ALASKA NATIVES COMMISSION
JOINT FEDERAL-STATE COMMISSION
ON
POLICIES AND PROGRAMS AFFECTING
ALASKA NATIVES
4000 Old Seward Highway, Suite 100
Anchorage,
Alaska 99503
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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ANCHORAGE TESTIMONY - OCTOBER 15, 1992
DEPOSITION EXHIBIT #9 -TESTIMONY
OF GEORGE GUTHRIDGE
George Guthridge
Asst. Professor
UAF - Bristol Bay
Text:
My name is George Guthridge. I am currently an assistant professor of English and General Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Bristol Bay. I also teach graduate education courses.
From 1982 to 1990 I taught at Gambell, on St. Lawrence Island; and at Elim. During that time my Eskimo students won eight state and three national championships in some of the most academically demanding competitions open to young people.
What can we learn about Native teaching - and learning - styles from those accomplishments?
Most teachers teach City Thinking ... "Try and try again" ...
and use a four-step method: get students interested (Creativity), present
the overall picture (Conceptualization), show the component parts (Familiarization),
and then have students retain what is important (Memorization).
Unfortunately, that is not the way people learn in real
life. The country kid learning to hunt, the city kid learning to drive ...
both memorize what the adult teaches, familiarize themselves with their fools,
conceptualize about such things as weather and animals including those behind
the wheel), and then use "creativity" to refine their skills. In that order. It's the rural philosophy of our forefathers: "Be
sure you're right, then go ahead."
Is such "Reversed Instruction" only for learning where mistakes can mean disaster? Isn’t that also how you taught your children to wash dishes? Reversed Instruction, a project-based teaching method I have developed that grew out of bicultural education in the Bush rather then being imposed upon it, systemizes that natural process into four steps similar to those in constructing a house or learning on the job:
STEP 1. FOUNDATION (Knowledge) - we must identify and succintly define ten "kernels" for
each unit -concepts important to lifelong learning. Teach are taught with Superlearning
-a fun, high-powered memorization method from Bulgaria - but without immediate
explanation. Just as a building cannot be visualized only by its foundation,
we want to give students a solid base and let them think for themselves for a
day or two, so our I3answersltvalidate rather than indelibly color their ideas.
STEP 2. SHELL (Training) -we then raise reading comprehension and math computation by combining decoding skills with world knowledge. Knowing what words mean is only part of the battle in teaching students to reach; we must simultaneously teach context.
STEP 3. INTERIOR (Performance)-we next teach creative thinking, problem solving, and writing simultaneously, in a step by giving students a step-by-step writing process they use from pre-school through grad school. The process teaches Task Analysis, Definition, Substantiation, Example, and Logic in one hour, and allows students to create quality writing - often award-winning writing - regardless of age or assignment. It also avoids the trap that is currently handicapping students trained in methods that place great emphasis on personal-experience writing ... the trap of treating personal experience as an end in itself rather than what it is -one form of proof for explaining a point, among a variety of types of proof.
STEP 4. DECOR (Evaluation) - finally, we assess, provide correction, and reassess learning according to Mastery Learning principles, and provide lasting enrichment.
In summary, the accomplishments of the students from Gambell
and Elim were not a fluke, as was first supposed; nor were the students "special", which was the next excuse; nor, the third excuse, was it because of the teacher. Rather, the accomplishments were the result of hard student work, careful instruction, and - most important of all - an instructional method that reversed the "usual" educational
method and allowed learning style to become correlated with a natural problem-solving
style.
Every year we hear about new educational methods, and
we try those methods, in an effort to "save" Alaska Native education. I think
we're looking at the problem from the wrong direction. We don't need modern
education to save Alaskan Native learning. We need Alaskan Native learning
to save the rest of American education.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
(1) Identify teachers with outstanding success in the Bush, and get their methods to other teachers,
(2) Pressure school districts to dramatically reduce inservices
taught by "experts" from Outside. Use experts with Alaskan Bush experience.
(3) Hire education professors with Alaskan Bush experience.
(4) Identify methodologies that have come out of bicultural situations rather than being imposed upon bicultural situations.
Thank you.
This document was ocr scanned. We have made every
attempt to keep the online document the same as the original,
including the recorder's original misspellings or typos.
