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Science In A Yupiaq Fish Camp And School:
A Case Study of Ways of Knowing in a
Yupiaq Eskimo Community
by
Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley
Statement of the Problem
Recently, the U. S. Congress established a commission to work with Alaska
State officials and Native people to “develop recommendations to the
Congress and State of Alaska that would help assure that Alaska Natives have
life opportunities comparable to other Americans, at the same time respecting
their cultures, traditions, and special status” (Blatchford, 1990).
Having relinquished key aspects of their traditional ways and spirituality
in response
to an array of physical, political, economic and educational pressures, Native
people have experienced an existential and ontological discontinuity (Schumacher,
1977:17), with extensive social and psychological consequences.
The Western
idea of a modem technological world has not been readily accepted by Alaska
Native people. Many still opt to live in their own made-from-scratch
houses, and they use many of their traditional technological tools in hunting
and gathering, while adopting a limited number of modern devices. But,
there are also many others for whom the home environment has changed so much
that
there is little to remind them of their Nativeness. They all retain one
thing in common, however, and that is reliance on a subsistence lifestyle,
which
transcends their physical living conditions and technological conveniences.
Although, non-Native people tend to view the subsistence way of life as
being very simple, the Native practitioner sees it as highly complex. A subsistence
oriented world view treats knowledge of the environment and each part’s
interdependence with all other parts as a matter of survival, and as such,
provides a complex model for maintaining and sustaining a balance with
nature.
Traditional Native subsistence technology was based on the use of
natural materials for making tools. These consisted of skin, bone, stone,
and wood.
This was
a nature-based, nature-mediated technology. The technology included
metallurgy, as nature-refined copper was often used for tool making.
The tool-making process
was integrated into daily life and allowed sufficient free time for contemplation
of natural and mythical forces. Marshall Sahlins (1972), has referred
to hunting and gathering people as the “original affluent people.” His
research has indicated that traditionally, these people spent less than
40 hours per
week foraging for food.
Unfortunately, for many Alaska Native people,
this “affluence” is
no longer a feature of their lifestyle.
Native people have come to realize
that technological solutions as a road to ‘progress” is
a myth. Labor-saving tools and consumer-oriented gadgets tend to
create a dependency on external resources and expertise that can lead people
down
a pathway of
cultural dislocation and destruction (Berger, 1976). There is a need
to demystify
and humanize science and technology, and the place where this can
begin is in the teaching of science in school.
Science teaching need not
be from the textbooks alone, nor espouse
the scientific method as the only way to construct knowledge. Rather,
what
traditionally
is understood through myths, collective thinking, experiential
learning, intuition
and the ontological presence of mind needed to guide, temper, and
get things right, should also be included. The ontological discontinuity
referred
to earlier need not persist. The Native ways, rituals and sense
of sacredness can be understood
as outward expressions of a highly developed ecological mind set.
According
to Cajete (1986) Native ways represent an ecological mindset of
sacredness, with ecological relationships and a constant “seeking of
life.”
Students can be taught to become thinkers, inventors and creators,
always mindful of environmental balances. Their awareness of Native
and Western
science perspectives
for visualizing a world where harmony exists, and where there is
comfort and security for everyone, could go far to instill the
motivation needed
to make
a better world. Native students’ academic aversion to mathematics
and sciences is often attributable to an alien school culture,
rather than a
lack of innate intelligence, ingenuity or problem-solving skills.
The curricula, teaching methodologies and often the teacher training
are based on a world
view that does not always recognize the Native notion of an interdependent
universe. Souix Chief Luther Standing Bear has said:
... The old
Lakota knew that man’s heart away from nature becomes
hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing living things
soon led
to lack of respect for humans too (Nollman, 1990:3).
It is toward
the (re)integration of the human and the natural, the Native and
the Western worlds in the teaching of science that
this
study is
directed. What is needed as a first step in this process is a study
of/by Native
people
examining their values, practices, attitudes and views in relation
to their traditional and contemporary ecological perspective. It
is my intent
to
participate in and observe life in a Yupiaq Eskimo fish camp to
identify the varied ways
in which people incorporate traditional and Western scientific
principles in their daily life, and determine how they have been
able to reconcile
the seemingly
antithetical values reflected in each. Can Western scientific teachings
and Yupiaq scientific practices be understood and taught through
a common epistemological
framework? That is the central question to which the case study
will be addressed.
