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Lessons Taught, Lessons Learned Vol. I
THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN
INTEGRATED BILINGUAL
AND CROSS-CULTURAL CURRICULUM
IN AN ARCTIC SCHOOL DISTRICT
by
Helen Roberts
Northwest Arctic School District
Kotzebue
This article was originally
presented at the First Congress on Education, of
the Canadian
School Trustees Association, in Toronto, Canada, June 21, 1978.
The reader is asked to keep in mind that the conditions and
processes described in the article were those of the school
district in 1978, and do not necessarily apply today.
If indeed, there is a formula for
developing an integrated bilingual and cross-cultural curriculum,
experience in the Northwest Arctic School District would suggest
the following key elements of the development process:
Basing the curriculum on
the rapidly changing social context, rather than on stereotyped
bicultural (dual society) concepts.
Ensuring local control of
educational policy.
Treating the whole school
curriculum, rather than separating language and cultural
concems off in a fragment of the curriculum.
Being honest, and keeping
curriculum processes clear and simple-developing
simple educational goals and then
achieving them.
Developing school-community
unity by keeping advisory channels open.
The Northwest Arctic School
District operates eleven schools in a 36,000 square mile region
north of the Arctic Circle. It is an Inupiat Eskimo region, but
Inupiaq language has declined in use. The district has set goals
for students in relation to basic skills, life skills and
cross-cultural skills and is pursuing a curriculum development
process which incorporates staff development, community
development and program development.
In this paper, some of the
problems and processes that have occurred in the development of a
community-based curriculum are discussed. An example of the
integrated approach is given, and issues regarding the legal and
funding structures are explored. Finally, some modest guidelines
for the development of an integrated bilingual and cross-cultural
curriculum are offered.
PROBLEMS AND
PROCESSES
School/Community Dissonance: Local
Control
"Long ago when
they built a Council House they built them for a happy
gathering place. They gather together for happy occasions such
as dancing, Eskimo games and feasts. They used the Council
House for teaching Eskimo way of living."
"There were no set
teachers."
"Eskimos are smart. They learn
a person's word of advice."
"We were there in the time when
there was silence ...the time when Eskimo way of living was
like a still water now has become bad like waves
pounding."
"And these young people our
children are living in the white man's way and have become a
part of them. They have become that way and there are no
Council Houses."
"The government is giving the
education to our children today. The information we have told
on the Eskimo culture will be studied by our grandchildren in
the school."
Education in a mass society is
subversive and assimilative, especially in cross-cultural
situations. The strain, or dissonance, between school and rural
communities in the arctic stems in part from the vast differences
between traditional Eskimo learning and "school learning", as
described above by the elders. In traditional Eskimo society
children learned by watching silently, and following the lead of
their elders. Twenty-thousand years of experience in the arctic
environment comprised a sound basis for the cultural content and
educational methods of traditional Eskimo society. But
encroachment of the technological society on rural Alaska has
created an upheaval in Eskimo society, which is characterized in
the schools by a doctrinaire school curriculum unrelated to the
life experience of the people.
Prior to the establishment of
local control of education, the curriculum in rural Alaska was
nothing more than a transplanted program such as could be found in
any school in the lower forty-eight states. The traditions, values
and beliefs of the dominant white middle and upper classes were
those primarily reflected in the school curriculum, and Eskimo
children were discouraged from using their Inupiaq language in the
school. There was no organized course of studies about the State
of Alaska, nor any attention to Native Studies, and three
successive generations of language suppression had all but
eliminated the Inupiaq language. Today, only the older people are
truly fluent, and most entering school children are not speakers
at all.
Local control in rural Alaska has
its roots in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act which created
regional Native Associations to hold the Native lands and payments
ceded to Native Alaskans in the act. The Northwest Alaska Native
Association (NANA) became the holder of lands in the Northwest
Region, which encompasses the Kobuk, Noatak and Selawik River
Valleys, and the coastal lands between Deering and
Kivalina-traditional lands of the Inupiat people. NANA later
divided into a profit making corporation (NANA Regional
Corporation) and a non-profit association (Mauneluk Association).
Local control of the land stimulated the movement for local
control of education.
