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fore
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for
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foree
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fore
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fore
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foree
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foree
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fore
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fore
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foree
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foreign speech
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[Music]
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for
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[Music]
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if people in an area feel like they want
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to revive a language then um they um
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teach the curriculum in a classroom in a
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school in the target language like if um
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just in this area if you wanted kids to
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learn the upic language then you teach
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the school curriculum all in you in know
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hoping that the students will learn how
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to speak you
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[Music]
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again something
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here well here at the immersion program
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we try to um emulate the regular
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curriculum and so we have um started out
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the day with an opening attendance going
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through our daily jobs having math using
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manipulatives um covering other subjects
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like PE having song and dance having
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language arts social studies science the
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big difference is um the language that
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that we're delivering the program in
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here we're 100% upic some of the
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research shows that children that are um
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learning a second language even if they
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leg for a while in English will um catch
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up with their peers that are in in an
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English only program and you know some
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um will pass they learn
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[Music]
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[Music]
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faster when students come in August and
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they don't speak a word of you
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August through October I think are the
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most frustrating months of the year
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because both uh the students are
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frustrated the parents are frustrated
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I'm frustrated but then you have to do a
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lot of
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modeling if I sit down I'll say AK akum
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if I stand up I'll
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say and you know a lot of pic words have
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gestures like if I say die die we
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usually just say die die we use our I
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guess what we we use is Total Physical
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response we use our body to tell the
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students what to do so we use a lot of
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commands and we we use our body motions
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gestures just to get the communication
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skills going
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[Music]
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I sit with the students and then I
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assign one student to come up here and
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point to their names as the child is
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pointing to each name the children say
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the child's name like for instance
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there's a little girl named a If the
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child uh is here then they'll say
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a
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that's is present today but if she's not
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here then say
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so if the little child is here then see
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the uh the little uh card for m is
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yellow and the card for CH is green so
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if the little girl is here she comes up
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and just flips her uh card over to
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Yellow meaning she's present and so the
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child who is assigned to point to all
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the names goes through all the girls and
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then the boys and then after we're done