Review of Literature
The Random House dictionary defines “science” as “a
branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically
arranged and showing the operation of general laws.” If
science is but a “branch” of knowledge, it implies
that there are other branches as well that make up the knowledge
tree. Mixed in with those other branches,
with its own complementary “body of facts or truths systematically
arranged and showing the operation of general laws” is
the “scientific” view
of the world constructed over millennia by Alaska Native people.
There are many ways of making sense of the world around us,
each branch with its own
rules, laws and meanings that form a basis for carrying out
the tasks of everyday life. Let us take a closer look at some
of
the characteristics of
these different
branches of the knowledge tree and examine what happens when
they become intermingled.
Western science tends to emphasize
compartmentalized knowledge (by disciplines) which is often
decontextualized and taught
in the detachment
of a classroom
or laboratory setting (Berger, 1977; Livingston, 1981; Franklin,
1990). Native people, on the other hand, have traditionally
acquired their
knowledge of
the world around them through direct experience in the natural
environment, whereby
the particulars come to be understood in relation to the whole,
and the “laws” are
continually tested in the context of everyday survival. For
a Native student imbued with a Native experiential/scientific
perspective, the typical classroom
approach to the teaching of Western science can present an
impediment to learning, to the extent that it focuses on segmented
knowledge without regard
to how
it relates to the surrounding universe.
Another potential interference
to learning by the Native student is the domineering, manipulative
aspect of western science
and technology
(Franklin,
1990; Capra,
1984, 1988; Deloria, 1990; Milbrath, 1989; Page, 1989; Rifkin,
1980), which is often contradictory to the Native’s view
of who he is, what his place in the world is, and how he relates
to it. Native people have learned to live
in harmony with the earth for millennia by developing a complex
integration of cultural values, traditions, spirituality, and
economic base tied to the
land. They have not supplanted natural plants and animals,
and have acknowledged Nature’s supremacy through its
natural forces and processes. They have acknowledged that Nature
is dynamic, and concomitantly, that people and cultures
must be also.
Western thought also differs from Native thought
in its notion of competency. In Western terms, competency is
based on predetermined
ideas of what
a person should know in a certain body of knowledge, which
is then measured indirectly
through various forms of tests (Franklin, 1990:29). Such an
approach does
not address whether that person is really capable of putting
the knowledge into
practice. In the traditional Native sense, competency had an
unequivocal relationship to survival or extinction. You either
had it, or you
didn’t,
and survival was the ultimate indicator.
Another possible problem
for the young Native learner is the Western notion of scientific
objectivity. The potential difficulties
are
pointed out in
the following statement on scientific detachment by Schumacher
(1977:52-3):
…
We attain objectivity, but we fail to attain knowledge of the object
as a whole. Only the ‘lowest,’ the most superficial,
aspects of the object are accessible to the instruments we
employ: everything that makes the object
humanly interesting, meaningful and significant escapes us.
Western
science and technology are more than ways of knowing, but also
consist of particular practices and methods. According
to
Franklin, “The scientific
method works best in circumstances in which the system studied
can be truly isolated from its general context” (1990:39).
This process of isolation is expanded upon by Nollman (1990:74)
when he indicates that, “The objective
viewpoint cannot perceive the context of the whole because
the objectivists, themselves, insist upon utilizing only a
part of their/our whole being.” Nollman
goes on to say that this viewpoint places a perpetual buffer
between our conscious thoughts and our “very important
gut connection to nature.” One
of the interests of the Western corporate world has been the
natural resources found in the Arctic. In their desire to exploit
and extract these resources,
they have overwhelmed and displaced the people indigenous to
the land. From a scientific “isolationist” perspective,
the Native people are considered transmutable physical elements
of the environment and objects that
can be removed to a new village site, where they often become “human
animals in a cultural zoo” (Hall, 1988:2 17). Already,
there are several villages where affluent outsiders can fly
in to view the Native in his “natural” habitat,
which is demeaning to the people on display.
Another new phenomenon
in the villages is pollution. Traditionally, everything that
was used was recyclable and biodegradable.
