[Abstract]{.underline}

This action research study examined the question of how to help rural
Alaskan Native students transition into an urban classroom. The research
explored issues such as learning styles of Alaskan Native students,
culture, educational strategies, teacher preparation, cultural bias,
population growth in urban centers, racism, academics, and social and
family issues. The data for this study was collected through means of
observations of teachers, observations of the authors practices,
anonymous questionnaires, and interviews with professional educators.
The results of this study include suggestions for a broad exposure of
pre-service teachers in Alaska to Alaskan Native cultures. This would
include performing a rural practicum in addition to Alaska Native
studies as requirements to become a certificated teacher in the State of
Alaska. Additionally, this study suggests current teachers accommodate
the learning styles of Alaskan Native students by allowing more small
group and paired learning during classroom instruction. Lastly, teachers
need to allow time, the greatest benefit for Alaskan Native students in
successfully transitioning from a rural to urban classrooms, to overcome
the hurdles they will face.

*The following is an excerpt from the above study. To review the entire
work, please contact the author at: Joel Akers, MAT; Anchorage School
District; <Akers_Joel@asdk12.org>*.

Chapter 4

Findings and Discussions

# Introduction

Over the past twelve months I have had the distinct pleasure of doing my
practicum and student teaching internships with some extremely wonderful
and talented teachers working in schools within Alaska. Throughout this
experience I was able to not only witness good teaching practices, in
terms of lesson preparation and delivery, but also in terms of working
with rural Alaskan Native students to overcome individual hardships
transitioning into my urban classroom. In particular, the host teachers
I worked with did a wonderful job of helping Native students coming from
rural communities transition into their urban classrooms based upon the
knowledge and experience they had.

The teachers I worked with often took the time and effort to help insure
these students not only had the opportunity to adjust to the new friends
and faces they saw everyday, but they also worked with the students in
adjusting to a completely different, and sometimes drastic, change
compared to the cultures and communities they left behind. However, it
is important to note, often the comments teachers made to me either
through the interview or questionnaire process were not truly what they
practiced in their classrooms. In many instances I was told by teachers
they simply let the children transition into their classrooms over time,
and essentially did nothing special to help the students. Upon
conducting my observations of the teachers, I found many of them,
indeed, were working directly with transitioning Native students to help
them adjust to life in their classrooms (Researcher Journal, October,
2004).

A large part of my research, in addition to my journals and observations
from the classroom, came from direct interviews with, and questionnaires
given to, educators regarding the issue of assisting Alaska Native
students' transitioning into urban classrooms. The following is a
compilation of the themes and significant issues that surfaced as a
result of my research into the best practices for transitioning rural
Alaskan Native students into my urban classroom. In this regard, in the
following I will discuss the methods I attempted to add to my own
practices as an educator as part of my action research.

# Tenure in Urban Settings for Rural Alaska Native Students

*New Versus Experienced.* "Oftentimes when children come in from the
bush they are going into a classroom with more children than the school
they came from. It is scary, it is intimidating, the rules are
different, the faces are different, the expectations are different (MJKT
Interview, November, 2004). This statement proved itself true each time
I worked with an Alaskan Native student who was transitioning into my
classroom from the bush. The children were scared and felt out of place;
they did not know how to fit in to the class, and they were at a loss as
to how they could make friends. The following excerpt from my researcher
journal is an example of one student's experience during her first few
weeks in an urban classroom:

