Conflicting Landscapes

American Schooling / Alaska Natives

Bates Clifton, Oleksa Michael J.

This comprehensive illustrated volume presents a wide-ranging picture of the schooling of Alaska Native children from past to present. It explores the histories of changing philosophies of schooling and their effect on generations of Alaska Native students, details the situation – financial, social, and educational – of the many rural schools serving this population, and offers cogent, straightforward proposals for improving the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual health of present and future generations of Alaska Natives.

Reviews

"An invaluable guide to newly arriving teachers of Native students" – Judith Kleinfeld, University of Alaska Fairbanks

"Bates and Oleksa convincingly present the reality of cultural diversity and the challenges facing educators in Alaska and elsewhere. They discuss what has worked in interethnic communication and place-based education, but go beyond this to examine the underlying problem of lack of institutional memory and continuity in schooling, the abandonment of measures proven to demonstrate success, caused by a high turnover of teachers and administrators, with the result that we see the same mistakes and failures tragically and unnecessarily repeated year after year, generation after generation, leading to ongoing low academic achievement of most Alaska Native students, as well as family and community dysfunction" – Richard Dauenhauer, University of Alaska Southeast

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