Shaping The Future
( TEXT 9 )
 

The Alaska Claims Settlement Act will reach into the lives of all Alaskans, both Native and non-Natives. Those persons affected by the settlement will in turn be the power shaping the future of the state.

CONCEPTS TO BE TAUGHT:

  1. Self-determination is an important concept inherent in the Native Claims Settlement Act.
  2. Self-determination begins first with individuals willing to be responsible for their own futures.
  3. All individuals must decide how much responsibilitythey have for others.

KNOWING WHO I AM

DESIRED STUDENT OUTCOME:

Students will analyze data concerning themselves.

STRATEGIES:

Place a long piece of butcher paper on the wall. Student and teacher posters may be assembled in a giant mural. Have students pair up and explain their posters to each other.

QUOTATION FROM THE WHITEHOUSE CONFERENCE ON CHILDREN, 1970.

A SYMBOL FOR ME:

THIS IS WHERE I'M FROM:

ME, AS A LITTLE KID
 THE PERSON WHO HELPED ME MOST TO KNOW WHO I AM:
MY FIRST NAME:
THIS SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT WHAT I AM (a poem, drawing, object, or the like):
 THE GREATEST OBSTACLE I HAVE HAD TO OVERCOME IN BECOMING MYSELF:

Discussion Questions:

 

WHAT AM I DOING?

DESIRED STUDENT OUTCOME:

Students will accumulate personal data vital to decision making concerning future.

STRATEGIES:

Ask students to list 20 things that they really enjoy doing. Although they may find it difficult at first, encourage them to list as many as they can. It is important that they be honest. No one will even see their paper unless they want to share.

Ask them to rule off 13 columns on the paper, following the 20 things they like to do. One at a time, give them the following instructions as to what to put in the columns:

1. Put a $ following each activity that costs $5 or more each time you do it.

2. Put an R if there is emotional or physical risk ivolved. Put an S if it is pretty safe.

3. Put an A for things you generally prefer to do alone, a P after those you like to do with people.

4. If you had children, would you allow them to engage in this activity? Put a checkmark if you would.

5. Rate the first 5 activities (1 means you enjoy it most).

6. When did you last do the activity (last week? last month?)

7. Put a 10 if you think you'11 enjoy this activity 10 years from now.

8. Put an O for outdoor activities and an I for indoor ones.

9. Put a V if this activity can be enjoyed only in a village or rural community. Put a C if it is a city activity.

10. Put "hands" if it is primarily a manual activity. Put "head" if it is primarily a thinking activity.

11. Put ACT if it is an active pastime. Put PAS if it is passive (requires little physical activity).

12. Put F if it is something you usually do with your family.

13. Put N for those activities which you think you like because you are Native Alaskan. Put U if you think it is universal (enjoyed by teenagers anywhere).

Encourage students to analyze their responses. Do not force them to share unless they wish, but general discussion is good. A show of hands can be nonthreatening:

And so forth, through the columns.

Have students write a paragraph beginning, "I learned that......"

Ask that students keep their responses for future reference in this unit.

 

TIME DIARY

DESIRED STUDENT OUTCOME:

Students will analyze use of time in order to improve planning.

STRATEGIES:

Require that students keep diaries of what they do hour by hour for one week. Promise that the diary will be confidential. Note: Daily reminders will be necessary. Some time can be set aside for recording for that day.

At the end of the week ask the students to list the 5 things that they most value in life.

Hand out and discuss the following quotation by Sidney Simon:

"The use of one's time, how one spends the twenty-four hours, is one of the most complex problems individual men and women must deal with during a lifetime. At the most value-clarified level, our consumption of time will be remarkably consistent with our values. In effect, a person does what he values; and what he does not value he does not do. The gap between what one says and what one does is probably never more blatantly visible than in how one actually allocates his time in relation to the values he claims to cherish."

Require students to evaluate their diaries.

How do you actually spend your time? What does your time diary show that you value?

What can you do to make how you spend your time really reflect what you value?

 

ROAD MAP TO THE FUTURE

DESIRED STUDENT OUTCOME:

Students will participate in goal-setting session.

STRATEGIES:

Put students in a circle. You might want to consider setting a mood by turning off the lights, lighting a candle, and playing soft music.