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I normally say how many girls are absent
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today so the kids tell me like if three
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girls are absent
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being then we come over here like how
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many boys are absent today they'll say
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if two boys are absent they'll
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say and then we do a little math if
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three girls are gone today and two boys
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are gone how many children are absent
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today so we go through the whole process
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of you know doing math
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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we go to PE class over at Emy but the EM
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teacher PE teacher is working with two
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of our AIDS and he tells the AIDS what
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to do and he doesn't speak to the kids
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the AIDS talk to the kids in you
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they have a cafeteria over there but we
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don't walk over to eat we eat right in
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the classroom you know there's a lot of
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small things that um are done just in
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this building because we can't be
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exposed to the English language
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[Music]
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the students are learning these in a
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second language in a target language
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that's the yic language they might not
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be speaking you know the full language
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but they
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understand what to
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do you know people just didn't believe
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that it would work
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even
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now there's a lot of parents who believe
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that you know their children are going
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to be very
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frustrated even though we're teaching
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the same
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curriculum and they just don't realize
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that you know we deliver the curriculum
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only it's delivered in
00:11:19
you so we're still um meeting a lot of
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Skeptics out there
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[Music]
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[Music]
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I think it's very important to have a um
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upic immersion program namely to
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maintain our yic language which is a big
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chunk of our yic
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heritage
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and I've read some um articles about how
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Native languages are slow slowly dying
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away and this is a good one good way of
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um preventing the loss of the upic
00:12:09
language the elders know that the
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language is going to die because they
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keep paring their children their
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grandchildren speaking more and more
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English and um I thought you know what a
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great gift for us to give back to our
00:12:25
parents they gave it to us and if they
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realize that we're trying to keep their
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language alive I think they'd be you
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know real happy about what we're trying
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to do
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[Music]
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in 1986 Dr John Antonin the
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superintendent asked me to call all the
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certified native teachers into
00:13:24
Dillingham for a meeting and then he got
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us together and he he
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said we we were born in the villages we
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grew up in the villages we went to the
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Village
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Schools and then we became educated and
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are now back in the villag is teaching
00:13:41
school who best would give guidance to
00:13:45
the school board than us teachers who
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had grown up within the
00:13:51
area we tried to give guidance to the
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board but but of course our teachers
00:13:57
were still unsure they were still you
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know we you have the
00:14:01
non-native supervisors who are the
00:14:04
principls you have a lot of non-native
00:14:05
teachers within the school
00:14:07
system and somehow you you never meas
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you're up to them since you're native