> I had already been at the elementary school where I was conducting my
> practicum internship for two weeks when a new student walked into
> class. Sally, a rosy-cheeked, pigtailed Native girl had just moved to
> Anchorage from a small village in Western Alaska. She was shy,
> obviously uncomfortable, and looked as if she was about to cry when
> she came up and asked me where she should sit. Not knowing what to do,
> as I, also, was new to this school and to this class, I turned to my
> host teacher. She quickly stepped in, put her arm around Sally, and
> showed her where her desk would be.
>
> After a couple of weeks Sally had begun to learn the pattern of how
> things worked in our class, but she was still a long way from
> interacting and making friends. One day I noticed, rather than working
> with her table group on a project, Sally had chosen to work by herself
> in our classroom library. My host teacher had also noticed this and
> had made a point to go over and sit and work with her. At about the
> same time my host teacher went over to work with Sally, my eyes
> drifted across our classroom to where another transitional Native
> student, John, was sitting. John, according to the discussion I had
> with my host teacher, was from South Central Alaska, and his family
> had moved into the Anchorage area at the end of the previous school
> year. John was actively participating with his table group in the
> activity they were assigned; he was being lively and gregarious, and
> was also displaying behavior I would have expected from a typical
> sixth grade boy. After observing this for awhile, I wondered what
> allowed John to act so comfortable and relaxed among the other
> students, while Sally was still having troubles settling in
> (Researcher Journal, September, 2003).

According to one of my host teachers, "The longer a child has been in
Anchorage and has adapted to the urban setting, the more successful he
or she is in class. I have had students who used to live in a village
but they have been in school for a couple of years now and they are
doing fine" (SL Interview, November, 2004).

My host teacher's thoughts, as well as those of the Indian Education
teacher, and the observations I had with the two students in my class
were consistent with the information I gathered through my
questionnaires. Out of fifty questionnaires distributed to educators at
the elementary and middle school level during this study forty percent
of them were completed and returned. These twenty questionnaires
confirmed the fact that Native children entering an urban school from a
rural community need time to adjust to their new setting. The reason for
this adjustment period, other than simply being new to the school, is to
also give the students time to adjust to a community and culture that
may be drastically different than the one they had left (Questionnaires,
April, 2004 / November, 2005). This thought was, perhaps, best summed up
by one of the teachers when they wrote on their questionnaire, "Students
who come from rural to urban areas are entering a world that is faster
paced, larger, and many times overwhelming to them" (Questionnaires,
April 2004 / November, 2005).

Once I had identified that there was, indeed, a need to investigate the
process for Alaskan Native students to transition into urban classrooms
from rural communities, I began to look for methods that could be used
to help this group of students. This was a major concern to me, because
while I agreed time was important, as an educator I did not want to wait
for time alone to perform its work. I felt there must be ways to
incorporate strategies to assist this transition into my teaching
routine and, in doing so, shorten the amount of time needed for Alaska
Native students to transition into my urban classroom setting.

# Methods: Transitioning Rural Students into the Urban Classroom

*Indian Education.* A theme that became evident during my study was to
encourage and allow students to participate in Indian Education programs
within the schools. This was sometimes a highly debated issue among
teachers because allowing students to meet with other children from the
same or similar backgrounds a few times each week also meant loosing out
on valuable instruction time in the classroom (SL Interview, November,
2004). Many of the teachers I worked with felt the Alaskan Native
students who were pulled from the classroom were done so at the expense
of keeping up with their academic progress, and if they participated in
their Native culture outside of class (which many do) then school should
be devoted to their academic pursuits (Researcher Journal, February,
2004). However, according to my interview with the Indian Education
teacher at my school, she felt, "New and old Native children need to be
in a cohesive group. They need the support" (MJKT Interview, November,
2004). In addition to the security of the group, this also meant the
Native students could have a, "Place to call their own; a place with
comfortable couches and bean bags, and a place where they know they can
go and relax and get away from the barrage of new culture" (JG
Interview, November, 2004). This thought was further supported by my
host teacher when she commented:

> We (the school district) have programs set up outside of the classroom
> like the Indian Education Program, (and) the Cook Inlet Regional
> Tribal Counsel where they give kids extra studying and tutoring, which
> sort of helps the adjustment from rural to urban setting. And, that is
> helpful if the kids take advantage of it (SL Interview, November,
> 2004).

