Ancient heritage focus in Chickaloon school (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Ancient heritage focus in Chickaloon school

By JOEL DAVIDSON/Frontiersman reporter
http://www.frontiersman.com/articles/2004/09/07/news/news9.txt

CHICKALOON VILLAGE -- For years, the language and traditions of the
Ahtna Athabascan Indian culture in Chickaloon Village gradually faded
away as younger generations grew up with little training about the
history and ways of their ancestors.

In the summer of 1992, Katherine Wade, the clan grandmother of
Chickaloon Village, started a Saturday school, in which children
gathered in her yard to listen to the history and stories of their
Native culture.

A year later, the Ya Ne Dah Ah or "Ancient Traditions" School opened
full time in an effort to preserve the Ahtna Athabascan culture in
Chickaloon before it completely vanished.

Wade said she was inspired to start the K-eighth-grade, one-room school
after visiting with Native prisoners and seeing how alcoholism, drugs
and shame had ruined their lives.

"Many are ashamed to be Native," Wade said. "Some of the prisoners
listened but many did not."

Wade decided to focus her efforts on the younger generation and when the
school started, Wade was the only full-time teacher.

"The time to teach is when the kids are young so you can keep them away
from prison. If you pay attention to the children they can go on and be
successful," Wade said. "We make them love each other. They are all
relatives, more or less. We tell them to listen to the older ones and
love one another like they love their own selves -- that's what I was
taught."

Students at Ya Ne Dah Ah School learn the traditions of their tribe but
they also learn mathematics, English, science and other standard
subjects.

Above all, they learn respect.

"Respect is the name of the game. You need to respect everyone, even the
animals," Wade said. "We have strict rules and we don't let them call
each other names here."

Now 81 years old, Wade is no longer the primary teacher at the school
but she is one of the very last people in Chickaloon who can still
fluently speak the Ahtna Athabascan language, and her services are
therefore still valuable.

Wade just recently completed a book, "Chickaloon Spirit," chronicling
her life growing up in Chickaloon. She also continues to help at the
school she founded by teaching the traditional Ahtna language. Wade
said she works with her nephew to record the language on tapes and CDs.

The school has three regular classroom teachers with two teaching Ahtna
Athabascan culture and one teaching traditional Western curriculum.
Other special teachers and speakers come from around the state to teach
various aspects of Native culture.

According to Marilyn Staggs, the executive secretary for the school,
finding people who can teach Native culture is not always easy.

"Most of the special speakers are between the ages of 50 and 80 years
old," Staggs said. "We have lost a lot of our culture and we have very
few elders who can teach the culture."

The school runs Monday through Friday, with students learning Native
dance, song and other traditions while also working on their English
spelling words and arithmetic problems. Wade said the children
occasionally perform songs and dances they learn at special meetings
and other Native gatherings.

"They are not ashamed of who they are," Wade said.

Currently, the school building is only big enough for eight students,
with many more on a waiting list. Chickaloon Village Traditional
Council is trying to raise funds for a new building this week.

Last week the council hosted a fund-raiser at the Chickaloon Village
office, where Native crafts, clothing, books and other items were sold
to raise money.

"They want to put other kids in there, but we can't take them right
now," Wade said.

In 2002, the Ya Ne Dah Ah School was one of eight American Indian
programs nationwide to receive a $10,000 award from Harvard University
for being an exemplary tribal government program.

"Not too many places are doing what we are doing," Wade said.

Education Director Kari Johns said the culture of Ahtna Athabascans,
like many tribes in the Alaska and the Lower 48, has diminished through
the influence of Western culture.

"In the 1920s, the state took children away from their families in the
village and put them in boarding schools," Johns said. "This caused a
generation gap in our families."

Wade's parents, however, did not send her to boarding school when she
was a little girl and she was able to learn the language and
traditions.

"She was one of the chosen people to carry on our traditions," Johns
said.

Chickaloon Village owns and operates the Ya Ne Dah Ah School, while the
Galena School District reviews educational plans for individual
students and administers standardized assessment tests.

Parents who enroll their children in the program receive funds through
the Interior Distance Education program of Alaska to help pay for books
and curriculum. IDEA is a home-school program that offers the services
of certified teachers and experienced home schoolers to help parents
educate their children at home, while also providing standards for
parents that support statewide education standards.

According to Johns, the kids at Ya Ne Dah Ah School are doing above
average in most areas of the statewide benchmark tests and are right at
average for language arts.

Contact Joel Davidson at joel.davidson at frontiersman.com.