Now, the Native people
are wallowing in garbage and sewage. Pollution is an ‘inevitable
consequence of life at work,” but now, “There is
only one pollution.. . people” (Lovelock,
1987:27, 122), and their desire to buy pre-packaged foods and
gadgets. The educational and economic system have taught Native
people to be consumers,
often in the form of inappropriate products, including housing
and complex technological tools and machines ill-suited to
the Arctic. The cold and harsh
environment makes many of these externally designed and overly
sophisticated products last a relatively short period of time,
though their frozen remains
last forever. For instance, snow machines will operate an average
of three winters then deteriorate very rapidly. This places
an added burden on the
owner for maintenance, oil and gas, and ultimate replacement.
The villages are strewn
with cannibalized and discarded machines. With all these cumulative
environmental problems, Native views about the quality of life
need to be re-assessed in
modern times.
Native people are no exception when it comes to
modern wants and needs. The numerous TV stations beamed to
the villages
by satellite
present
psuedo-realities for both young and old. They live torn between
the desire to retain their
traditional hunting and trapping practices, and the desire
to obtain the modern advantages
gained through exploitation of natural resources. However ambivalent
Native people might be, “most people who are on the receiving
end of offshore and Arctic oil operations. . . have greeted
these enterprises with a comprehensive
lack of enthusiasm, because they directly perceive the prohibitive
social and environmental costs” (Lovins, 1977:4). Indeed,
the syncopating lights of growth and development from the Western
perspective can be mesmerizing,
but Native people have come to realize that they are dealing
with a perception of progress that is no longer appropriate
for indigenous survival.
Traditionally, Alaska Native people
developed a nature-based and nature-mediated technology to
suit their needs, along with
the
needs of their environment
and nature. As Natives have learned Western scientific and
technological processes,
it has been with an inclination toward ‘soft technology” (Lovins,
1977), which provides a means to temper Western technology
and use it as a tool for adaptation to local culture and ecology.
The focus of this “soft
technology” can be to upgrade and update traditional
skills, to develop tools that can be easily repaired, to be
conservational and non-polluting
in the use of renewable resources for energy and raw materials,
and to fine-tune the subsistence lifestyle. In searching for
examples of implementing soft
technology,
Harrison has offered the following as representative criteria
for its use (1983):
1. improving an existing traditional technique
2. modifying a modern machine
3. inventing a new machine from scratch
4. finding a useful and economical Western antique
5. applying a bit of indigenous wisdom to the solution of
a new problem
In the past, Native people tended to view formal
education as a hindrance to their traditional ways, but now they must
look
at
it in a different
light.
They must control education, and give it direction to accomplish
the goals they set for it, strengthening their own culture
while simultaneously
embracing
Western science as a second force that can help them maintain
themselves with as much self-reliance and self-sufficiency
as possible. They
must learn to
thrive in a tough environment, and they can make it easier
and less harsh, first as humans, secondly as scientists,
with a carefully
developed technology.
Soft technology is intended to help people become the producers
of
those things that are needed for human support and comfort.
The
Western educational and scientific paradigm developed over the past several
hundred years need not be dispensed
with.
However, a
shift needs
to be made
toward a more holistic education in which a teacher-student-community
collaborative approach is developed to address the needs
of a fast-changing society (Hall,
1988:2 16; Capra, 1989:132). To achieve this, the formal
educational system needs to reassess and redirect education
to a holistic
mindset, in which
education is viewed as multi-disciplinary, multi-directional,
and multi-sensory, with
the total environment serving as the laboratory (Sivaraksa,
1989:103). The critical task is to find ways to help
people, and, especially
teachers, to
begin to recognize (and re-cognize) that the earth is
indivisible and that it must be understood as a whole. To do so can
help the learning
process
of the Native student, who enters school with all the
linguistic and intellectual tools of his/her culture at his/her command,
but seldom
is called upon
to put
them to full use in the classroom setting.
I have observed
and taught in rural and urban classrooms in which science was taught from
textbooks, using the
scientific method,
and using age-tested
science
experiments (Cajete, 1986). My own undergraduate science
education
was derived from textbooks, and laboratory manuals.
These teaching/learning processes
do not, however, take advantage of the students’ environment,
or the environment’s
ecological processes. Nor do they prepare the students
to recognize a “Creative
Force” flowing in and around them at all times.
This removal of the mystical force from scientific
processes has rendered a society which places
primary
credence and faith on observational and rational faculties
of man. Once this happens, we have a society in which
the quality of man and life diminishes,
a society which no longer honors and reveres nature,
but often misuses, abuses, and disrespects nature (Schumacher,
1977). One could argue, therefore, that
our science education contributes to the decay of society
with a concomitant diminishment of morality.