Taking advantage of the Indian Education program is an important step
for the children transitioning from rural Native life to urban life. Not
all of them readily accept the idea the program is good and some
students outright let you know they do not want to participate
(Researcher Journal, October, 2004), but it is important to "Let them
know that the Indian Education room is a privilege and because they are
Native American or Alaskan Native they can go there. Not everybody gets
to do that. This is a special place for them" (MJKT Interview, November,
2004).

Given this information, I spent some time observing the Indian Education
teacher at my school work with her students. When I walked into her
classroom, I could not help but notice the feeling of being at home. The
classroom had a sense of comfort similar to a favorite pair of old,
well-worn shoes; the kind you like to wear when you have to go on a long
walk or hike; the kind you would wear for a rough, and perhaps
cumbersome journey. When the students came into class that day, they
took notice of me, and some even asked who I was. A couple of the
students knew me as one of the student teachers in the building, and a
few more even knew me as the student teacher in their regular classroom.
All of them, however, made me feel welcome into their group; almost as
if I had been with them all along (Researcher Journal, September, 2004).

While I was the "newest" person in the room during this particular
observation, the actual newest student had transferred into the group at
the start of the semester the previous September. This meant, that at
the time of my observation, he had had a month to make their adjustment
to their new school and their new community. The "newest" student, in
this class, seemed well adjusted. Overall, the students knew the
routine, rules and boundaries of the class; they were, as it became
quite obvious, very comfortable here. The classroom, for all intensive
purposes, was a microcosm of the classroom many of the students had in
the bush, and I had to remind myself of this when I was reflecting back
on the experience. This was not a typical urban classroom. There were
approximately 10 students, all of them were all or part Native, and all
of them had a pride about their individual cultures and identities, that
at least in this classroom, radiated from them. No, this was indeed a
bush classroom in an urban setting.

During my initial observation that day, and subsequent observations
throughout the semester, I noticed something curious concerning the work
habits of the students in this classroom. It was something I had seen
regularly practiced in the Indian Education room, and the children
automatically did this upon entering the room; they worked in pairs. In
fact, not only were these students working in pairs, but they often were
in pairs matched by age, sex, and as I later found out, by cultural
groups (MJKT Interview, November, 2004). While this practice was common
in the Indian Education room, it was something I rarely saw in the
regular classroom environment. At most, students were allowed to work in
small groups, and at best there might be two Alaska Native students in a
small group (Researcher Journal, October, 2004).

*Pairing*. According to the general theme emerging from the interviews I
conducted and the questionnaires I distributed and collected, nearly all
of the professional educators I worked with said they tried to pair new
Alaska Native students with a student they knew would model success,
good behavior, be a role model, and would be, in general, a decent
student (April, 2004 / November, 2005). This sentiment was best stated
by one of the teachers interviewed when she responded:

> I had a student a number of years ago that recently moved from a
> remote part of Alaska....This guy would not do a thing for me, and
> finally I was at my wit's end with trying to motivate him. As it
> turned out I ended up sitting him next to this girl he must have
> fallen madly in love with, and she was finally able to get him
> motivated. She would say things to him like, "You mean you are not
> doing your spelling? You need to get busy right now!" She had some
> connection with this boy. She actually got him busy working (JG
> Interview, November, 2004).

While the Indian Education teacher was the only educator I observed who
went to the extent of encouraging the students to find their own friend
to pair up with, thus allowing a more natural pairing between sex and
age within the students, she was also, perhaps, the only teacher who had
the student resources to do this because of the inherent dynamics of her
classroom (MJKT Interview, November, 2004). However, as an educator, I
could see the benefit, if it was possible, to try to match a new Alaska
Native student in my class with a Native student of same age and sex who
had already built up tenure in my classroom, to provide a good, positive
role model.

