Subsistence is School
Our school here in Scammon excuses students and staff to go out subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering. Although there are no number of days given that will be counted excused the homeschool coordinator says that she will push for setting a number of days this year. She mentioned 5 days as "enough", any more than that is "too much missed days." This is for the students, as for teachers they have a given number of days of leave that they've accumulated and that's what they use.
For now, our school does not have a fixed plan on make up work. It is totally between the teacher and student.(There might be one, I just briefly spoke w/homeschool coordinator about this.)
Our school does not operate around our subsistence way of life. It begins around late Aug., break for Christmas and end in early part of May.
I wish it would operated around our subsistence way of life, this would teach students and new staff where/what/how to hunt/fish/gather during a certain time of the year (season). For within our culture to subsist is to survive. Subsistence is a huge part of our culture.
Staff who take out their student to do some kind of subsistence activity incorporate certain content areas like science, math into their curriculum, but when parents pull out their child(ren) to subsist it may be something that the student and teacher work out to make up missed work.
If we teach our students to survive, we are teaching them a "real life" skill and now-a-days that's what schools are pushing for, aren't they?
4 comments:
Your title says it all--"Subsistence is school."
I don't want to downplay the need for a solid academic preparation for all Alaska students. Everyone deserves the same chance at a job or a profession, whether that's in Scammon Bay or Anchorage or Atlanta. But for that to happen, school needs to be engaging and relevant. If schools work against subsistence activities, then some individuals might be forced into choosing school or subsistence. If subsistence means having food for the winter, that choice is probably a pretty easy one to make.
I don't know if I'm making more of this issue than is necessary. I don't depend on subsistence for survival. But it seems to me that rural schools should work with the local culture and not against it.
If you haven't read Nastasia's "Subsistence, School and Rain" post yet, take a look. It sounds like there's hope.
Thanks for the excellent post and the great picture.
Hey Darlene, what are they cutting open in the picture? Hope all is going well for you!!
Hi Darlene, Sure miss you girls. Sorry to hear about the struggles you have with your subsistence program and school. This rain is really making the men's hunting a challenge. That is a great picture - it looks like a brown bear...pretty big one too!
Hi Erica and Nas, the animal being butchered is a moose that my husband caught on Sept.2 at Kusilvak. It does look like a brown bear doesn't it? We don't eat bear around here.
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