From the
review of literature, it becomes apparent that there
is a significant contrast between Western
scientific
and
Native world
views.
The former
is formulated to study and analyze objectively learned
facts to predict and assert control
over the forces of nature, while the latter is oriented
toward the synthesis of information gathered from interaction
with
the natural
and spiritual
worlds so as to accommodate and live in harmony with
natural principles. Native reciprocity
with the natural and spiritual realms implies communication
which perhaps must be re-learned by the Native, as
it is now being
learned by Western
scientists:
The science of ecology, the study of the
interactions between living things and their environments, circles
back to the
ancient wisdom
found in the
rich oral traditions of American Indian stories.
Time and again the stories have
said that all of the living and nonliving parts
of the Earth are one and that people are apart of that
wholeness.
Today,
ecological science
agrees.
(Caduto & Bruchac,
1989:5)
Research Design
I have chosen the Yupiaq Eskimo fish camp setting
to explore a more holistic approach to science
education. The summer
fish camp
season
is a time
of happiness, warm weather, and a place for orderly
Yupiaq industry. It also
presents a cornucopia
of traditional and modern technologies. Although
the
Yupiaq people do not always have technical names
for the natural
processes involved, the
annual
fish camp
routines reflect the most concentrated situation
in which they use many sophisticated scientific
principles in
activities such
as food
preparation,
catching and
preserving of fish, reading river currents and
tides, assessing weather and wind conditions, classifying
plants, fishes,
and
animals, utilizing
solar energy,
and adapting to seasonal transformations. These
principles are an inherent part of daily life in fish camp.
In
the natural context
of the camp
environment, Yupiaq people feel they are in the
realm of science, the world of inquiry
and the process of discovery. In order for the
people to live in harmony with nature,
they have to learn the skills to live with nature.
The secrets of
nature have to be learned for mutual nurturing
and sustenance, and to develop
a holistic
world view of the universe (Murchie, 1981).
In the
fish camp, the environment becomes the laboratory
and thus, all teaching/learning is drawn from an
ecological perspective.
The sensory
data that is collected
in the mind is used to formulate conclusions based
on values, perspective,
philosophy of life, and relations to the world.
Over thousands of years, the Yupiaq culture has
established
a way to make
the world
accessible
to reasoned
inquiry and discovery, including ponderous questions
about what is real, what is truth, and what is
good and beautiful.
This
knowledge flows and
is channeled
through Native science, art and practice of the
sacred. The natural phenomena in the Native world
are explained
in terms
of characteristics
easily
observable, or experiences involving a high degree
of intuitive thought
(Cornell, 1986).
The fish camp-based educational
processes outlined above reflect many of the following goals and characteristics,
which have
been paraphrased
from
a document
on the environment prepared by UNESCO in 1971:
-
apply and blend Native and modern science perspectives
- practice
effective application of the scientific processes in everyday life
-
practice flexibility in levels of thinking and foster effective thinking
in everyday
life
- maintain and enhance essential ecological
processes and life support systems
by using complex scientific
technology to develop
soft technology
in tune with
nature
- practice Native conservation
for genetic diversity
- sustain
utilization of species and ecosystems
- exercise creative writing and
creative applications of imagination
and visualization
to make better
the natural environment and
enhance natural
processes of food
production
- adapt to changing
conditions through a blend of Native and
modern science
principles
- sustain a
network of collaborative thought and
effort between disciplines
In an effort
to gain sufficient insight into the Yupiaq understanding and practice
of “science” to be able to formulate an approach to
science education that incorporates the kinds
of goals and principles outlined above, I will
observe and document the behaviors and related
thinking that are reflected in the day-to-day subsistence activities
of the summer fish camp. These observations
will then be juxtaposed against the ways in
which science is taught to Yupiaq children in the local school,
in an effort to identify points of similarity
and difference, which can then serve as the
basis for proposing a more integrative approach to the teaching
of science for Native people.
Methodology
As a member of the Yupiaq society, I will be
working from the inside as a participant-observer.
I will
become an
active participant
with the people
at the fish camp, but with
constant attention to overt as well as subtle
uses of, and comments about traditional and
modern tools
and practices.