Ask the students to close their eyes. "Concentrate on yourself as you are right now. . . . Now, concentrate on yourself as the kind of person you would like to be in the future if everything you hope and wish for comes true. .

"On the inside of your eyelids, draw a map. On the right is where you want to go---the kind of person you want to be. On the left is where you are right now. In the middle of the map you may notice some obstacles.

"Be aware of what the obstacles are. Concentrate on what you have available to you to help you get to where you want to go----people, things, your character, your body, your talents, your senses. . .

"Slowly and quietly open your eyes and look at the other people in the circle. . ."

Have students list 10 goals they would like to reach by the time they are 50.

In groups of 4, make one list, showing:

Have a person from each group put his group's  composite list on a large piece of butcher paper, or on the blackboard.

The class will study the lists. What goals are common to the entire class? Which goals are unique to certain individuals?

Does anyone wish to discuss your Road Map to the Future? Where do you want to go? What obstacles will you have to overcome to get there? Do you have a plan for overcoming the obstacles?

 

THE OUTLOOK IS FABULOUS

DESIRED STUDENT OUTCOME:

Students will become familiar with some of the options open to them in the area of occupations.

STRATEGIES:

"Corporation manpower demands are intensifiying the already critical shortage of skilled Native manpower in Alaska. The very conservative manpower estimates. . . suggest that by Fiscal Year 1978, corporations will require at least 400 to 600 professional, technical, and clerical personnel. Demand will be highest for:

"Natives who have received the training necessary to meet corporation manpower demand are in short supply, especially at the professional levels. For example, over the last 4 years, an average of only 21 Natives per year have received bachelor's degrees in Alaska."

If they are available, hand out copies of The Outlook: Alaska natives and Their Careers for each student or pair of students (Indian Education Act Project, Richard Appleton, AMU Press, 1975.).

Require students to read the booklet.

Working in groups, have them list the careers described in the booklet, including those of students who have future plans.

Have them categorize the careers. Each group should put the lists on butcher paper and explain how they categorized as they did.

Have students identify the values that people in those career fields must consider important.

What training is necessary to enter the field? Where is such training available?

How much might it cost? Are there special programs to help defray costs?

What values seem to be significant? Desire to work with others? Outside? In a city? Village? Risk?

Of the careers listed, which might interest me most?

 

DIORAMA OF OUR VILLAGE

DESIRED STUDENT OUTCOME:

Students will learn that when groups of people gather and live near each other they sometime specialize in offering services (medicine, education, religion, carpentry, electrical maintenance, flying, mechanical maintenance, power, entertainment) or deliver products (selling fuel, groceries, clothing, hardware). Students will make comparisons of how goods and services are delivered as times change.

MATERIALS:

Wood blocks, paint, tabletop or large board, paper mache, straws, string, wood cylinders, cardboard, plaster of paris, clay, sawdust, lichen or vegetation, pebbles, tooth picks.

STRATEGIES:

Divide the class into three groups. Have one group construct a diorama of their community today. Identify all buildings (privately owned and community owned) and illustrate all the products and services offered.

Have a second group design a model of the living style in their grandparents' time. Bring in, if possible, people of that generation to help them.

Have a third group design how they think their village might look in 50 years. This group should do lots of brainstorming before construction begins. Try to be as imaginative as possible.

When dioramas are completed, have the students, make three class lists. One list will include all the occupations held in their village. The second will be occupations people from other villages or communities have held or who upon occasion have delivered goods or services to their village. The third list should be of occupations held in other places but never seen in their village.

Have each student rank each list as to its most important value. Tabulate and display this data.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

What jobs do we most value? Why? Least value? Why?

Which pay the most?

Which would you least want to give up? Why?

Which would be the most interesting to you when you grow up?

Would these same choices be made by your parents?

Grandparents? Great-grandparents?

What jobs may be needed 50 years from now that we do not have today?

What jobs and skills were needed 50 years ago that are not as important today?

Explore extent of training one needs for each job and where one goes to train.

 

SCENARIO OF MY FUTURE

DESIRED STUDENT OUTCOME:

Students will participate in future prediction activity.

STRATEGIES:

Refer students to the activity "20 Things I Love To Do" and also to the Career Outlook lesson. Remind them that life is more than work and a career.