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since you're of the area and they're
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always trying to change you to make you
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like they are and somehow in the back of
00:14:19
your mind in the back of lots of
00:14:21
people's mind people from the outside
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are better that you should be like them
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and so they weren't really able to guide
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the school board members so we decided
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that we needed
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to really look at what our upic teachers
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were doing you know what's yic about the
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way that you're
00:14:42
teaching what's yic about the classroom
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that they're in with the with the
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existing bilingual programs one of the
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things that we noticed within the
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classroom was that always even with the
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bilingual programs it was was always
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english-based it wasn't upic based
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knowledge so we said well we need our
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elders to help guide us to give us the
00:15:09
kinds of knowledge and training that
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they knew and
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learned we began to collect this yic
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knowledge base one of the first things
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we talked about to our elders was how
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did you traditionally count because of
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course you count at 1 2 3 4 5 then you
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translate
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and no thought is really given to the
00:15:34
name until we had our elders count for
00:15:40
us and is an arm so you
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have is to cross over so you're crossing
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over connecting to the to the other
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finger and then when you reach
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k k is the top part
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SOA is
00:16:01
10 and and then you then we found out
00:16:04
that we had a sub uh base 20 counting
00:16:08
system with a subbase of five based on
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the knowledge that our elders shared
00:16:13
with
00:16:14
us we have a unit on weather we have a
00:16:18
unit on
00:16:21
um on patterns the traditional upic
00:16:24
border patterns we have several
00:16:26
different units on the um different
00:16:29
legends that we integrated into the
00:16:31
school system we have a unit on the
00:16:34
heartbeat the heartbeat
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unit was sort of born with AA
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balker and it so happened to be February
00:16:46
and we're trying to figure out how to
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integrate the patterns into the
00:16:49
mathematical
00:16:51
program I gave them a diagram of the
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heart and I spelled the word
00:16:56
heart within the diagram and I asked the
00:17:00
kids what words do we
00:17:03
use that have the word heart in it and a
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lot of the
00:17:08
kids what do we use and one of the kids
00:17:11
I
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remember had the
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word
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brokenhearted and
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so the other kids were thinking of the
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word different words within groups I had
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the I have the kids group so that they
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can work as a group not as a
00:17:35
individual more words came out heartless
00:17:38
the next day I got a whole bunch of
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stethoscopes for the students to use
00:17:47
just to listen to their hearts and the
00:17:50
kids were really excited about it wow my
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heart sounds different than yours and
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they
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would discuss amongst themselves how
00:17:58
different different everyone's heartbeat
00:18:00
was and so from there I got really
00:18:03
excited about the patterns the different
00:18:06
patterns of heart heartbeats I like to
00:18:09
have the kids shut their eyes and just
00:18:13
drum the drum for a while then I asked
00:18:16
them what kinds of things did it make
00:18:18
them think of and then they give
00:18:21
different responses and then we talk
00:18:23
about the heartbeat I have the kids feel
00:18:25
their
00:18:27
heartbeat and when they feel their
00:18:29
heartbeat then we extend that to having
00:18:32
them um make a pattern of that heartbeat
00:18:36
then I have the kids listen to their
00:18:38
heartbeat with a
00:18:40
stethoscope first they feel it they show
00:18:43
what it sounds like then they listen to
00:18:46
it and then they also put it into
00:18:48
pattern form we have them take the
00:18:51
pattern that they put together and use
00:18:53
the three main yic colors to make a
00:18:56
pattern because what they're going to do
00:18:59
is they're going to make a bracelet
00:19:01
using the beads we have them do word
00:19:03
problems based
00:19:05
on the number of different colored beads
00:19:08
that they use and then from there we get
00:19:11
into all kinds of different mathematical
00:19:14
activities you get into addition you get
00:19:16
into subtraction you get into different
00:19:19
ratios you could even get into different
00:19:22
multiplication and division problems
00:19:24