Until 1975 most rural
students who wanted to finish high school had to leave their
villages to attend schools operated by the Bureau of Indian
Affairs or the State of Alaska. For Northwest Arctic students,
this meant traveling as far away as Sitka or even the lower
forty-eight. Native Alaskan boarding students rarely got home to
see their families, and had little in common with other students.
During the time they were away at school, they were removed from
village life, and were not learning the traditional skills
important for survival in the arctic. Needless to say, there were
very few high school graduates among Alaska
Natives.
In 1973 a group of rural Alaskan
students (Molly Hootch, et al) brought a class action suit against
the State of Alaska, charging discrimination in the State's
failure to provide a secondary education such that students could
live at home while attending school. The Hootch case was settled
out of court in 1976 (Tobeluk Consent Decree), where it was agreed
that Native boarding high schools were not an equal educational
opportunity compared to the local high schools attended by most
white Alaskans. At the same time, the Alaska Unorganized Borough
Schools (formerly, State Operated School System) was divided into
21 Rural Educational Attendance Areas (REAA's) to operate
elementary and secondary schools in rural regions.
The Northwest Arctic School
District is the REAA which encompasses the Inupiat Eskimo lands of
the Northwest or NANA Region. The District has an eleven member
Regional School Board which is elected at large by the people of
the region and establishes district-wide educational policy. Each
of the eleven village schools in the District has a Community
School Committee which governs local school affairs.
In its first year of operation,
the Northwest Arctic School District brought the two remaining
Bureau of Indian Affairs schools into the District and began
establishing secondary school programs in the villages of the
region. The School District now offers high school education in
all of the villages and education is governed by elected
representatives of the people.
The fortuitous chain of events
which has brought local political and economic, and now
educational control to rural Alaska has done much to eliminate the
dissonance between school and community in the Northwest Arctic.
Where school policy is made by the parents of the school children
a community commitment to education develops. When imposed from
outside, what might have been the same prescription has failed
repeatedly.
Thus, one antecedent to the
reduction of linguistic and cultural barriers in rural school
programs is the recognition that language and culture are but two
of a number of social forees affecting the lives of rural arctic
people. Researchers in culture and education have long been aware
of the systematic disenfranchisement of minority cultural ways in
the educational system of the United States Among all minority
groups, Native Americans have fared the least well in the
traditional educational system, and the Northwest Arctic has been
no exception.
Today, the most distinguishing
feature of life in the Northwest Arctic is not language, culture,
politics or economics, per se, but a combination of all of these
in rapid change. Inupiat people exhibit as many and varied
lifestyles as do people anywhere in America, from completely
traditional to thoroughly modem. In times of rapid change, the
extent to which a group of people can gain control over the
political and economic forces in their lives is the extent to
which the educational system can be adapted to meet their changing
linguistic and cultural needs.
Approach to
Curriculum
In recognition of the
blatant disenfranchisement of Inupiat people under previous school
administrations, the Northwest Arctic School District has been
pursuing a community-based curriculum development process. This
process necessitates a reversal of the former assimilative role of
the schools, making them reflective of the changing social
structure, allowing latitude for diversity of cultural values in
the school curriculum, and, in the case of the Northwest Arctic,
fostering a revival of the Inupiaq language.
A community based curriculum
development process is a whole-system process. This requires a
three faceted approach to curriculum development in which staff
development, community development and program development are all
included in the process. Most educators treat only the school
program (plans, textbooks, learning experiences) in attempting to
solve curriculum problems. In the Northwest Arctic, we assume that
no curricular change can actually take place unless the community
wants it and supports it, and unless the staff has the necessary
motivation and expertise. The diagram below depicts the
relationship between staff, program and community development in
the curriculum development process of the Northwest Arctic School
District.
The Relationship Between
Staff, Program and Community Development
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Improving
attitudes and communication
Improving
instructional techniques
|
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Expanding
educational opportunities
Improving
instructional resources
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Defining
educational goals
Supporting
instructional program
At the same time, the
Northwest Arctic School District has not adopted the
bilingual/bicultural approach to curriculum development, because
of the static view of culture embodied in the approach, and
because the district's students are not bilingual, but rather are
becoming bilingual. In the past, bilingual/bicultural distinctions
have served to aggravate the students' feeling of anomie by
presenting them with the ludicrous choice of becoming a "real
Eskimo such as their grandparents were, or becoming a "white man",
neither of which was available to them in reality. The Northwest
Arctic School District takes the view that there are not two
separate societies (as implied by the bilingual/bicultural
approach), but rather that there is a viable modem-day Inupiat
culture and language which has been ignored in the school
curriculum. Thus, the district is attempting to develop an
integrated curriculum based on the individual and combined needs
of Inupiat students in a rapidly changing social and economic
structure. In this integrated curriculum, Inupiat language and
culture will not be treated separately, but incorporated through
the whole school program, and reflected in staffing patterns and
community relations as well.
