Lessons Taught, Lessons Learned Vol. I
by
Jim Vait
Atmautluak
In the following paper, I will
briefly describe a situation in which I had an opportunity to
involve my students in a village-centered project and then I will
discuss what I believe were the main obstacles to our
participation in that project. Finally, I will summarize some
educational problems that might have been addressed had our school
found ways to cooperate with the community.
During my two years of teaching in
Atmautluak, the elders of that village became involved in the
formation of the Yupiit Nation. Thus, I found myself in the
situation of having to teach government in a village where a new
government was being formed. However, unlike the teacher who used
a captive spider as the focal point of a project which encompassed
an entire curriculum (see Corwin, et. al., in this publication), I
was unable to help my students become involved in the dynamic
process that was unfolding in their community. The reasons for my
failure to do so did not lie with my lack of interest or with the
administrations' or the elders' objections to our participation,
but rather with the fact that the school was structured and
organized in such a way that a community-centered project could
not be easily accommodated. For example, government class was
scheduled from 10:40 to 11:25 a.m. which was not
necessarily the time when the elders met to discuss important
issues. On the other hand, the stated educational objectives that
called for the students to "list" the eleven departments of the
executive branch or to "tell" the year and month in which the
Russians relinquished their control over the territory of Alaska
did not exactly provide for the study of a government formation
either.
In their struggle to retain title
to their lands and to maintain their traditional lifestyle, the
elders were combing books and historical documents looking for
precedents and ideas that would provide the legal basis for the
tribal government. They wrote letters to congressmen, lobbyists,
and leaders of other communities with similar goals. They
delivered speeches, expounding their ideals and desires. There
were questions about the feasibility of beginning a fish farming
project that might provide an additional economic base for the
village. The elders' efforts during this retribalization movement
reflected a vitality and an interest that could have commanded the
students' interest. Here a project presented itself which could
have encompassed the entire curriculum.
As these proceedings were
occurring in the city offices, a scant 200 yards from the school,
the students learned about history and government in the
conventional manner. They wrote some letters, paragraphs, themes,
and short stories as they were assigned in their writing classes.
In speech class, the students read the Gettysburg Address,
listened to speeches by Martin Luther King, and delivered some
speeches on basketball. They learned about math and science in
classes allotted to those subjects.
The present education of our rural
students seems to focus on preparing them for a life that exists
only away from the village. The project of forming a tribal
government could have provided the students with an immediate
impetus to learning and with an opportunity to use their academic
skills in the village setting. The students could have learned
departments of the state's executive branch through contacting
state agencies rather than through memorizing a formidable and
somewhat meaningless list. Writing skills would have been honed by
the need to communicate and, therefore, would have been better
retained for future use, not only in the village but anywhere the
students would choose to live. The students could have analyzed
historical events to explain today's dilemmas instead of learning
to view history as a series of static facts. Studies about the
bioregion; its waters, soils, and life-giving capabilities; and
the problems of increasing its productivity could have provided
vital information for the village as well as a well-rounded
science curriculum. I assume that the students would have compared
government structures as well as government
philosophies.
The elders invited us to
participate in their retribalizing efforts. Unfortunately, the
setting and structure of the village school didn't lend themselves
to a melding of talents. I had my agenda to follow, and the elders
had theirs.
Several factors would have been
crucial for the school to be able to assist the village in the
formation of a government. A keen sensitivity to the needs of the
community and knowledge and respect for cultural patterns would
have been required. Highly developed social skills would have been
necessary to ensure a smooth relationship between the school and
the village. Any notion that the elders were engaged in an
exercise of futility would have needed to be set aside.
It would have been necessary that
the school administration and the entire staff commit themselves
to the project as an educational experience. The random activities
which would have been generated in this type of project might have
precluded a normal scheduling pattern. Unless the staff had agreed
upon the validity of this approach, conflict might have arisen
when an important meeting would have preempted the day's planned
algebra lesson.
Most school activities are based
on the notion that learning must take place in a classroom with
students sitting in chairs arranged in one of a certain set of
patterns. The education establishment has spent millions to
construct these monuments and therefore expects that these
settings will be used in a prescribed manner. For the school to be
able to participate in such a community-centered project, new
thinking about the use of classrooms (Could they be opened for
village use? Would that be legal?) as learning sites would have to
occur.
Such a restructuring of the school
environment raises the question of control, which might make some
people uncomfortable. Presently, the administration and staff
determine which subjects arc taught and how the subject matter is
presented. In a village-wide project this control would be lost,
and many might feel threatened as community members gained the
power to influence the direction of learning. Even more
threatening could be the emergence of naturally gifted members of
the community as teachers. Professional staff would have to
reassess their roles as "transmitters of knowledge and skills";
they would have to approach the setting more as learners than as
authorities. For some, it might be very disconcerting to realize
that under such circumstances, the school would be serving the
needs of the community instead of the community serving the needs
of the school.
Another question is how teachers
relate to such a project approach to learning. For some it might
be difficult to visualize effective learning taking place in this
setting. The happy positive part of mc can picture students
cooperating and working diligently, inquiring and observing. The
realist, skeptical side of me envisions the students at best
hiding in corners, reading comic books or playing checkers. (Let's
not even imagine the worst scenario!) Perhaps my experience with a
project-centered approach is too limited. Methods of tracking, the
types of objectives and the actual activities the students and
teachers would engage in are not obvious to me. Unless the teacher
has a vision of its workability, such a project would be doomed to
failure. Specific training or exposure to an ongoing project would
be helpful in learning to visualize the process.
Several problems that are
endemic to rural schools would have been addressed had we been
able to participate in the community's efforts to form a
government. The students would have been free to learn within the
existing cultural patterns of their community, rather than
learning about their culture as it is perceived by outsiders. If
the students and the elders could have worked together on issues
of immediate concern to the community many of the problems of
bilingual and cross-cultural education would have been addressed.
Through discussing present-day problems with the elders, the
students would have increased their fluency in Yup'ik and gained
cultural insights.
The "failure syndrome," the
downward spiral of teacher expectations, student motivation, and
student achievement, which was articulated by Helen Roberts (see
Roberts, in this publication), could also have been addressed in
this project. I believe that any educator who is willing to be
open will have to admit that he or she is familiar with this
problem. Roberts suggested several activities to raise student
motivation, such as developing more relevant school programs;
developing cross-cultural materials; devising a flexible schedule
to accommodate diverse lifestyles; involving parents in curriculum
development, instruction, and evaluation. All of these would have
been part of the project. Also included would have been several
approaches to raising student achievement such as providing
opportunities for individual and group achievement. In addition,
the project would have contributed to increasing teacher
expectations through involving the staff in curriculum development
and through reducing teacher isolation. Since the project was
governed by real-life demands, the community might have expected
more from the students than the teachers do. The students' reading
and communication skills could have been a valuable asset to the
communities efforts. Through interacting with members of
the community, the students could have contributed to improving
the reading skills of the whole village.
This project was too large to
undertake without related experience. I am not prepared to
facilitate the restructuring of an entire education system. I have
experienced some positive results with projects such as the
yearbook and the ongoing project of the school newspaper. However,
these have been school-centered rather than village-centered
activities. I believe that for starting a more community-centered
teaching/learning program, it may be appropriate to expand smaller
and/or existing projects to include village activities.
