Alaskana: Opening doors to rural education (fwd)

Mon Oct 2 16:33:43 UTC 2006

ALASKANA: OPENING DOORS  TO RURAL EDUCATION
ANGAYUQAQ O. KAWAGLEY During my first three grades, I went to the BIA school.
The older Native boys got into trouble. To survive and succeed, I became a
conformist to the extent I could allow.
http://www.adn.com/life/alaskana/story/8255668p-8152316c.html

Angayuqaq O. Kawagley with his mother, Amelia, in Akiak in 1935. Both of his
parents died when he was 2 years old.  _( Photos courtesy of Angayuqaq O.
Kawagley)_

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Kawagley at his ROTC graduation, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 1957.  _(
Photos courtesy of Angayuqaq O. Kawagley)_

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Kawagley  _( Photos courtesy of Angayuqaq O. Kawagley)_

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Kawagley and a cousin in Bethel, circa 1943.  _( Photos courtesy of Angayuqaq
O. Kawagley)_

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Interviewed by JUDY FERGUSON

_(Published: October  1, 2006)_                

   As in Barry Lopez's book "Arctic Dreams," "the landscape forms the
mindscape, and the mindscape forms the landscape." 

   For identity purposes, our Native children must interpret the modern world
with equivalent perception from within our Yupiaq world. 

   My Yupiaq name, Angayuqaq, "parent, leader or chief," was given to me by my
grandmother, Kinaven. I was born Oscar Kawagley Nov. 8, 1934, in Mamterilleq,
today called Bethel. My parents were David Kawagley, a reindeer herder from
Akiak, and Amelia Oscar of Bethel. Unfortunately, my parents died when I was
only 2 years old. 

   My mother insisted that my grandmother (who spoke only her Yupiaq language)
raise me. In my waterproof sealskin boots, I walked with my grandmother through
the marshy muskeg, hunting for eggs. She taught me where to find a ptarmigan
nest, mallard and goose eggs. In the springtime, camping out of a tent, using
reindeer hide mattresses, we canoed and set out muskrat traps. I learned who I
was and how to look at life. I learned about personal relationships of humans,
weather, plants and animals. When I asked her about plants I didn't know, she'd
say, "Oh, that's just part of the plant world." I realized that we only gave
names to the plants that were medicinal and edible; all the rest we lumped
together, left in the depot of plant ecology. 

   At 9, I got my first .22. At 13, with a shotgun, I was able to bring home
more ducks and geese. My grandmother got me a small canvas-covered, wood-frame
canoe and ordered us a little 2.5-horsepower motor from Sears & Roebuck. 

   She shared a lot of mythology. In the evenings, she told how the crane got
blue eyes, and I became a part of that story and it became a part of me. 

   When I was almost 8, I had to go to school. In third grade, I went for the
last time to spring muskrat camp. I was introduced to a segregated school
system. The Bureau of Indian Affairs had a two-classroom elementary school,
grades one through eight. About 150 yards away, there was a school for whites
and breeds whose families had "a civilized life." During my first three grades,
I went to the BIA school. The older Native boys got into trouble. To survive and
succeed, I became a conformist to the extent I could allow. To give me some
spending money, the superintendent got me a job as a janitor.

WORKING THROUGH COLLEGE

   On eighth-grade graduation, all my friends went on to Chemawa or to Mt.
Edgecumbe, but my grandmother wouldn't allow it, saying she needed me. At 17, I
joined the National Guard. The superintendent asked me, "Have you ever thought
about college?" 

   "No," I answered. How could I, with only my grandmother? 

   Then, "If you did go to college, what would you want to study?" followed by,
"Have you ever thought of teaching?" The next semester, he said, "If you want to
go to (college), you can take the balance of your high school classes here in
the mornings, and in the afternoons, you can be free to work at the National
Guard to save up your money." 

   At the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, I refused BIA grants and instead
washed dishes and translated for the 4th Judicial District. 

   In 1954, with 27 other Natives, I began studying at UAF. After four years,
only four of us Natives finished. In my senior year, I had taken 40 credits,
graduated from ROTC as a 2nd lieutenant in the medical service corps, worked
and graduated with a degree in biology and a minor in military science and
tactics. I became the seventh Native teacher in the territory and later the
first Eskimo in the officer corps. 

   After moving to Anchorage, I became a grant writer and then president for
ESCA-Tech Corp., a subsidiary for the Calista Corp. At the time, Calista was
building the Sheraton Anchorage Hotel and they made me president. They were
having problems with the building, an incomplete steel skeleton, the biggest
"fish rack" in the state. I hired an East Indian who knew the financial world.
By the time we finished the Sheraton, the elders couldn't tell me anything --
but they clipped my wings, and boy, ever since I've been a different person,
more human and humbled. 

   After the Sheraton, I worked in Bethel as the director of Native education
for the Lower Kuskokwim School District and then returned to UAF to get my
education specialty degree in administration with superintendent endorsement. 

TEACHING THE TEACHERS

   One day I got a call from University of Alaska asking me if I'd be
interested in being a field faculty member with the teacher education program.
They sent me to Barrow, where I worked with their North Slope higher-education
program, the precursor to the Ilisagvik College. I was known to be a good
teacher; however, many of my Native students were failing. I realized, "I am
teaching with the approach of 'one shoe fits all.' " I began to move into the
specialized education sciences. 

   I decided to get my Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia, where I
built a good committee including Dr. Ray Barnhardt. I addressed the background
of my students, their experience, cultures and views of the world. My
dissertation became a book, "The Yupiaq World View: A Pathway to Ecology and
Spirit." A second edition was published in 2006.

   I was the first Yupiaq from my  area to get a Ph.D., and today I am listed
among some of the best-known anthropologists. 

   In 1995, my book became the foundation for getting a National Science
Foundation five-year grant, addressing how we teach mathematics and science to
Native students. A second five-year grant followed the completion of the first
one.

   With $2 million per year, selecting some of the lowest-scoring school
districts in the Bush, we set up the Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative. We began
agreements with the schools, did teacher workshops and trained the teachers they
had using the work of the Native teacher and aides. 

   Alaska Native Knowledge Network was created a couple of years before the end
of NSF/Department of Education funding. Our mission at ANKN is that all
curricula, materials and ideas for teaching math and science through the
indigenous approach -- and certainly, Native-language instruction -- be
collected and available. We link to other global indigenous educational
approaches as well. 

   As indigenous people, we must support each other's work to equip our youth
with strong identity.

   In this fast-changing world that includes global warming, we still have a
lot of elders who know the original condition of the land. Our collective
Native knowledge may help save us in the midst of these impending changes. 

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  Judy Ferguson is a publisher and a freelance columnist for the Fairbanks
Daily News-Miner. She is the author of Alaska histories "Parallel Destinies"
and "Blue Hills" and the children's books "Alaska's Secret Door" and "Alaska's
Little Chief." Her Web site is www.alaska-highway.org/delta/outpost.
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