The integrated approach to
curriculum development, then, is characterized by a process of
defining the schooling situation as it is seen from the point of
view of the people of the Northwest Arctic, rather than as defined
by educators and officials elsewhere.
To operationalize this process of
curriculum development based on individual and combined student
needs, the District has initiated a number of concurrent
activities to promote program development, staff development and
community development, with the aim of instituting an integrated
and excellent curriculum in the schools, a curriculum which has
the necessary support of the community and to which can be brought
the professional expertise necessary for success.
The district maintains two
advisory committees on curriculum and employs a curriculum
director, who coordinates the curriculum development function in
the district. One advisory committee is made up of professional
school staff members (teachers, principals and aides), and the
other is made up of community members (parents, community school
committee members, and school aides). Each advisory group has its
own unique perspective on curriculum development in the district
and different roles have emerged for each group, as shown on the
following diagram.
click on image for a
bigger view
As issues in district-wide
curriculum development surface, their implications for program,
staff and community development are explored. Staff and community
involvement in planning for program changes are elicited through
the advisory committees, as well as through informal and other
organizational networks. Communications are a key to effective
integrated curriculum development, with a constant two-way flow of
information between school staff and community. It is also
important to allow curriculum issues, and thus the curriculum, to
emerge from the community and its needs rather than to be
prescribed by outsiders. Thus, the emerging roles of the community
vis a' vis the school staff in the curriculum development process
are those of goal setting versus implementing education to reach
those goals.
Such a curriculum development
process is time consuming, but ensures the involvement of all
groups who have a vested interest in the education of children in
the Northwest Arctic. The district has held community meetings and
in-service training at each community school for the purpose of
identifying needs for curriculum development. Many schools have
begun the development of a sequenced program of studies which will
result in a planned school curriculum. The superintendent has
reorganized the district office program staff in order to provide
more direct services to students and schools based on identified
needs rather than traditional school roles. Principals have been
assigned to most village schools in order to provide more direct
on-site educational leadership and ensure continuity of program
for students.
As a reward for patience in this
time-consuming community-based curriculum development process, the
district now has a simple statement of goals, on which there is
wide agreement and commitment. The statement was developed and
approved unanimously by the two advisory committees on curriculum.
It reads as follows:
GOALS OF THE NORTHWEST ARCTIC
SCHOOL DISTRICT
The Northwest Arctic Region
is in a process of rapid economic, political and social change.
The main concerns for schools in this region are:
- Educating children for the
many and changing lifestyles they will lead, whether in the
village or in the city.
- Developing leadership in
every aspect of community life.
- Promoting better
cross-cultural understanding and Iñuguliq
kamaksriigalikun ("growing up with respect").
The Northwest Arctic School
District will strive toward the following goals for
students:
- Students will become
proficient in the basic skills required for educational and
societal success.
- Students will acquire
introductory skills and experience in one or more adult-life
roles.
- Students will develop
respect for their cultural heritage and an understanding of
themselves as individuals.
The Northwest Arctic School
District has the following goals for schools:
- Schools will involve the
community in educational planning, instruction, and
evaluation.
- Schools will encourage
community residents to become professional
educators.
- Schools will encourage
teachers to enhance their professional qualifications and
instructional expertise.
- Schools will encourage
students to take pride in the quality of their work and
their personal accomplishments.
These goals were developed through
a combined effort of parents, community leaders, and educators.
They represent the dreams of the parents for their children as
well as a philosophy for educators in the region.
What remains to be done in coming
years includes the development of curriculum and evaluation
guidelines for reaching these goals. The total district plan of
service will probably be built on the foundation of combined
individual student program plans as well as a flexible
district-wide system of learning opportunities accessible to all
students. The age-old rural school problems of high teacher
turnover and small school size should diminish in importance as a
continuous district-wide program of services based on student
needs is implemented.
