a good time," he said.

 

Forum Awarded $1.92 Million to Expand ECCI Program

The U.S. Department of Education has awarded the Alaska Humanities Forum a three-year, $1.92 million competitive grant to expand its Educator Cross-Cultural Immersion (ECCI) program in a concerted effort to boost teacher retention in rural Alaska school districts with predominately Alaska Native students and persistently high rates of teacher turnover.

Most of the teachers hired every year to fill public school positions in rural Alaska are early career teachers who are new to Alaska and lack familiarity with Alaska Native cultures. They are typically recruited through career conferences far removed from the vast tundra and remote villages located off the road system that make up their new homes.

Seventy-five percent of the roughly 145 new to the profession and new to Alaska public school teachers hired in Alaska every year go to rural districts. Many of them quit after a year or two. The average annual turnover rate among Alaska’s 49 rural school districts has exceeded 20 percent every year since 2000.

The new, three-year ECCI initiative seeks to help reverse this problematic trend by providing incoming teachers in the Lower Kuskokwim and Northwest Arctic Borough school districts with a three-day cultural orientation followed by a weeklong immersion in a rural Alaska Native Culture camp. In the camps the new teachers will receive first-hand training in subsistence ways of life in a setting designed for Native elders to pass on knowledge to Native youth. They will learn about Alaska Native language and storytelling as well as Alaska Native worldviews, communication styles and traditional ways of learning. They should come away from the experience with culturally responsive first-year teaching strategies they would otherwise lack.

Later, in conjunction with the University of Alaska statewide system’s Alaska Statewide Mentor Project, the incoming teachers will be paired with master-teacher mentors who will help them apply this learning to lesson plans and in-class activities.

Over three years, the initiative will provide cultural immersion experiences for 60 new teachers in rural Alaska. It will build upon the successes and lessons learned from the current ECCI component of the Alaska Humanities Forum’s Rose Urban Rural Exchange program, established in 2000, which has trained 24 educators from urban districts in Alaska in 25 different Alaska Native culture camps.

“Over the years of working with the ECCI program, we have heard numerous comments from teachers who have taught in the Bush suggesting that a cultural immersion experience is so important for rural teachers who are new to Alaska,” said Rose Urban Rural Exchange program director Laurie Evans-Dinneen.

“In particular, if a teacher is new to the profession of teaching, regardless of age, being thrust into the culture of education as well as the culture of their new rural Alaska community can be overwhelming.  This is designed to assist teachers in making these cultural transitions so that they can make and foster the relationship between students and themselves that is so important in student success.  Teacher turnover leads to student and community apathy—the students and their families assume the teacher will be gone in a semester or a year, so they don’t see the value in trying to establish a relationship. This project and its network of partners will lead to an enriching experience rather than one of fear and unknowns.” 

Summer 2011 ECCI educators Richard Speakman (far left) and Alissa Wardwell sitting with culture camp director Howard Luke on the banks of the Tanana River.