I was raised
by a Grandmother
and experienced
seasonal trips for various hunting and trapping
activities at an
early age. I was taught many of the Yupiaq
values of respect for others and
nature. I
also have an undergraduate major and have
taught in the biological
sciences and so have an academic understanding
of Western science and the scientific
method with its emphasis on objectivity.
However, my elementary, high school and college education
convinced
me for many
years that modernity
was the
only way to go. It was only in the last two
decades that I began to realize that
I was living contrary to my upbringing as
a Yupiaq. I have since been searching for a synthesis
between
the
two ways
of understanding
the
world.
The educational process needs to go
beyond the limits of sciences which are built
around
bodies
of knowledge
that
are restricted
to objects
of the earth.
This so-called “objective knowledge”,
which is based on factual observation of
observable phenomena, is constricting to
original thought. In
Yupiaq thought there is a similar idea, which
is translated as “seeing
without feeling.” In Western thought,
this way of knowing has the greatest value
as being objective. According to Western
thought, “subjective” knowledge
is less reliable because it is not verifiable
through the senses. The Yupiaq word, tangruarluku
which means “to see with the mind’s
eye”,
transcends that which we can perceive with
our endosomatic sensemakers, and illustrates
how a Native perspective may provide a way
of bridging the so-called
mythical subjective world, and the objective
scientific world. It is necessary, therefore,
that both modes of inquiry and sense-making
be incorporated in
this study, to give credence to the range
of phenomena that will need to be addressed
from both the Yupiaq and the Western perspective.
Interaction,
observations and interviews with villagers
will reveal the cultural beliefs,
artifacts, and
inherent knowledge
used in
the fish
camp. The process
will include probing in appropriate cultural
domains to try to tease out the subtle patterns
and meanings
of verbal
and
physical
activities.
How
do the
villagers understand scientific principles?
Why do they carry out certain activities
the
way
they do?
Has past
science
education contributed to their knowing what
to do and the skills needed to succeed in
certain instances? How
do
the villagers pass on their knowledge and
skills? How has their relationship to the
life-giving
ecological system changed? Are there any
differences between the beliefs and practices
of the older
and the younger
generations? It is through
the pursuit
of information that addresses these kinds
of questions in a fish camp setting that
an insight
into the
Yupiaq scientific
view
of
the world
will be obtained.
On the other hand, to get
an idea of what and how the school is attempting
to teach
students
in the
sciences
will require
the close
examination
and content analysis of curricular materials,
textbooks, and science manuals,
as well as
observation of and interviews with teachers.
Having taught science for many years, I have
a preconceived
notion
of what to expect,
however, science curricula
have changed during the years since I have
been in the classroom, and circumstances
can vary
from one
school
to the next. So
I will have
to
find out what kinds
of scientific knowledge are being taught,
how each succeeding grade is introduced to
new
scientific principles, what
kinds of experiments
and
equipment are being
utilized, and most importantly, how do the
teachers and students view the relationship
between school-taught
and Yupiaq science.
Formal interviews with
teachers will be conducted to find out how
they use the textbooks and
manuals, whether
they
have students
relate science
to their
own environment, whether they make use of
science projects and science fairs, to what
extent
local knowledgeable
people are
incorporated
in the lessons,
etc.. All these question and others that
teachers, local people, and students bring
up will give
valuable information
as to
what goes
on
during the teaching
of science in school. Open-ended, informal
discussions will also be conducted to identify
areas that
are not anticipated in the
formal interviews.
A daily journal will be maintained at all
times, and tapes will be used when
permissible.
Through these data gathering processes, appropriate
information will be assembled to gain insight
into the domains of
science teaching, leaming and practice
in the school and community.
Analysis
This section will deal with the analysis
of data gathered from the two sources,
the school
and
the fish camp,
to determine how scientific
principles
are understood,
applied, taught and learned in each setting.
There likely will
be differences in the way the knowledge
and skills are passed on to
young people in
the two settings, so an attempt will be
made to determine what might be learned
about
the teaching and learning of scientific
knowledge and skills in each situation that can be
used to put forward
curriculum
ideas
that represent
a synthesis
between the two. All of this will then
be written up in the form of a case study. Based
upon
the analysis and findings,
recommendations
will
be made
for strengthening science curricula in
the schools, for Yupiaq
students specifically,
and for Native people more generally.
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