Background

Through a grant from the United States Department of Education, under the Alaska Native Education Equity Act, the Alaska Humanities Forum houses a cross-cultural exchange program called the Rose Urban Rural Exchange (RURE). The Rose Urban Rural Exchange aims to strengthen relationships between urban and rural Alaskans by building mutual respect and understanding, and fostering a statewide sense of community. To build these connections, RURE offers a rare opportunity to many Alaskans the chance to experience different Alaskan cultures first hand.

The Sister School Exchange creates cross-cultural exchanges between urban and rural middle and high school students and teachers. Students document and reflect upon their experiences in order to realize and appreciate commonalities and differences between Alaska's diverse urban and rural communities.

Program and Standards

RURE has five defined objectives. To demonstrate achievement of these objectives, a series of competencies has been developed for the Sister School Exchange program. The competencies are aligned with Alaska Educational and Cultural Standards, and the Anchorage School District Social-Emotional Learning Standards. Each Sister School Exchange program component is designed to nurture these competencies. Measurement of student achievement of these competencies through participation in the Sister School Exchange will illustrate overall program effectiveness.

The Sister School Exchange program is designed to be to be easily adaptable and flexible. There are a set of minimum standards, activities, and experiences that are required of the teachers and students, but the possibilities beyond these are limitless. Teachers may choose the method that would work best for them to meet the program requirements. Some teachers integrate the program into other classroom curricula, lead the whole classroom through the pre-travel elements, and then choose five students from that classroom to travel on the exchange. Others hold a series of after-school sessions to meet the pre-travel requirements.

The Journey Analogy

The analogy of a journey is used to help guide participants through the various program components: first providing context and skills needed for the Sister School visit, and then guiding the experiences that participants will have during their exchange. The analogy is useful in providing a frame for the program because, while the program components are similar to a curriculum with lesson plans, they do not correlate completely. With this in mind, let's take a closer look at the program.

The Cultural Ambassador Teams, made up of students and teachers, are embarking on a journey to discover other cultures and to learn more about who they are as Alaskans. Each journey will be different because there are so many elements of a journey that are unpredictable from natural and political climates to how each individual perceives the experience.

The staff of the Rose Urban Rural Exchange act as guides for this journey by: preparing each team with the skills and knowledge they will need for their trip, providing some planning and routes to key destinations that will enrich the experience, and stepping in whenever the team loses its bearings. In the end, though, it will be up to each team to navigate its own journey and explore different Alaskan communities and cultures ones from far away as well as those that exist outside their own back door.

Along the journey there will be several Destinations key points where the Cultural Ambassadors will learn new skills and gather important information or tools that they will need for further navigation and exploration. To help guide teams to these Destinations, we have established Waypoints important moments or places in the journey that help RURE know the teams are heading in the right direction.

As explorers, each Cultural Ambassador Team can choose how it will navigate to each Waypoint. RURE will provide a suggested route that shows one course through each Waypoint to each Destination. Teams may also choose their own route through the Waypoints there is far more to learn and explore about Alaska and its urban and rural cultures than we can possibly write into this program!

The Destinations are mandatory: each team must achieve these. Demonstrating that the teams have reached most Waypoints is also required. Teams will show they have reached a Waypoint by submitting Postcards to the Destination Log, a dynamic web site where Cultural Ambassador Teams tell the story of their journey. Depending upon the nature of the Waypoint, the Postcard may be a picture or video, a story that documents an activity, or reflections from an individual or team about an experience. These Postcards, when collected, tell the story of each teams journey, from start to finish.

In addition to the Postcards, each Cultural Ambassador has his or her own Personal Profile. This is a page where Ambassadors can tell more about who they are through pictures, video, and text. They may also choose to document their individual experiences through a web journal, or blog.

All posts to the Destination Log, whether to the team page or Personal Profile, are screened by RURE staff before posting. Teachers also receive notification when their students post.

During the exchange, each traveling Cultural Ambassador member will have a Field Manual. The Field Manual is like a guidebook for the exchange. It contains a brief description of the Waypoints to meet while they're traveling, as well as useful information and prompts for documenting the experience.

While visiting their Sister School Community, the teams will also be required to complete three Areas for Exploration. These can be field trips, interviews, or other experiences that help the Cultural Ambassadors learn more about Alaska issues and the culture of their host community. Areas for Exploration can be things such as Making Traditional Food, Using Public Transportation, or How Things Used To Be. These topics can be explored in a variety of ways, although emphasis is placed on providing a hands-on experience with local culture bearers or experts as guides.

Each traveling Ambassador will carry a Passport as another way to document the journey. Passports encourage Ambassadors to seek experiences outside of those arranged or required by RURE. The Passports have pages for stamps that can be attained through specific experiences, such as Trying a new food, or Going to a local sporting event. If the Destinations and Waypoints are the obligatory elements of the journey, the Passports can offer incentives for Cultural Ambassadors to push their edges and explore with even greater depth.

Passports for hosting students will also be made available. These are similar to the traveling Passports, but can be used with non-traveling students to encourage host interaction with the visiting Sister School Ambassadors.

At the end of the exchange, the Cultural Ambassador Team will reconvene for one additional Destination to reflect on their journey and prepare and practice their Cultural Exchange Story, a presentation for a group in their home community.

Incentives

There are two levels of incentives for the Sister School Exchange program, at the team level and statewide.
Team Level: RURE will provide each teacher with some prizes (like iTunes gift cards) to award students for their engagement and growth during the journey. Some suggestions:

The Passports can be used by teachers as a way to encourage students to push their boundaries and experience new things. After the exchange, students with the most stamps in their Passports can be rewarded.

The Personal Profiles can be used by teachers as a way to get their students to share their experiences and demonstrate their cross-cultural competencies. The teacher might assign journal topics both before and during travel, and reward those students who complete them.
Incentives can be distributed during the final Destination as a way to help bring the team back together after travel.

Statewide Level: RURE will evaluate the individual and team postings to the Destination Logs. At the end of the year, several top Ambassadors and at least one top Cultural Ambassador team will be selected based upon team and individual demonstration of the Cross-Cultural Competencies. These Ambassadors will be offered further opportunities for travel and experiences through the Alaska Humanities Forum and its partners.

Mirror Lake Middle School students enjoy a photo opportunity at
Tikigaq School in Point Hope, Alaska. The post office is in the background.