Friday, February 24, 2012

Module 3: Alaskan Culture

"Culturally responsive comes from understanding self and others so that different values are understood and respected, rather than one set of values being imposed on all."


What is Culture?  How can it be defined?




cul·ture [kuhl-cher] noun, verb

  1. the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners and scholarly pursuits
  2. a particular form or stage of civilization, as that or a certain nation or period
  3. development or improvement of the mind be education or training
  4. the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group
  5. the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another




(Taken from www.dictionary.com)






Culture Map of Alaska (Google Images)





What is Culture?
Culture is defined as the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization. These shared patterns identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group.  (Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA))

Culture is who I am.  It is so integrated and embedded in me, my personality, my preferences, my hopes, my dreams, my worldview, my future and past, that I cannot separate myself from it.  Culture raised me in my grandparents' and parents' words, actions and embraces.  Culture was there when I married my wife and raised our children.  We talked with our culture influencing us, we acted with culture leading the path.
Today, I am different culturally than my brother or sister.  Although we three were raised by the same parents and in the same home, and with many similar experiences, I am different than they.  My cultural experience and understanding has morphed significantly due to my arrival and "enculturation" in Alaska. 
What is Culture?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57KW6RO8Rcs

 
How Can It Be Defined?








[1] "Most social scientists today view culture as consisting primarily of the symbolic, ideational, and intangible aspects of human societies. The essence of a culture is not its artifacts, tools, or other tangible cultural elements but how the members of the group interpret, use, and perceive them. It is the values, symbols, interpretations, and perspectives that distinguish one people from another in modernized societies; it is not material objects and other tangible aspects of human societies. People within a culture usually interpret the meaning of symbols, artifacts, and behaviors in the same or in similar ways." (Banks, Banks & McGee, Multicultural Education, 1989)
Culture is the words, expressions and gestures I use to express myself to others.  My words can be spoken or written and show the world my culture, including my cultural preferences and biases.
[2] "Culture: learned and shared human patterns or models for living; day- to-day living patterns. these patterns and models pervade all aspects of human social interaction. Culture is mankind's primary adaptive mechanism" (Damen, Culture Learning: The Fifth Dimension on the Language Classroom, 1987).
I get up each morning at 5:00.  I follow the same pattern in my morning, in the afternoon and the evening.  I have to work to understand others that do differently and value or do not value my patterns.

Since moving to Alaska, my world has been shaken by the necessity to deviate from established patterns.  The darkness affects my patterns as well as the extended daylight in other times of the year.  My communication patterns have been changed by new words, new expressions, and new expectations by my adopted Alaska culture.

Each day in my life I used similar words, especially in greetings, in welcomes, in discipline, in instruction.  Now due to a relocation to Alaska, those words have different meanings.
[3] "Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another." (Hofstede, Communication Between Cultures, 1984).
I am from a California culture that expresses itself differently to people than what I see in Alaska.  My mind has learned acceptable and unacceptable phraseology that I can use with the California "category" of people.  I have learned in positive and negative experiences, that the same phraseology does not necessarily work in Alaska.  The minds of Alaskans have been "programmed" differently than mine.  If I continue to choose to live here, I am the one that will adapt.
[4] "By culture we mean all those historically created designs for living, explicit and implicit, rational, irrational, and nonrational, which exist at any given time as potential guides for the behavior of men." (Kluckhohn & Kelly, The Science of Man in the World Culture, 1945)
Early in my Alaskan experience, when it rained, I grabbed an umbrella.  I learned from my past that an umbrella is the best defense to an occasional rainstorm.  The umbrella was for my protection and an obvious choice.