Ask them to write a story about a typical day 10 years in the future. They might begin:

Encourage them to think in terms of other than an ideal day and to include everything about their life, such as family, home, and leisure time.

Scenarios should be shared. Volunteers might read theirs to the class, or the teacher could duplicate them and pass them out to the class without names.

Save the scenarios for future reference.

 

MAKE A SELF-DETERMINATION MURAL

DESIRED STUDENT OUTCOME:

Students will analyze extent of self-determination concept in Settlement Act.

STRATEGIES:

Put up a large stretch of butcher paper, with these questions on it. Divide the class into groups to plan answers to these questions.

Have students read the student Land Claims Book and do the activities there.

Using magazine clippings or drawing pictures they are to make a collage answering the questions asked on the butcher paper.

They may also use quotations from their own writings, from Letters to Howard, and from the 2-C Study, Department of the Interior.

 

ACTIVITY FOLLOWING THE CASE STUDY IN THE STUDENT TEXT

DESIRED STUDENT OUTCOME:

Students will participate in decision-making session.

STRATEGIES:

Allow students to elect several directors.

Divide the students into 2 groups--those living outside the region and those living inside the region of which 2 or 3 might be designated as unemployed.

Assign the directors to planning a public hearing on the question.

The other two groups should prepare their arguments for the hearing and perhaps select a spokesperson.

After the hearing, the directors confer, write their decision and the reasons why they decided as they did.

The meeting is re-convened and the director announces the decision.

Allow the class to vote on the retention of the directors.

Did some of the participants (stockholders) have more influence than others? Why?

Should stockholders make decisions like this by majority vote? Why?

Was more information needed? Do people sometimes make important decisions without sufficient information?

 

GOALS OF CORPORATIONS

DESIRED STUDENT OUTCOME:

Students will demonstrate categorizing skills using lists of the goals of operating corporations.

STRATEGIES:

Working in groups of 3 or 4, read the goals and objectives of Calista Corporation.

Decide what categories the goals fall into.

Using butcher paper, label the categories and list the goals.

Read your own region's statements of goals and objectives. (If you live in Calista Region, obtain a copy of another region's goals for comparison.)

Categorize them as you did those of Calista.

Encourage discussion based on the inter-relationship of goals.

Using the knowledge you have accumulated about yourself in this unit, try writing your own personal life goals and objectives, as if you were a corporation. Share them, but only if you want to.

Source: Calista Corporation, Annual Report  1974

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
Calista Corporation, 1974

Pursue every available employment opportunity for Calista shareholders. The consideration of hatchery programs in areas of the region where there is an apparent need to build back up salmon stocks.

Establish a Calista Cultural and Educational Foundation.

To provide full support for revitalization of the reindeer industry in our region.
Establish within Calista Corporation land department a permanent Renewable Resource Division to continuously research and develop means and ways to protect to the maximum the subsistence lifestyle of Calista people. To undertake research for alternate port facilities for our region.
To provide active support of the proposed canal to interconnect the Kuskokwim and Yukon rivers to bring about better transportation for our Region.
Establish long range planning for development of subsurface resources of the Calista Region bearing in mind constantly that the first priority of consideration is to maintain the natural state of the land. To constantly support in every legal fashion any effort designed to stop foreign national high seas fishing of our Region's salmon stocks.
Acquire land in Bethel in order to construct a Calista headquarters and possible commercial center. To assist any program designed to rehabilitate and revitalize dock and shipping facilities,at Bethel.
Assist the establishment of a taxfree Fund in conjunction with other native regional corporations to provide shareholders of the participating corporations with pension, medical and educational benefits. Pursue the establishment of a commodity warehouse in our Region to bring needed products closer to the outlying areas and provide this type of service at a cost savings to the area regional retailers.
Investigate recreational development in prime geographic areas of the Region.
To assist in the establishment of an Alaska Native Development Corporation with the other native regional corporations to provide a broad base in land and money assets for economic development, throughout the lands owned by the participating regional corporations. Support the establishment of a federally chartered credit union for Calista shareholders.
Join and support the United Bank of Alaska in conjunction with other regional corporations to bring about an Alaskan Native owned bank.
To pursue the investigation of an integrated fishing study in the Calista Region which could involve Calista shareholders in all phases of this industry inclusive of preservation to insure perpetuity of the migrating fish, the catching of fish, and the processing of fish in such a way so that such processing provides maximum economic yield to the people. Pursue the business feasibility of marketing berry preserves harvested from the Calista Region.
Pursue the business feasibility of establishing a soft drink bottling plant in the Bethel area.
Support the establishment of additional bulk petroleum distribution points within the Region.
The investigation of a bottom fisheries industry in the Bering Sea. Maintain positive support of regional development through a corporate policy to foster joint ventures with village corporations in feasible endeavors.