Pairing became an important part of my action research in my own
teaching during this time. While working with the fifth graders from my
multiage classroom in guided reading, I was able to see the benefits of
this strategy firsthand through two Alaska Native students in the group.
The group, itself, was small; consisting of only eight students, and
made up of Alaska Native students, Caucasian students, and Asian/Pacific
Islander students, and included six girls and two boys. Both Alaska
Native students were girls. From the first day, students were allowed to
pair themselves into groups of two students on their own. As I had
hoped, the Alaska Native students paired up with each other for
discussion about books we were reading and topics they were given. Both
students, upon entering my group, were marginal readers based upon the
initial testing done on them at the beginning of the year, and both were
regarded by teachers in the school to be shy and unwilling to speak in
class. However, I found that through allowing them to pair up with
someone they were comfortable with, discuss what they were reading, and
have a safe, small group environment where they could speak, these girls
improved in their general reading fluency, comprehension and writing
(Researcher Journal, November, 2004).

In addition to allowing students to have a place that is both
comfortable and comforting to them and allowing them to work in pairs,
one final theme under methods immerged in helping Alaska Native students
transition from rural to urban classrooms. That theme was one of slowly
working the students into the culture of the classroom.

*Space and Time.* All of the professionals involved in this study agreed
one of the best practices to follow, when working with an Alaska Native
student transitioning into their classroom is to give the student some
space and time to figure out for themselves how they fit into your
classroom. It would be an exceptional student who could fly from a
remote setting, land in Anchorage and then walk into your class ready to
hit the ground running (SL Interview, November, 2004). In fact, Alaska
Native children "Arriving from the bush for the first time are
overwhelmed. City life is big, it is fast. Everything they experience
here is a hundred times more than a village. In the village you are
safe; you are surrounded by family" (MJKT Interview, November, 2004).
Even the school is larger than most of the villages they come from by
leaps and bounds. So, given that, they are coming into a situation that,
just from the shear walking into the door of the school is overwhelming
(MK Interview, November, 2004).

Because of the dynamics working against rural Alaskan Native students
merely by moving to the city, patience on the part of the teacher begins
to play an important role in working with these students. In many
instances Alaska Native students transitioning into urban classrooms
experience a lack of understanding and empathy from their teachers and
administrators when they first arrive in the classroom. Because we, as
an institution and society, expect almost instantaneous results from our
students, we often fail to recognize the situations special groups of
students are faced with. It is not uncommon for one to hear in the
teachers' lounge comments like, "I've had this student for an entire
quarter, and she still is not reading at grade level" (Researcher
Journal, April, 2004). In truth, "It sometimes takes rural Alaska Native
students weeks into months, and sometimes even years to feel comfortable
in the city." (SL Interview, November, 2004).

The best practice, according to the teachers I observed and interviewed,
was to let the student see the dynamics of the class; let them see how
other kids respond, and let them have a few weeks (at a minimum) to
become accustomed to the class. Then, once they start to enjoy school
and become more at ease in their new environments, the students will be
more willing to participate (JG Interview, November, 2004). This thought
was stated best by the Indian Education teacher when she said, "Back off
the academics a week or so. Let the students get used to their new
school before piling on the work. Then, slowly, introduce the rules to
them and set their expectations. Most of this is just common sense to
me" (MJKT Interview, November, 2004).

*Putting it into Practice*

*Small Groups.* Once the sub-themes under methods became clear I, in
various ways, put them into practice within my own classroom. Pairing,
as stated earlier, was something easily implemented in my class because
of the ability to break the multiage setting into three smaller and more
functional groups. Since my host teacher and I decided the structure of
our multiage class would be to work as much as possible in small groups,
I simply added the feature of assigning paired work within my small
group setting. Within the small group, I allowed the students the
autonomy to pick whom they wanted to work with. Since I effectively had
one-third of my class in the small group setting, I also took advantage
of using the remaining two-thirds of the students as a control group.