When I first raised the umbrella in an Alaskan storm, the umbrella was snatched from my hands, bent convexly, and blown to the other side of the street.  Now I do not use an umbrella in an Alaskan rainstorm.  This may be somewhat irrational, but it is my new behavior based on new experiences.
[5] "Culture is the shared knowledge and schemes created by a set of people for perceiving, interpreting, expressing, and responding to the social realities around them" (Lederach, Conflict Transformation Across Cultures, 1995).
I do not know how to fish and choose not to hunt.  I do not understand those that choose to kill animals.  But I have seldom in my life gone hungry or done without for any period of time.  I have not lived in harsh environments that forced me to use an array of items in my environment simply to stay warm or fill my stomach.  These are social realities for many Alaskans.
[6] "Culture has been defined in a number of ways, but most simply, as the learned and shared behavior of a community of interacting human beings" (Unseem & Unseem, Human Organizations, 1963).
In our school, the students and staff interact on various levels.  I notice adults and children addressing me with different words and attitudes because of my grey hair.  It was not until I began to study local Alaskan culture that I learned of the appreciation of elders.  I now find myself greeting grey-haired people in public locations.  The shared behavior has not become mine.

How Can It Be Defined?








The word Culture is highly misunderstood. The semantic field for this expression collectively includes but is not limited to:

Language : the oldest human institution and the most sophisticated medium of expression.
Arts & Sciences : the most advanced and refined forms of human expression.
Thought : the ways in which people perceive, interpret, and understand the world around them.
Spirituality : the value system transmitted through generations for the inner well-being of human beings, expressed through language and actions.
Social activities : the shared pursuits within a cultural community, demonstrated in a variety of festivities and life-celebrating events.
Interaction : the social aspects of human contact, including the give-and-take of socialization, negotiation, protocol, and conventions.
(Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute (www.roshan-institute.org)


How does our own cultural identify influence how we approach the study of culture in Alaska?

Teachers bring themselves—their life experiences, histories, and cultures—into the classroom. They bring their assumptions and beliefs about what a good teacher is and does, their knowledge of education theory, research, and human development, and their love and knowledge of content areas. They bring their personalities and teaching styles that are shaped by social and cultural interactions.  The longer teachers teach, the more their beliefs and knowledge are reorganized and sculpted by experience.


Experience, culture, and personality are just part of who teachers are, and they go wherever teachers go—including their classrooms. For teachers from dominant cultural backgrounds (white, middle class teachers in the United States), their own culture may not be something they are immediately aware of because it fits so seamlessly with prevailing opinions, beliefs, values, and expectations about behavior, education, and life choices. Yet, many choices that teachers make are determined more from their cultural background than from individual beliefs. The expectations that teachers hold for teaching and learning are grounded in cultural beliefs that may be unfamiliar to students and families from Native Alaskan cultures.
Teachers continually express their culture; the danger is being unaware of that expression. Coming to an understanding of the ways in which one’s beliefs, experiences, values, and assumptions are linked to culture is an essential feature of culturally responsive practice. 


“Teachers need to find ways of creating a space for mutual engagement of lived difference that does not require the silencing of a multiplicity of voices by a single dominant discourse” (Giroux, 1992). Cultural responsiveness requires teachers to acknowledge and understand their own cultural values and how this impacts their own teaching practice.


Cultural disconnect can occur when individuals from different cultures interact.  The dominant cultural perspective will prevail unless teachers are able to create space to discuss and explore a variety of values, beliefs, and expectations with the family. Teachers, students, and families may disagree on the nature and value of schoolwork; work ethics may differ in definition; and the role of home, family, and community may diverge in respect to school.


Teachers who understand and value their own cultural identities recognize culture as a simple, yet complex. In doing so, they create the possibility for deeper connections with their students and families. Cultural responsivity comes from understanding self and others so that different values are understood and respected, rather than one set of values being imposed on all. Culturally responsive teachers can build robust learning environments in which students and teachers can build richer and deeper understandings of themselves and each other as they investigate and uncover the school curriculum

www.urbanschools.org/pdf/cultural.identity.LETTER.pdf

I am very closed-minded to new things, including Alaska culture.  I don't intend to be this way, but I am, and partially due to my culture.  It affects all that I do, all that I say, and all the ways I interact with society and the environment around me.


As an educator, I must be extremely careful not to allow my cultural background and way of life to dominate in the classroom.  This is the same with the study of culture in Alaska.  I always have the choice to be open to the local culture, or to live in my own "egocentric bubble."