just based on on their heartbeat and the
00:19:28
bead creation that they put together we
00:19:31
extended into the language arts where we
00:19:33
have the students make
00:19:35
poems and one year we had the kids make
00:19:38
poems and then attach their
00:19:41
um little poetry and their bracelet and
00:19:45
then they brought it as a gift home to
00:19:47
their mother showing their heartbeat and
00:19:50
their poem and this poem happens to e
00:19:53
heartbeat black red black tick Tick boom
00:19:59
soft beat is dreaming
00:20:03
cool the heartbeat unit can
00:20:06
go in all different emotional directions
00:20:10
as well for the kids because at this age
00:20:13
really young age you know the kids we
00:20:15
have to make them feel good about
00:20:17
themselves and be proud of who they are
00:20:20
and and we could associate that with our
00:20:22
culture bring that in this is what your
00:20:25
culture is this is what your culture is
00:20:28
all about this is what your
00:20:30
grandfather's forefathers
00:20:32
did and they could learn so much from
00:20:35
that
00:20:48
[Music]
00:20:54
[Music]
00:21:07
[Music]
00:21:15
[Music]
00:21:16
cak is an Eskimo Village yic Eskimo
00:21:19
village located about 25 miles west of
00:21:23
bethl uh it's located on the Johnson
00:21:26
River it's uh
00:21:29
population of kigu is about 500 people a
00:21:33
gnomic school was built in
00:21:37
19881 uh it was designed and planned for
00:21:40
a K12 program which made it a little bit
00:21:42
unique from the other moli Hooch schools
00:21:45
that were built for strictly for high
00:21:47
school right now we have about 93
00:21:50
students in our school
00:21:53
k12 we have seven teachers and seven
00:21:56
certified teachers and five associate
00:21:59
teachers we run a our upic studies
00:22:03
program uh from kindergarten through the
00:22:05
12th
00:22:06
grade K three is dominant in yic and
00:22:11
then uh 4 through 12 is they have two
00:22:14
hours a day in the upic studies program
00:22:18
when we first came to cigu uh yic was a
00:22:21
dominant language the only English that
00:22:24
the students heard was the English in
00:22:26
the school which was for about six hours
00:22:28
a
00:22:30
day about
00:22:33
uh 20 years
00:22:36
ago the television came in telephones
00:22:40
came in the more modern technology came
00:22:43
into the village and so students and
00:22:46
children
00:22:49
uh they were they paid less than less
00:22:52
attention to the elders and to the
00:22:54
adults and their stories and their
00:22:56
history of their culture and things like
00:22:57
that they were uh concentrating on
00:23:00
television and stuff uh and movies and
00:23:03
videotapes and things like that and they
00:23:06
begin to lose their
00:23:07
language and also lose their
00:23:11
culture I had attended an outcome based
00:23:14
education program all about seven years
00:23:16
ago and I got to thinking that if if the
00:23:19
people in the community really wanted to
00:23:22
preserve their culture and also their
00:23:25
language that we needed to do something
00:23:26
in the schools and the outcome based
00:23:28
education program at that time I felt
00:23:31
was a was one of the uh uh vehicles to
00:23:35
do that and when we were going to do
00:23:38
that we had um about three or four
00:23:42
meetings for the whole
00:23:44
winter uh starting from the fall time
00:23:46
until in springtime that was in
00:23:50
reference to try to
00:23:53
explain about uh our program to the
00:23:57
elders in the village
00:23:59
and since we have uh started thinking
00:24:03
that these Elders are uh passing away
00:24:07
with their knowledge and wisdom of our
00:24:10
own culture and
00:24:12
traditions and that was the main thing
00:24:15
that we had in mind when we brought this
00:24:17
up and we try to explain this to our
00:24:20
elders uh during our meetings we had as
00:24:24
high as 25 to 35 Elders at every meeting
00:24:28
and we talked about the exit outcomes
00:24:31
that they wanted their kids to have when
00:24:33
they graduated from high school once we
00:24:36
identified the exit outcomes then we
00:24:38
moved into the content areas or the
00:24:41
content of the exit outcomes and again
00:24:44
we brainstormed with the community on
00:24:46
that and it took us about a year and a
00:24:48
half to finally come up with a a very
00:24:51
extensive list of information that they
00:24:54
wanted in these exit outcomes all the
00:24:57
walls were filled with charge here and
00:24:59
there and then um we combine them
00:25:03
together and then after that uh we break
00:25:07
them down into an area where like uh in
00:25:11
Old B days in one of their curriculums
00:25:15
they um have uh written that we teach
00:25:20
the um the
00:25:21
berries or the fish in right in the
00:25:24
middle of the winter whereas at that
00:25:26
time we're not fishing or be picking so
00:25:30
keeping that in mind we categorize each
00:25:35
whatever the elders have brought up to
00:25:37
us putting them into a certain uh month
00:25:41
or in uh quarters or in semester when we
00:25:45
would be covering them at the end of
00:25:47
about the third year we started looking
00:25:50
at a scope and sequence of the upic
00:25:53
studies program and it seemed like every
00:25:55
time we come up with something that we
00:25:57
were comfortable with with somebody in
00:25:59
the district office would say yeah but
00:26:01
we could do this or we could do that and
00:26:04
change it a little bit so we'd come back
00:26:05
and we'd try to change it to meet the
00:26:07
what they were looking for and we went
00:26:10
around around with that for all about a
00:26:12
year and finally we came to the point of
00:26:15
saying well wait a minute this is cig or
00:26:18
gul's upic studies program and this is
00:26:21
the way we want it set up and so from
00:26:25
that point on things seem to uh smooth
00:26:27
out a lot
00:26:29
[Music]
00:26:35
we've been at the process for six years
00:26:38
um and we're still
00:26:40
[Music]
00:26:42
working this school year we've been
00:26:45
implementing the program as such as as
00:26:47
it is and hopefully at the end of this
00:26:50
year we'll Rec critique what we've done
00:26:52
and then develop the remaining thematic
00:26:54
units to support it
00:26:58
right now the students um in late April
00:27:02
are working on birds and insects
00:27:05
um we have kindergarten students that
00:27:07
are uh concentrating more on insects um
00:27:12
the different types of insects that live
00:27:14
around our area and then when they get
00:27:17
into the uh third and fourth grade
00:27:20
they're they review the insects and uh
00:27:23
that but then they're they're looking
00:27:25
more at the external parts of birds uh
00:27:28
we brought in some uh pigan and things