The Integrated Approach: An
Example
The most devastating
curriculum problem in the Northwest Arctic School District at this
time is not language barriers, or cultural differences, or high
teacher turnover, or any of the other myriad of issues which come
up in discussions of rural cross-cultural education. The
singularly most critical problem now existing in this district,
and probably in most rural cross-cultural school systems in the
arctic, is a "failure syndrome" typified by a downward cycle of
teacher expectations, student motivation and student
achievement.
The interrelatedness of these
factors is one of the few established relationships in education.
For all practical purposes, it makes no difference which of these
factors may be causative. In fact, the considerable amount of time
spent in trying to place blame on one or another aspect of the
school/community is wasted, and probably contributes to the
downward spiral. The simple fact is that our students are
suffering as a result of this "failure syndrome."
Based on assumptions derived from
educational and organizational research, and on the expressed
wishes of the people, the Northwest Arctic School District is
initiating a coordinated plan of activities designed to address
all of these problematic factors at the same time. The idea is
that no matter how this downward spiral got started, each of the
factors has become problematic and all must be turned around in
order to stop the downward spiral. Further, it is assumed that an
improvement in any one of the factors will contribute to an
improvement in the others. This is the system-wide approach to
curriculum improvement in action. Shown in the following diagram
are the activities that the district is pursuing as remedies in
each of the needed areas of improvement.
click on image for a
bigger view
Elements of program, staff
and community development can all be seen in the activities
designed to remedy the "failure syndrome" in the Northwest Arctic
Schools. If, as the district hopes, the downward spiral of the
"failure syndrome" can be stopped and turned into an upward
spiral, or a "winning syndrome," then the resolution of other
curricular problems will be simplified. When confronted in a
positive atmosphere with a winning spirit, problems oftentimes
find their own solutions.
An apriori assumption of an
integrated curriculum is its basis in the real needs of real
children. Not by legal requirement or court order, but at the
insistence of the community through their local school board, the
Northwest Arctic School District is already moving toward a total
plan of educational services based on the cultural, linguistic,
academic, vocational, and special needs of students. As a result,
in future years, the district hopes to find itself out ahead of
the field in bilingual and cross-cultural curriculum
development.
GUIDELINES FOR DEVELOPING AN
INTEGRATED BILINGUAL AND CROSS-CULTURAL CURRICULUM
To whatever extent the
experience of the Northwest Arctic School District can be of value
in other rural or cross-cultural situations, a summary of the
critical points in the district's curriculum development process
is offered here. These points are raised in the form of
organizational patterns which have evolved in the school district,
and which seem to contribute to a successful curriculum
development effort.
Attend to the Changing Nature of
Society
To a great extent in the
past, schools have had "cultural blind spots" where students are
concerned. Under the guise of treating all students equally,
minority cultural ways have either been absent or highly
stereotyped in the school curriculum.
Local control of education in
rural Alaska has done much to counter the "cultural blind spots," and allow
the present-day (not the stereotyped) needs and desires of the people to emerge.
Necessary in establishing local control
of schools are educational leaders who can enter a cross-cultural
situation with an open mind, allowing people to be who they are
and become what they will.
Treat the Whole
Curriculum
In an adequately integrated
bilingual and cross-cultural curriculum, the school should reflect
the community in every aspect, not just in revised text materials
or special ethnic studies programs. Staff readiness, community
support, and student motivation are keys to any successful
curriculum, regardless of language or culture. Since the Northwest
Arctic is an Iñupiat region, the schools should be
Iñupiat institutions.
A wide vision of what schools do
and can do, attention to the real needs of real children (not
stereotyped children), and a positive attitude, can further the
development on an integrated bilingual and cross-cultural
curriculum.
Be Honest
Centuries of wrongs cannot
be righted overnight. But one of the purposes of working to
develop a cross-cultural curriculum is to resolve the
contradictions, or bridge the gap, between what is said and what
is done.