Each of the remaining two-thirds met either with my host teacher or the
Bilingual teacher for guided reading. We had decided, prior to beginning
the guided reading groups, they would not allow the students in their
groups to pick their own partners. In addition, they would do less
paired work and more group work than I was doing. The goal of this was
to see which of the six total transitional rural Alaska Native students
from our combined class transitioned the easiest into the classroom and
at the same time upheld or increased their academic performance in
language arts.

The graphs below show the progress the six students in my multiage class
made over the course of the fall semester in three different areas:
Spelling, *San Diego Quick Reading Assessment,* and "Six Traits
Writing". These tests were first given to the students during the first
three weeks of school to assess the grade level they were functioning at
in spelling, reading, and writing. Under usual circumstances, the
students would not be required to retake these tests until the fourth
quarter of the school year. However, since my study ended at the
terminus of my student teaching, I informally tested the students in
December on the three areas using the same criteria as the school
district. This meant they were given the same set of spelling words in
December as they were in the fall, were tested for reading accuracy
based upon the same criteria, and had an individual writing assignment
(same assignment for all students) graded for content of the "Six Traits
Writing" (voice, word choice, ideas and content, organization, sentence
fluency, and conventions).

  -------------- ---------- ---------- --------- ---------- --------- ----------
  Student Name   Spelling   Spelling   Reading   Reading    6 Traits  6 Traits
                 Fall       December   S.D.      S.D. Quick Writing   Writing
                                       Quick     December   Fall      December
                                       Fall                           

  4th Grade #1   5.80       5.90       5.00      5.00       3.00      3.52

  4th Grade #2   2.60       3.20       3.00      4.00       3.16      3.63

  5th Grade #1   3.50       4.80       4.00      5.00       3.58      4.02

  5th Grade #2   3.90       5.10       3.00      4.00       2.75      3.76

  6th Grade #1   3.50       4.50       4.00      4.00       2.91      3.50

  6th Grade #2   6.40       6.80       5.00      5.00       3.50      4.35

  **4th Grade    4.20       4.55       4.00      4.50       3.08      3.58
  Average**                                                           

  **5th Grade    3.70       4.95       3.50      4.50       3.17      3.89
  Average**                                                           

  **6th Grade    4.95       5.65       4.50      4.50       3.21      3.93
  Average**                                                           
  -------------- ---------- ---------- --------- ---------- --------- ----------

![](media/image1.wmf){width="5.114583333333333in"
height="2.9583333333333335in"}

What interested me, upon review of this data, was that the group who
were allowed to pair up with another transitional Alaska Native student
(the 5^th^ graders) had a combined average increase in their overall
performance in spelling, reading and writing of 24.33 percent, while the
other groups who did not have their transitional Alaska Native student
pair up came out with a combined average increase in their spelling,
reading and writing performance of 11.00 percent (4^th^ grade) and 16.33
percent (6^th^ grade).

The information presented in the data identified that pairing students
together in order to help overcome some of the transitional difficulties
was effective. Indeed, this was the case as far as the three small
groups of students were concerned. However, all of the transitional
Alaska Native students in my class continued to show signs of having
difficulties working within the classroom environment as a whole. This
group the students were often observed not partaking in structured group
activities unless requested specifically to do so, and, in general,
seemed overwhelmed at times with the size and pace of our class
(Researcher Journal, December, 2004). Because of this, I changed my
focus from looking at implementing strategies to help transition these
students into my classroom, to studying the effects of the family
situations and cultural differences of the students.

# Role Played by Culture and Family

*Culture.* "Steven has missed a number of days of school. I would say he
has missed all of last week and, so far, all of this week. I cannot
understand why he is gone so much. We are barely into our second week of
school and he has not turned in a single assignment. I am afraid he is
heading for trouble" (Researcher Journal, September, 2004). What is
missing from this quote is that Steven was from Tyonek, an Athabascan
Native village that is a twenty-five minute flight from Anchorage on the
western side of Cook Inlet. The month of September is moose hunting
season for the people of Tyonek as well as for most other hunters in
South Central Alaska, and Steven was with his family doing what people
from their culture have done for thousands of years -- getting meat to
store for use during the winter.