I have found two types of "transplants" living in Alaska.  The first group comes from "elsewhere" and continues to live in the new surroundings and with new people carrying their cultural preferences and biases like a flag, proudly displayed for others to see.  This person is not interested in learning from the AK culture, not integrating local customs in his life.

The other type of person is one with a strong cultural background, but one that comes to AK with an open mind, an open heart, and arms ready to embrace new experiences.  I hope to always be in the second group.

A couple of rules I've learned that allow me to be influenced by Alaskan culture:
[1] Allow for additional time.  Time to communicate, time to interact, time to explain, and mostly time to listen to others.
[2] I am still a guest in the state.  Slowly others are inviting me into their world.  I cannot force myself into their world, nor regularly deny the existence of their world and the differences in our cultures.
[3] Eat everything that is offered to me.
[4] It takes more time to travel in the weather.  Allow for the additional time and don't be anxious.
[5] My students are all very different.  They look, act, speak, and make choices based on their own culture and background.  As educator, I need to make extra effort to get to know them.
[6] My students, and the staff at my school are not "singletons."  They all come with extended family that are important to them. 
[7] My students do not learn from me.  They learn as they interact with the world around them, including with me.





Tlingit Regalia (Google images, www.google.com)





Thursday, February 16, 2012

Module II - Where on Earth is Alaska?

Where on Earth is Alaska?
Earth from Polar Perspective


Relative Locations vs. Absolute Locations
Relative location tells us "where something is" in relation to other places.


Absolute location refers to a geographic address




Where on Earth is Alaska?
  • Relative - equal air distance from all major urban industrial centers of the world (Tokyo, Bejing, Moscow, Berlin, Paris, London, New York, Toronto, and Los Angeles)
  • Part of "Northern World." Alaska shares the Arctic Ocean waters with Russia, Sweden, Norway, Greenland, and Canada. Theses are all countries located above the Arctic Circle, an arbitrary line of latitude at 66.5° North
  • Absolute - Northwest portion of North America
Satellite Photo of Alaska

What are the physical dimensions of Alaska?
  • 589,000 square miles - 3x size of California
  • Alaska accounts for 16% of the US land area.  
  • Alaska's 589,194 square miles consists of 571,951 sq miles of land and 17.243 miles of inland waters.




imgres.jpg


  • Furthest point East - AK/BC Border near Mt Walker, 6 Mi N/NE of Hyder, AK

  • West - Cape Wrangell on Attu Island (172° 27’ E).
  • North - Point Barrow (71° 23’).

  • South - Nitrof Point, tip of Amatignak Island in the Aleutian Islands (51° 13’ N). 

Module II Natural History - Digital Information

Digital Information Helps Students Learn

How does digital information change our understanding of natural systems?










Digital information technology is constantly changing and discovering new ways to capture data to help us further understand our world.  






Previously, new information technologies have often competed with and replaced existing ones. The telephone replaced the telegraph for obvious reasons. Television has relegated radio to a subordinate niche. Digital information technology is different because it is a form of technology that EXTENDS other technologies.  Digital information technologies offer value-added features. Electronic documents, for example, can be automatically scaled for different media. The same content can be printed on paper, posted on the World Wide Web, transmitted to handheld computers and cell phone screens with no extra formatting or fuss. Electronic databases—unlike conventional ones—can be searched and queried automatically revealing facts that would be difficult to find otherwise. Finally, digital information technology can extend the technologies by merging them in new and interesting ways. The Web, for example, merges text, numeric data, images, sounds, and video into a seamless medium for posting and sharing content-rich documents.

Indeed the world of information is going digital. The evolution to digital forms of information has 





influenced not only the scientific community, but our schools and our homes. These changes have been highly significant, helping to redefine the ways in which we think about and use information to communicate with each other. What was once a simple diagram in a textbook can now be interactive technology found on the web and used by students in school.  They can quickly access charts, graphs, photos, and real-time streaming of video of actual examples in the world.  Students can directly communicate with the scientific world to learn and apply information. 

