TEACHER TRAINING  The Rose Urban Rural Exchange is also offering an opportunity for middle and high school teachers from Anchorage, Fairbanks and Mat-Su to gain first-hand experience about Alaska Native culture and rural life by attending a regional culture camp during the summer months. Teachers attend pre- and post-travel orientation sessions and develop lesson plans based on their rural experience. All costs including round trip airfare, camp fees, and college tuition are underwritten by the Rose Urban Rural Exchange. For an application (PDF) For FAQs ON THE PROGRAM (PdF) If you would like MORE information on Teacher Training, please contact: Laurie Evans-Dinneen, Director John Cox, Colony Middle School teacher, learns how to scrape a ringed seal skin at Tuapaktusuk Culture Camp near Barrow in July 2006. The camp is sponsored by Ilisagvik College. "One thing I notice is that the older people tend to teach the different skills by doing rather than by telling. Yelling at the kids to do things or make things happen doesnąt seem to occur either. This is very different than what I am used to. I would be yelling at all the kids to come here, listen carefully to these instructions and then go do it. Their way is different: more watch and learn. There are lots of kids just hanging out and playing, which is also very different than our world of always being busy and active in organized, adult-controlled activity. It seems to be much more free and open, but when someone is told to help out, or and elder needs something, the kids move very quickly!" - Terry Worthington "In a subsistence lifestyle, you subsist using the resources you have, and in Southeast Alaska I found out there is a lot to subsist on. In traditional native villages, the community rules. Even in my experience, we learned to cooperate because we had to work together. It seems that everyone has a job that needs the help of somebody else whether it is carrying buckets of water from the creek or cooking pancakes." - Adam Johnson , Dog Point Fish Camp
"Understanding different styles of communication is critical to establishing and maintaining relationships between cultures. I found the differences in communication amazing. I had no idea how different they were until my experience in Klukwan." - Jane Bulovsky, Colony Middle School Teacher Klukwan Culture Camp "I’m losing any concept of time. The sun never sets, so I have no idea what time it is. We go to bed whenever, get up whenever, eat whenever. There’s lots of sitting around the campfire. The men don’t have to get up early to hunt, because there is no difference in daylight, so they go whenever they feel like it. - Carolyn Rudzinski, Inupiaq Immersion Camp, Barrow
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John explains the tradition of filleting and soaking the salmon as we prepare to smoke the salmon in Tlingit. He taught us a prayer of thanks to say to the salmon as we placed the fillets in the brine. "John worked with me on how to coil a rope today as the others filleted the salmon we brought in. He was taught young to prepare the ropes for fishing by his father who was a fisherman. It is amazing to me that the smallest and somewhat simplest tasks have a traditional and “proper way”. Everything he learned from his father, grandfather, or uncle early on had a purpose and a reason. They truly prepared him for life." – Sara Helgeson, Dog Point Culture Camp, Sitka Alaska
“I became part of a landscape and, briefly, of a group of people that I had only seen, one dimensionally, in the National Geographic. I also now know, because of this experience, that the Unangax people are real people just like I am. They are not merely drawings by ancient explorers or entries in the index of a history book or statistics in a government census or artifacts in a museum far away from their homes. They are real people, proud and gentle, living in the 21st century and working hard to maintain aspects of their culture, while reviving some lost traditions like their language and experiential based education, all the while adapting to environmental, technological, social and other changes like most other cultures do." - Sonia Buys , Sand Point Culture Camp, Sand Point Alaska
Charise
Hallberg, teacher Chugiak High School and "It was obvious from the beginning that Barrow would run on island time, as it must, ruled by the ocean and the weather, as well as the pace of rural life. (It is not surprising that a culture like the Inupiaq would frown upon bold statements of the future, considering so much depends on external factors and no one wants to "jinx" anything or sound boastful.) Timetables here are suggestions at best." - Charise Hallberg, Culture/Inupiaq Language Immersion Camp, Barrow Alaska "The things that spring to mind are: a mindfulness of nature and the inner-connectiveness of all living things. A respect for cultural traditions a respect for elders. A value in shared experiences and knowledge. They didn’t force learning rather let it flow naturally. They attempt to make sense of the world/environment surrounding them. They effectively harvest and use the resources in their environment. There was a strong linkage between spirit, nature and human." - Lynn Harrison, Kake Culture Camp
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