 

OPTIONAL LIFE STYLES

DESIRED STUDENT OUTCOME:

Students will participate in activity designed to  broaden options for the future.

STRATEGIES:

Type up scenarios based on those the students did earlier, but not necessarily the same. You may create scenarios describing life styles which none of the students thought of.

Read Howard Rock's speech from the text aloud in class. Discuss his optimism.

Distribute scenarios, but try to give students ones dissimilar to the ones they wrote earlier. Ask students to read their scenarios and determine a symbol or phrase summarizing them.

Refering to the student text and statements of goals and objectives, which ones will be helped if the life style advocated is followed?

Have each student display his or her conclusions and read the scenario to the class.

Have students write an essay or discuss the following:

Are young people planning life styles in keeping with Rock's optimism? Why, or why not?

How does the Land Claims Act provide opportunities for Native young people?

How does the act hinder them?

Should Native youth plan futures based on Native needs of the future?

 

ANALYZING AN EDITORIAL: Other Claims

DESIRED STUDENT OUTCOME:

Students will analyze the effect which the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act is having on other native people.

STRATEGIES:

Underline and read to the class one statement from this editorial that you really agree with.

Discuss any point with which you do not totally agree.

Do research on aboriginal groups on other continents. Do you predict that any of them will make land claims to their governments?

Our views:

Other 'claims'

Alaska's Natives set a precedent in 1971 when they were awarded 40 million acres and $1 billion by the federal government as compensation for aboriginal lands taken by white intruders.

With this example as a springboard, claims issues have emerged in other areas where Natives have lost the land they claim was originally theirs, before white man's explorations.

Cash settlement has already been made to the Seminoles in Florida, and now Native Canadians and Hawaiians are active in their own land claims movements.

In Alaska, the Native claims act not only gave land to villages, but created corporations to invest millions of dollars in projects to benefit Native people. For the most part, these investments have given modern housing to the bush, and job opportunities to villagers.

As the cycle moves on, jobs and improved lifestyle will bring new respect and stature to the Natives. With this will come preservation of their special culture, and independence from the white man.

It is hoped that claims movements in other areas will do likewise for North America's original settlers. At the very least, it should compensate for injuries done without shame to these people.

In Canada, Eskimo leaders have just presented to Prime Minister Elliott Trudeau and his cabinet a formal claim to ownership of 250,000 square miles of land in northern Canada. In making their formal claim, the Eskimos asked for special rights in 500,000 additional square miles of land and 800,000 square miles of ocean. They asked that the area, more than one-fifth of Canada, be declared a separate jurisdiction, eventually to become a province called Nunavut.

 

They have rejected however, any outright cash settlement, such as the nearly $1 billion obtained in Alaska.

In response, Trudeau has said he will handle the claims "with a sense of urgency."

In Hawaii, a Native association called ALOHA (Aboriginal Lands of Hawaii) is asking Congress to pay $1 billion in reparations for lands taken by the federal government after it annexed Hawaii in 1898. Among other rights, they are also seeking control of 2.5 million acres of land valued at $76 billion–originally owned by the Hawaiian monarchy.

A critical point, as it was in Alaska, is that Hawaiians face total assimilation into white, urban society and will otherwise lose the culture and tradition that is theirs. Without land, they say, they will lose the values that make their life stable.

As in Alaska, land claims issues are expected to be tossed around in Congress and in Parliament for months, even years, before being settled.

As the issues go through the painful steps toward resolution, we urge the governments to remember a comment made by a prominent Alaskan banker:

"Land claims have done more for the people in Alaska than anything since statehood."

4-Anchoroge Daily News. Monday, March 6, 1976
Anchorage Daily News

 

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