According to the teachers I interviewed during my research, many of the
Alaska Native families who move into urban communities like Anchorage
tend to keep strong ties with the culture they left behind in their
villages. "Their culture is strong and their beliefs and morays from the
Native culture are very strong. It is almost like you turn a switch; you
have a foot in both worlds" (MJKT Interview, November, 2004). In rural
villages if it is time to hunt moose, whale, walrus, harvest salmon, or
pick berries, these subsistence issues take precedence over school, and
school is, for all essential purposes, halted. When families move away
from bush communities it is hard for them to leave that part of their
lives behind, as it is so much a part of them (SL Interview, November,
2004). Not only is the feeling of keeping subsistence practices strong
with many Native families living in Anchorage but, according to some
educators, there seems to be a view of them breaking ties with their
community if they do not participate in cultural traditions. This
observation was best stated by an Indian Education teacher when she
said:

> In terms of culture, the parent or relative many of these kids are
> living with do not see the problem in removing the kids from school
> for cultural reasons or celebrations. A lot of this has to do with not
> wanting their child to be forced to stand out and be ostracized for
> not participating in activities such as hunting and fishing,
> potlatches, and other events. What becomes clear when you really work
> with Alaska Native students is that the priorities from the bush carry
> over when they move to Anchorage (MJKT, November, 2004).

*Family.* The priorities carried over from life in rural Alaska also
concerned and affected the family life of the students in my classroom.
Some of them had, what would be considered in Western cultures, a normal
home environment. The students had a mother and father at home who
worked and were there to provide for the needs of their family. However
this was not true for all of the Alaskan Native students. At least two
of the students in my class were taken away from their families in the
village because of parents abusing and neglecting them, and sent to live
with family members in Anchorage. Another student's family left her
village because of lack of work and not being able to survive on
subsistence living alone. According to my host teacher, "Some students
leave the village for the city under adverse situations. If their
families come to the city without a support network and they do not have
all the pieces in place (housing, jobs, and utilities) it becomes hard
for them to acclimate while so many changes are happening in their
lives" (SL Interview, November, 2004).

Once I had realized, aside from the issues of time and incorporating
methods of helping students to transition into my classroom, I had to
work with students whose family and culture often put them at odds with
the life they were experiencing in my urban classroom, it finally dawned
on me I needed to include the parents of these children in the
transitional process as well in order to begin to bridge the gap that
existed between the rural and urban lives of the students. In
discussions with the various teachers I worked with during this project
I discovered a number of them accomplished this task by doing things as
simple as sending letters home with the students periodically to let the
parents know what important events were coming up at the school, or
inviting parents of a new Native student to come and take a tour of
their child's school, and at the very least, talking frankly to the
parents at parent teacher conferences. (Researcher Journal, October,
2004). One teacher even went so far as to say:

> The first thing I do when I have new \[Native\] students come to my
> class is meet with the person that brings them to the door. My
> classroom is set up so, no matter what is happening, I can put my kids
> to work independently and I can steal away to the hall to have a few
> minutes to talk with the family if they are available. You know, have
> a personal, warm introduction with everybody. I want to make eye
> contact and I want them to feel like I have the warmest, friendliest,
> most caring classroom so they will feel comfortable returning (JG
> Interview, November, 2004).

While these seemed like good ideas, I wondered if they truly conveyed to
the parents of Alaska Native students the greater importance of their
students being in school (according to our cultural standards) than
going to Native cultural or subsistence events. The sad answer, as I
discovered, was in many cases the parents of the Native students felt
keeping their children involved with their culture took precedent over
their education, and did not see the value of finding a balance between
the two (Researcher Journal, October, 2004).

