 Our Language Our Souls:
The Yup'ik bilingual curriculum of the
Lower Kuskokwim School District: A continuing success story.
Edited by Delena Norris-Tull,
University of Alaska Fairbanks,
School of Education, Fairbanks, Alaska
copyright
1999
Introduction to the
Kuskokwim Delta
By Delena Norris-Tull
University of Alaska Fairbanks,
Fairbanks, Alaska
Copyright
1999
(Editor's note: I am relatively new to Alaska,
having moved to Dillingham in December 1993. Since that time I have
traveled to approximately 30 villages in western and southwestern
Alaska. I had the great honor of residing in Bethel, Alaska from
August 1997 to January 1999 while teaching at the Kuskokwim Campus (a
branch of the University of Alaska Fairbanks). I traveled to several
villages in the Lower Kuskokwim School District during that time,
advising college students and working with student teachers. The
following narrative is based on my personal experience in this region
of the state. Any errors in my representation of the region are my
own. I referred to 1990 US Census data to back up my
information.)
The Lower Kuskokwim School District is located in the lower
drainage of the Kuskokwim River in western Alaska. The district
serves a region of the state that is about 44,000 square miles
(roughly the size of the state of Ohio). The district headquarters
are located in Bethel, a town of about 5000 people, and one of the
largest towns in rural Alaska. Bethel is 400 air miles due west of
Anchorage, and is about 350 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Jets
fly several times a day between Anchorage and Bethel. Neither Bethel
nor any of the villages in western Alaska is connected to the rest of
the state by roads. The lower Kuskokwim region is relatively flat
tundra, and has very few trees. A number of villages are so close to
sea level that the houses are literally standing in water. The fog
settles, the wind blows, and the dust accumulates. And the people are
the most kind and loving people I have ever met in my life.
Travel from Bethel to the outlying villages is by various sizes
and types of bush plane, boat, snowmobile, dog sled, and even by
hovercraft. The Lower Kuskokwim School District has 27 schools, five
in Bethel and the rest distributed in 21 villages. Those villages
range in size from about 60 to 600 people. Of the approximately 3600
students in the school district, 91 percent are Alaska Native. The
population of Bethel is about 60% Alaska Native. The population of
each of the 21 villages in the region is greater than 90% Alaska
Native. Yup'ik is the predominant Alaska Native language in the
region, with Cup'ig (a Yup'ik dialect) in Mekoryuk on Nunivak
Island.
School district language proficiency testing reveals that a
significant number of children in the district come to school
speaking Yup'ik. Of the 21 villages served by the district, the
majority of the children in 13 villages come to school with greater
proficiency in Yup'ik than in English. In five other villages, the
level of Yup'ik proficiency is variable but significant. In only
three of the villages (Goodnews, Mekoryuk, and Platinum) do children
have no proficiency or extremely limited proficiency in
Yup'ik/Cup'ig. In Bethel, it is common to hear Yup'ik being spoken in
shops and homes by adults although few children are fluent in
Yup'ik.
Bethel is unique in the region in having an astounding diversity
of cultures, including a large contingent of Koreans. The Camai dance
festival, an annual event in Bethel in the spring, hosts Alaska
Native dancers from all over the state as well as Korean and Japanese
dancers, and dancers from other regions of the world and the
nation.
When I first visited Bethel, I was amazed to find that it has a
large number of taxicabs. Few people own automobiles and many rely on
the cab service for local transportation. The most common response I
received whenever I asked my cab driver where he or she most recently
came from (regardless of ethnicity) was Los Angeles. In the two years
I lived and traveled in the region, I was served by cab drivers from
Russia, Korea, China, Japan, Iran, Albania, and Macedonia, as well as
a number of American cabbies from various of the lower 48 states.
In contrast to it's cosmopolitan population, Bethel and the Lower
Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region has the highest poverty level in the
state (12 percent of people in Bethel live below poverty level, but
that percentage increases to 25-75 percent in the villages), and the
region has the greatest health problems. In the year 2000, other than
Bethel, these villages lack adequate sewage disposal facilities. The
Alaskan honey bucket (literally a small bucket in a corner of a room,
used as a toilet) is still the common means of waste disposal, with
one central disposal site in each village (individuals carry their
honey buckets to the central disposal site daily). It was not until
the summer of 1998 that a law went into effect banning honey buckets
in buildings in Bethel. In Bethel, most homes and businesses rely on
water being trucked to their homes and sewage being trucked out. In
2000, none of the villages served by the Lower Kuskokwim School
District has suitable drinking water. Each village has one central
water source, and villagers rely on surface water that is often not
clean. Many people boil or distill their drinking water. Rates of
contagious diseases are extremely high in the region. Children and
teachers miss many days of school due to illness each year. Outbreaks
of tuberculosis and hepatitis still occur. Children and adults die
young and in high numbers annually.
The Yup'ik/Cup'ig people of western Alaska have a great wealth of
knowledge and skills that many outsiders lack. Although, as have
people in the cities, rural residents have become dependent on
manufactured goods and imported gasoline and fuel oil (which come to
rural Alaska at a very high price), the people of western Alaska
maintain a reliance on a subsistence lifestyle that provides them
with a great deal of independence and self-sufficiency. Seasonal
harvest of a wide range of animals and plants, from the sea and from
the land, remains the most important source of food and many personal
items. On my first visit to Chefornak, I was allowed to watch the
butchering of a seal. On my last visit to Chevak, I was invited to
taste the seal oil.
Table of Contents
- Introduction to the Kuskokwim
Delta - Delena Norris-Tull
- Introduction to the Yup'ik
Language and Culture Programs of the Lower Kuskokwim
School District - Delena Norris-Tull &
Beverly Williams
- Chapter 1: The Yup'ik
First Language Program: Lower Kuskokwim School District
- Mary Lou Beaver & Evon Azean, Sr.
- Chapter 2: The Balanced
Literacy Program in Yup'ik - Pamela Yancey & Sophie
Shield
- Chapter 3: Creating Yup'ik
Books, Translating, & Orthography - Pamela Yancey
& Sophie Shield
- Chapter 4: Ayaprun Immersion
School - Loddie Ayaprun Jones
- Chapter 5: Analysis of the Yup'ik
Immersion Program In Bethel - Agatha Panigkaq
John-Shields
- Chapter 6: Yup'ik Language and Culture: A
Description and Analytical View of the 4-6 Yup'ik Thematic
Unit - Dora E. Strunk
- Chapter 7: K-3
Thematic Units and the Alaska Cultural Standards - Nita
Yurrliq Rearden
- Chapter 8: Yup'ik Language and Culture: A
Description of the 5th-12th
Yup'ik Curriculum and its Revision - Rosalie
Lincoln
- Chapter 9: Yup'ik
Discipline Practices Inerquutet and Alerquutet To
Implement Into Yup'ik Schools - Theresa Arevgaq John
- Chapter 10: Recommendations
for Yup'ik Curriculum at Lower Kuskokwim School District - Sally
Casey
email the
editor, D. Norris-Tull
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