This Is How We Know What We Know

Another view of the dioramas

This week wasn't super eventful, but the students started a project last week and finished it up on Wednesday that made me think of a topic for this blog. It is something that I have been realizing more and more since being here, but never thought about before. It answers the question, "How do we know the things we know?" If all you had ever known was a small town, with a couple tiny stores, no bowling alleys or movie theaters or anything less than a plane ride away, how much would you really be able to relate to the outside world? 

Here are most of the students' projects. As you can see,
most of them are on white or blue paper, representing snow

In social studies we studied the different groups of Early Americans, including the original people of this area, my students' ancestors. We learned a lot about these people. As a culminating activity, I had the students choose any of these groups of Native Americans and create a diorama of the culture. All but two of my students chose the Early Americans in the north-- Their ancestors. It got me to thinking about how they really have no way to relate to any of the other cultures we discussed, even though they learned so much about them for the two weeks before we began the project.  All most of these kids have ever known is hunting moose and seal and super cold winters. They've never been to the deserts of Arizona or into caves. They've never been in the woods where tall trees reach to the heavens or the plains where buffalo can roam wild with nothing holding them back. All they know is the marshy land and ice they see every year. It was a wonderful thing to realize.

This is one of two projects on a different area than North Native Americans

Even though I have been directing my lessons as much as I can to their culture, it really opened my eyes to how important it is to relate to their culture. They don't know the outside world. They've never been to a museum, a movie theater, or a Wal-mart. These things that I've taken for granted throughout my life are things that these kids have never seen. I can't just assume that because students in any other town in the lower 48 may have been to a fair or carnival, these students have only heard of them or seen them on movies. They don't know the atmosphere of a fair or carnival or the smells. 

Our bonfire started off cold and rainy

One of the Black Fish caught

In other news, we had a play day at the school for the students who have been well behaved in the halls. It was a lot of fun and we had a pretty good turnout. We also had a bonfire down by the dock, which was loads of fun, even though the weather was a bit rainy and cold. We shot the guns, cooked s'mores and hot dogs, and on our way back, found a puddle with black fish. Black fish is translated into Yup'ik as emmonak, or emoniq (?). It was very interesting finding fish in a puddle. We caught two of the bigger ones, and there were tons of baby ones, too. It was a catch and release, though, they were small, even for bigger fish. One of the teacher's husbands told us the people here catch them to eat. He also said you can catch them, put them in the freezer for a few days, and then take them out and put them in water and they will come back to life. Crazy!

This is the puddle the Black Fish call home

The highlight of my week was learning how important relating to the culture is in this community. It is the best way to reach the students with information, because they don't relate to the same things you or I would. The students worked really hard on their projects, and I am so proud of the great work they did!

A beautiful sunset to end the night