By understanding the above piece of the puzzle in helping rural Alaska
Native students transition into an urban classroom I knew there was one
additional piece which had to be addressed before I could fully realize
my goal of successfully implementing my action research into my
classroom: I had to understand where the students were coming from. I
had to know something more about their culture than the anecdotal
information I already possessed.

# Where the Students are Coming From

*Teacher Perspectives.* "Embrace the state, embrace your students, and
learn all you can from them" (SL Interview, November, 2004). This one,
simple statement is perhaps more telling than any vignette could ever be
in terms of the importance of understanding the cultures and traditions
of Alaska Native students. They are not only held dear by them, but they
are a part of them, and because of that we, as teachers, must learn from
them. As people who live in the city and understand city life we "Have
different expectations of behavior that you do not have in the village.
You cannot walk out of the door and in fifteen minutes be in the deepest
part of the wilderness. There are places in the city where it is not
safe to go, not because of animals or the environment, but because of
other people. Not everybody is your friend. Not everybody understands
the way you dress, the way you speak, and what you eat" (MJKT Interview,
November, 2004).

Throughout my research it became clear to me the teachers who had done
rural practicums or who had actually spent a considerable amount of time
teaching in the bush communities had a much better understanding and
deeper appreciation for the transitional difficulties rural Alaska
Native students go through when entering an urban classroom. To live,
breathe, smell, and "hear" a culture allows for so much more than simply
reading about it in a textbook. When asking for the most valuable piece
of information seasoned educators could give to their peers regarding
best practices for transitioning Alaska Native students into urban
classrooms, four quotes stood out:

> "Go teach in a village. Go teach in a village. I think it would open
> some people's (teachers) eyes" (SO, Interview, April, 2004).
>
> "Any experience you can have in a rural setting can only help you"
> (Questionnaire, November, 2004).
>
> "Visit a rural area. See what it feels like to be out of your element
> just as a rural student would feel coming into an urban environment"
> (Questionnaire, April, 2004).
>
> "I wish I had more experience teaching in the bush" (JG Interview,
> November, 2004).

These above quotes encouraged me to see what life in a rural school in a
rural community was like. I wanted to travel to, teach in, and
experience life in a remote community in Alaska. With that thought in
mind, when I was presented a number of different villages for my rural
teaching practicum, I chose the most remote location offered, Savoonga,
Alaska.

*Savoonga.* Savoonga is a village of approximately 700 people who live
on Saint Lawrence Island 160 miles southwest of Nome, Alaska in the
middle of the Bering Sea. The community is made up of Siberian Yup'ik
Eskimos who, while having modern luxuries such as government housing and
the use of snowmobiles, still embrace a subsistence lifestyle. Aside
from the food served to the children and staff at the school, most of
the villagers still provide for their families by hunting sea mammals or
birds and fishing. The villagers still follow their cultural traditions
of using walrus hides as the skin for their umiaks (boats) and many of
them carve the ivory from the walrus tusks to earn money.

During my flight from Nome to Savoonga my excitement grew as I
anticipated the experiences I would have not only in the classroom
teaching, but even more so by seeing firsthand the culture of the
Siberian Yu'pik. When the plane landed, and I was loaded onto the back
of a wooden sled and towed by snowmobile to the school I was thrilled. I
was finally there, and once I was shown to the classroom where I would
teach in and live in during my stay, I immediately began preparing for
my first day with my students.

"I am ready for school on my first day of teaching in Savoonga. I
counted fourteen desks in my classroom, but only nine students showed
up. I hope tomorrow I will have a better showing" (Researcher Journal,
April, 2004). To prepare for my first day of teaching in the bush I
stayed up nearly the entire night getting ready for what I anticipated
to be a day filled with new and interesting learning experiences.
However, as I found out, the real learning experience I received was,
despite my research into Native students and Native communities, that I
actually new little about how life in the bush.