Open channels through which people
can be heard are vital to planning as well as to developing
community support for school programs. In the case of the
Northwest Arctic, the two curriculum advisory committees as well
as a number of informal channels are open. Again, regardless of
language or culture, people everywhere want to be treated with
respect. When the Community Advisory Committee on Curriculum was
asked to decide on a name for the district curriculum, they chose
Iñuguliq kamaksriigalikun, which means in English, "growing
up with respect." Iñuguliq kamaksriigalikun has become the
theme of the district's curriculum development efforts.
Being honest means stating things
such that others can understand, weigh the consequences, and
render their own judgments. The curricular implication is that
policies, procedures, guidelines and such should be stated simply
and clearly, and time must be taken to explain new
ideas.
Being honest means not advertising
things that cannot be delivered. In the past, people in rural
cross-cultural schools have been promised much more than they ever
got. The Northwest Arctic School District is attempting to focus
its effort on a small number of clear and attainable educational
goals, which are identified as the most pressing by the people
themselves.
Be United
The only truly bilingual and
cross-cultural curriculum is one in which educators and community
are united in their view of what the schools are doing. Patience
and compromise are keys to developing cross-cultural unity.
Once wide agreement has been
reached on important curricular issues, the combined school staff
and school community will be unbeatable in finding solutions to
curricular problems. In a like manner, when staff and community
stand strong together with a clarity of purpose, interference from
outside the district can be minimized.
A Final Note
So the curriculum developers
in a bilingual cross-cultural situation need to practice the art
of listening; keep an open mind about the curricular imperatives
of language and culture; operationalize the expressed desires of
the people in the form of a clear, continuous, simply stated,
easily understood and workable curriculum; translate and negotiate
the important curricular issues among the different interest
groups; and be ready to learn much more than expected.
The curriculum in the Northwest
Arctic School District is being (and probably should be) developed "from scratch" because
of the unique political, economic, social and cultural changes taking place
in the region. As can be
inferred from this paper, the emphasis is on process and
involvement, with a determination to make the products conform
with the expressed needs of the people. Programs for staff
development, including encouraging Iflupiat teacher-trainees, are
being initiated on a district-wide basis. Program planning and
fiscal planning are being coordinated in order to unify the
diverse district programs toward the end of meeting all students'
needs.
All of these processes are woven with the threads
of staff development, program development, and community development, on
the loom of lñuguliq kamaksriigalikun. Time will tell if the Northwest
Arctic has chosen the right path.
Foreword
J. Kelly Tonsmiere
Introduction
Ray Barnhardt
Section
I
Some Thoughts on Village
Schooling
"Appropriate
Schools in Rural Alaska"
Todd Bergman, New Stuyahok
"Learning
Through Experience"
Judy Hoeldt, Kaltag
"The
Medium Is The Message For Village
Schools"
Steve Byrd, Wainwright
"Multiple
Intelligences: A Community Learning
Campaign"
Raymond Stein, Sitka
"Obstacles
To A Community-Based Curriculum"
Jim Vait, Eek
"Building
the Dream House"
Mary Moses-Marks, McGrath
"Community
Participation in Rural Education"
George Olana, Shishmaref
"Secondary
Education in Rural Alaska"
Pennee Reinhart, Kiana
"Reflections
on Teaching in the Kuskokwim Delta"
Christine Anderson, Kasigluk
"Some
Thoughts on Curriculum"
Marilyn Harmon, Kotzebue
Section
II
Some Suggestions for the
Curriculum
"Rabbit
Snaring and Language Arts"
Judy Hoeldt, Kaltag
"A Senior
Research Project for Rural High Schools"
Dave Ringle, St. Mary's
"Curriculum
Projects for the Pacific Region,"
Roberta Hogue Davis, College
"Resources
for Exploring Japan's Cultural Heritage"
Raymond Stein, Sitka
"Alaskans
Experience Japanese Culture Through
Music"
Rosemary Branham, Kenai
Section
III
Some Alternative
Perspectives
"The
Axe Handle Academy: A Proposal for a Bioregional, Thematic
Humanities Education"
Ron and Suzanne Scollon
"Culture,
Community and the Curriculum"
Ray Barnhardt
"The
Development of an Integrated Bilingual and Cross-Cultural
Curriculum in an Arctic School District"
Helen Roberts
"Weaving
Curriculum Webs: The Structure of Nonlinear
Curriculum"
Rebecca Corwin, George E. Hem and Diane Levin
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