00:27:31
like that and the teacher the associate
00:27:32
teacher is uh talking about the external
00:27:35
parts of these birds and and then they
00:27:38
apply this from the time get into the
00:27:40
Ducks and the other birds that are
00:27:42
coming
00:27:44
in the fifth and sixth graders they'll
00:27:47
take the timan and they'll look at the
00:27:49
internal parts of the timan um the heart
00:27:53
what the intestines and they actually
00:27:56
dissect the tarmigan and and see what
00:27:58
what's in there um then when they get
00:28:01
into the seventh and eighth grade they
00:28:03
review the external parts and the
00:28:05
internal parts and also they get into uh
00:28:08
more of the U extended activities in
00:28:12
terms of the habitat of the birds and
00:28:16
where they live and why they live there
00:28:18
and why they change colors of the
00:28:21
feathers or they mol and CH camouflage
00:28:24
the older students they they get into
00:28:25
the migratory uh Birds and non the
00:28:29
migratory non-migratory Birds and the
00:28:32
reason that they migrate out and where
00:28:34
do they go when they do migrate we use
00:28:39
that as a stepping stone
00:28:41
for social studies because then they can
00:28:43
track the migratory Paths of the birds
00:28:46
all the way down into Mexico or wherever
00:28:49
they do go it's very complex it's U it's
00:28:53
a kind of a a gradual stepping stone but
00:28:55
by the time they do graduate from high
00:28:57
school have a fairly firm understanding
00:29:00
of all the birds within the area and
00:29:02
also whether they're migratory or non
00:29:05
migratory and we've done that with all
00:29:07
of the Thematic
00:29:10
units right now what we're doing is
00:29:13
we're trying to take these uh thematic
00:29:15
units and develop pleason plants and uh
00:29:18
material list and support materials
00:29:21
books uh activities and things to go
00:29:24
along with them
00:29:41
[Music]
00:29:48
we
00:29:50
have two hour session two or two class
00:29:54
pair sessions for each class
00:29:59
for each great level and when we do that
00:30:02
we try to mostly
00:30:05
cover the uh that anything that deals
00:30:09
with the
00:30:10
vocabulary vocabulary reading and
00:30:14
writing in that uh thematic unit or in
00:30:17
such a subject and on that second period
00:30:20
we try to do some things that deals with
00:30:24
onance activity that refers to what we
00:30:28
are dealing
00:30:30
with and in that way when we're when
00:30:33
they're doing that at the same time they
00:30:35
are taught some names of items or
00:30:38
whatever something like that to build up
00:30:40
the
00:30:50
[Music]
00:30:56
vocabulary foree
00:31:30
we bring in Elders every day they have
00:31:33
lunch with the kids and then they spend
00:31:36
uh two three 4 hours in the afternoon
00:31:38
working in the classrooms when they're
00:31:41
not directly working with students then
00:31:44
usually we have an associate teacher or
00:31:46
or a librarian or a media specialist he
00:31:49
sits down and they interview the elders
00:31:51
and collect more history and data from
00:31:53
them at that time this is the second
00:31:55
year in which they've been paid for for
00:31:58
coming into the school the 5 years prior
00:32:01
to this it's been strictly
00:32:06
voluntary When you mention cultural
00:32:09
heritage or uh bilingual education a lot
00:32:12
of times people think in terms of that
00:32:14
it's strictly arts and crafts um making
00:32:18
baskets making fish traps making dog
00:32:21
sleds making uh B uh weaving Nets or
00:32:26
whatever the yic studies program is uh
00:32:31
probably 90%
00:32:34
content that was the wishes of the
00:32:36
elders we had one of the Elder ladies uh
00:32:40
who is uh very uh fluent in terms of
00:32:44
skin sewing basket making and those type
00:32:46
of things her direct comment was we want
00:32:48
our kids to learn about our culture and
00:32:50
our language we don't want them spending
00:32:53
all their time skin sewing and making
00:32:56
malis skin hats and things like that we
00:32:59
want them to learn the
00:33:06
content we hold monthly meetings uh here
00:33:10
at cig or at agula for the community and
00:33:14
we have a turnout of 25 to 35 people at
00:33:17
every
00:33:19
meeting I think that's a reflection of
00:33:21
their interest in the upic studies
00:33:23
program or in the program
00:33:25
here um we had students um compete on
00:33:31
the state level at the speech contest uh
00:33:35
I think that's a reflection of the
00:33:36
students are feeling good about
00:33:38
themselves and they're confident in
00:33:40
themselves they they believe in
00:33:42
themselves and again I I'm in hopes that
00:33:44
that's partly due to the ubic studies
00:33:47
program letting the students know who
00:33:49
they are where they or who they are and
00:33:51
where they came from and that they
00:33:53
should be proud of being y
00:34:03
in the last 15 years I I know of no
00:34:06
physical fights with older kids uh
00:34:09
between older students um we have very
00:34:13
little uh students talking back to
00:34:15
teachers or to elders and again I think
00:34:17
we our yic studies program teaches
00:34:20
respect for elders and older people and
00:34:22
so I think that's a reflection of
00:34:25
that um and I'm in hopes that our kids
00:34:30
aren't intoed drugs and alcohol because
00:34:32
again at the C upic studies program they
00:34:35
they feel good about themselves and you
00:34:37
know the elders come in and talk to them
00:34:40
we have other people coming in and
00:34:43
congratulating them on their successes
00:34:45
within our program I think they're proud
00:34:49
of their school and I think a lot of it
00:34:51
has to do with the yic St from here
00:35:20
so I I think the repercussions or the
00:35:22
spin-off from the upic studies program
00:35:24
is not only learning about the upic
00:35:26
history in in EIC language and their
00:35:28
culture but I think it's also uh making
00:35:31
our kids really proud of who they
00:35:35
are and I think that's really important
00:35:37
at this
00:35:50
point the EIC studies program could not
00:35:53
have been
00:35:54
successful if if the people and the
00:35:57
teachers
00:35:58
hadn't been part of it I mean you can't
00:36:01
sit behind a desk and develop it it's
00:36:04
something that has to be developed with
00:36:06
the with everybody and everybody has to
00:36:09
have ownership to it I think it's there
00:36:11
I really do um um and I'm very proud of
00:36:15
those people that did participate in it
00:36:19
and we're willing to share
00:36:24
[Music]
00:36:56
fore foreign
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[Music]
00:37:27
he
00:37:30
[Music]
00:38:10
[Music]
00:38:27
for