In Alaska, we may have limits by distance, weather, access, but there are no limits with digital information.  Students in Barrow as well as Ketchikan can access real-time digital video of a volcano eruption in the Aleutian Islands.  Students in Fairbanks as well as Washington D.C.,  can access earth's weather, fish migration, tidal fluctuations and other data directly from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration via the web.  (For additional information on NOAA, please follow this link:  
















Students can also track weather changes, earth changes and view actual Alaskan topography via the web at Google Earth.  What we saw in textbooks years ago, students can actually experience through digital information.

Additional Resources:
                


















Links:


























Google Earth  



























           





Additional Topics Students Can Research























Geology and the Earth's Lithosphere
   http://informsciencenetwork.com/geology/facts-  lithosphere-4400565a

* Measure plate tectonics and movements of the plates
   http://oceanlink.info/SOLE/tectonics/WCDA.html

* Volcanoes visually (satellite) and via infrared photos
   http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/earth_il.html

* Earthquakes/tsunamis measurement
   http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/
   http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/






















Atmosphere, Hydrosphere and Cryosphere

*water and ice movement (cycle)
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercyclesummary.html

*water/ice temperatures and changes
http://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/oceanography/physical-ocean/temperature/

* ice depth and global warming
http://globalwarming.house.gov/impactzones/arctic

*glaciology - history trapped in ice
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdyegx_irt-season-4-on-history-trapped-on_shortfilms

*glacier mass balance - glacier repeat photography
http://nrmsc.usgs.gov/repeatphoto/

* permafrost and the arctic layer
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/land-permafrost.shtml



Climatological changes
* earth's temperature
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/features/200711_temptracker/

* NASA's earth observatory - seasonal changes
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/

* National snow and ice data center - Alaska climate summaries
http://nsidc.org/




Monday, February 6, 2012

Week 1 - Here We Go...


  • How can educators use new media to better reach and teach Alaska's students?

  • Not all children live in the cities.  Of the 53 Alaska's School Districts, less than one-third are in what we would refer to as towns or cities.  Where do they live?  How remote a location do they call home?  How do they access their education?  Is there technology available to assist them?

    In Juneau we surveyed our families.  Approximately 90% of the students and their families access information electronically via the web.  This is a great way to connect with school, within the city, and to access information nationally and internationally.  However, the data shows that 10% of the students do not have access to electronic media.  What is the Juneau community doing to assist students in the learning process.  Yes, we do have a few libraries that have some internet access.  However, those of our students that live "out the road" don't have easy access to the public libraries.

    So let's reflect this issue over the state of Alaska.  If 90% of all Alaskan children had internet access at home, that would still leave 10%.  Those 10% may not be able to find access in their communities.  What are their communities and school districts doing to help them access learning?  Are they only following traditional ways of communication?  How many of the teachers of these "10%" are fluent in today's learning technology?  Are they using the technology?



  • Why is an awareness of Place important?

  • I think it is important for people to know their "place."  They must know the place from the inside looking out and also from the outside looking in.  Perspective gives people information about their place and how it is perceived by others.

    People say that all cultures and locations are "interdependent."  Although many Alaskans are independent and enjoy the feeling of being all alone, Alaska is dependent on others for information, travel, commodities, outside tourist revenue, and at times support.  We must recognize our need for others.  It just takes one crisis or disaster for people to realize just how small they are in their "place" and how much the people of their "place" need others.

    In Juneau we must travel by air or boat to "get out."  There are no roads like other places in the state and the feeling of isolation can be intense at times.  And with a short 1 1/2 flight we can be in Anchorage or Seattle.  From January to April we "juneau-ites" reconize our city's importance as legislators from all over Alaska come to visit. With the legislators come their support teams as well as additional reporters and interested parties.  We know how important our "place" is when the others come to congregate here.  We also recognize how small we are in Juneau in comparison to all the other places in Alaska.

    I think our students are like this.  Their world (or "place") is their school and their community -- and perhaps their town.  But when they are introduced to others from around the planet, their "place" becomes more important.  They begin to see cultural and economic connections between "their place" and "others' places."  I think this is our job as educators, to help students really know their place and then to look outside to connect with other "places."