Old skills for a new world

On 29th July I am lucky to spend a couple of hours interviewing Professor Ray Barnhardt, from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, on a skype connection. This visionary man has spent much of his career giving a place to indigenous knowledge and skills in the modern Alaskan American education system. As he says, 'The depth of indigenous knowledge rooted in the long inhabitation of a particular place offers lessons that can benefit everyone, from educators to scientists, as we search for a more satisfying and sustainable way to live on this planet’ (Ray Barnhardt in Gruenewald and Smith, Place-Based Education in the Global Age, 2008)

Between 1995 and 2005 the Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative (AKRSI), affecting 287 schools and around 38,000 students across Alaska, set up an education system that integrates native knowledge and ways of learning into the mainstream, ‘western’ curriculum. The brainchild of Professor Barnhardt, the Initiative has restored a sense of ‘Place’ and an awareness of environmental sustainability. It has also increased student achievement scores and the number of students going on to further education, particularly to study science, maths and engineering, and has reduced dropout rates.
Native Educator Associations led by Elders but with a broad mix of community members, draw up the core educational values for their region (for example, respect for nature, responsibility, spirituality, compassion, honesty, caring and hard work), and help to oversee education. The Alaska Standards for Culturally Responsive Schools provide guidance for schools, parents and communities, while the Alaska Native Knowledge Network (ANKN) provides a hub for information sharing. Cultural camps and fairs provide practical training in native teaching and learning, and students can contribute their own research to a multi-media ‘Cultural Atlas’. Particularly interesting is a spiral-shaped curriculum framework in which 12 core themes (eg outdoor survival, energy/ecology, health), are underpinned by curriculum resources for each of 12 age groups, rotating in an annual cycle. The resources are available on the ANKN website and have been aligned with State educational standards. There is a strong emphasis on the participation of the community in the education of its children, and on linking the local with the global. National funding for AKRSI ended after 12 years, but the initiatives it spawned have become self-sustaining, largely because of strong grassroots support.

As Professor Barnhardt says during the interview, ‘… We’ve tracked student performance in majors and have consistently demonstrated that students do better in standard academic terms if you start from something that they can relate to within their community and then work out. It’s not creating a parochial outlook but rather a strategy for how you get to where you want to go using the local context to widen the curriculum and give it some meaning for the students.’

Ray Barnhardt has also helped to develop two Charter Schools in Fairbanks with a strong Place and Community-Based focus. The Watershed school, a mixed school for ages 6 to14, aims to take students out into the ‘community’ and ‘outdoor’ classrooms at least 70% of the time. The Effie Kokrine school, for ages 13 to 20, with an early college element, is 95% Alaska native students, and builds a strong connection to the local environment. Both schools are fully subscribed, and have out-performed their counterparts in standard tests.

What has happened in Alaska has been extremely important in redressing a balance between peoples and cultures, allowing the techno-knowledge of the modern age to marry with old wisdoms that are ever more necessary in our over-exploited planet. The lessons from AKRSI are relevant to any strong local cultural identity; in Scotland they could apply equally to gaelic, norse or doric cultures.