In Savoonga, most of the third and fourth grade children had curfews
during the week of midnight, and this meant they were out riding
snowmachines or four wheelers right up until that time. When they
actually went to bed was anybody's guess. For those students who showed
up for class in the morning, it was all I could do to keep them from
falling asleep. Later in the week, when the walrus came in, the students
disappeared from the classroom (Researcher Journal, April, 2004). What
became clear was the sense of time I operated on was completely
different from the sense of time the village operated on. This meant,
what I considered to be important was not shared by my students or the
rest of the villagers. This sentiment was supported by the words of one
of the teachers I interviewed when she said:

> The sense of time in an urban environment is not the sense of time in
> a village environment. Precise time is very crucial in the city. You
> have to be at school at ten minutes to nine, the bell rings at
> nine-o'clock, everybody goes to the lunchroom at eleven-twenty. In the
> village it is less structured. Time does not have the same meaning,
> and so one of the difficulties that does happen is the teachers are
> concerned because a child is not here on time, does not have their
> homework done on time, or they do not realize that the children may
> not know the assignment is late because they are dealing with two
> different concepts of time. Usually the teacher in an urban
> environment does not understand their sense of "On time" is not the
> same as the child's or the child's family (MJKT Interview, November,
> 2004).

While teaching in the bush it became clear to me schooling was viewed as
a place for the children to go to learn the ways of the western world.
If a child did not feel like going to school, they were seldom made to.
If a cultural event came up, school became less of a priority. For the
children of Savoonga, their life was the Siberian Yup'ik culture of
their parents and grandparents, and they knew most of them would spend
their lives in this community. Therefore, it was more important for many
of them to learn and live the ways of their culture. However, this was
not entirely true for all the students.

*Exception to the Rule.* In my classroom, and in each of the other
classrooms I observed there were a handful of students who showed up
each day for school and performed at or above their grade level. These
were typically the students whose parents were involved in working at
the school. Some of these students had also been outside of Savoonga,
and in talking with them during breakfast and lunch times, I found out
most of this group had intentions to leave their Island home someday. It
was during these conversations I began to think back on my research and
tried to picture how students from a community as remote and far removed
from the western culture found in Anchorage could successfully
transition if they were left to do it by their own means. Despite my
efforts I could not see how this could be done, and when I asked these
students how they felt if would be like to transition into a larger
community, one where they were considered a minority, most of them had
no conception of what it would be like. They had nothing to compare it
to, except for what they could recall by watching television (Researcher
Journal, April, 2004).

*Summary*

The results of the data I collected led me to conclude three facts about
working with rural Alaskan Native students who were transitioning into
urban classrooms. The first was that allowing the students to work in
pairs helped them to not only create a bond with another student, but
actually served to help improve their academic performance. This
experience not only helped the students in their transitional process by
allowing them to share their learning with another student in a parallel
situation, but also allowed the students to experience academic success
faster than other transitional students who were not allowed to work in
pairs.

The second important factor in helping rural Alaskan Native students
transition into urban classrooms was allowing them, and encouraging
them, to work with the Indian Education teacher in their school. The
environments created by these specialists not only gave the students a
sense of security but also a sense of belonging in a school and
community that was foreign to them. It became clear that when the
students met with the Indian Education teacher, their sense of self
improved and their sense of where and how they fit into their new
community and culture became more clear to them.

Finally, the third factor important to successfully helping the rural
Alaskan Native students transition into urban classrooms was for me to
experience and learn the culture of these students. The result of my
rural practicum helped me to confirm that with many of the rural Alaska
Native students I will be dealing with in my classroom I need to be
aware of the frailty they bring with them. Yes, they perhaps know how to
survive in the harsh and unforgiving environment of rural Alaska, but
the do not necessarily possess the skills to survive in an urban
classroom with the help and guidance of their teacher. The issues of
prejudice, minority status, increased educational demands, and the need
to keep ties to their cultural heritage all need to be thoroughly and
completely understood by teachers of these students if we are to ever be
successful helping them transition into our classrooms.