Fin And Feather
Lessons both old and new are found in the familiar splash of the salmon and the novel cluck of the chicken
No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.
—William Blake
Kwethluk, Alaska—The chickens dart out of their pen with their wings cocked, indignation bordering on hysteria. The children rush the stragglers, wanting desperately to hold them, but, one-by-one, seeing the gate ajar, the birds abandon their little domain for the wildness of the schoolyard. Soon, it's a free-for-all, except for an older boy who stands unmoved in the melee, either perplexed by these funny-looking birds, so out of place here on the tundra, or from a teen sense of dignity.
In a moment, James Hautala, seventh-grade science teacher, intervenes and the children follow his lead in shepherding the flock of Wyandottes, Brown Leghorns, and Rhode Island Reds back to the chicken coop. The wire mesh and wood posts of the pen are still new and clean, and the birds step superciliously up a wooden ramp to the sanctuary of their hen house—as if crossing a royal carpet to straw-and-feather luxury.
This is Hautala's students' project, one they will work on throughout the school year. It's September, and they're just finishing construction on the coop, putting in insulation and heat lamps, preparing it to withstand the sub-Arctic winter. They're learning to care for the chickens and to market the eggs and the occasional roasting bird to Kwethluk's skeptical consumers. It's not that residents of this Yup'ik village in Western Alaska haven't eaten chicken before, it's just that most prefer the meat they hunt and catch for themselves: salmon, caribou, moose, and, sometimes, seal shared by coastal relatives. So, eggs and drumsticks may be a tough sell, but the novelty of it all excites the students, even those who are struggling, on the verge of dropping out.
Lessons In Novelty
"I use the project as a tease" to hook the kids into learning math —measurement, geometry, ratio —life science, as well as carpentry and marketing, says Hautala. During the schoolday, he says, "We'll do some book work, then go work with the chickens. I think it's a good thing to do. I traditionally haven't done a lot of projects, because I don't like the way they usually go. Students need the ability to focus and maintain some degree of self-discipline before you can do it."
But this project seems to have earned the students' full attention, and, in a school where a third of the students might drop out in a single year, that's something to pay attention to.
"A couple of kids who don't come to school (regularly), they started to really shine when we started building this chicken coop. There's one kid who's not as socially accepted as the other kids, but he's my right hand out there, and the kids see that. He started talking, I mean, he never talked before. When I see kids getting involved, getting excited about something, then I figure I'm on the right track."
Already this year, a couple of high school boys are on the verge of dropping out. Hautala and Principal Dave Keller arranged a work-study for them, paying them $5.90 an hour to build the chicken coop and pen. In return, the boys are expected to "come to at least one class a day," Hautala says. Sometimes, it can feel like this is the most you can demand of a youth who has almost entirely disengaged from school. Anything to keep him coming back.
The Personal Is Political
Kwethluk, with 760 residents, lies near the junction of the Kwethluk and Kuskokwim Rivers. Settled since ancient times, the village is still largely governed by a subsistence lifestyle. Many of the villagers travel up the Kwethluk River every summer to their fish camps and, in the autumn, men and boys spend days on the trail of migrating caribou. Every season is full of purposeful activity that competes for students' attention. Sometimes, students feel the politics of adults pulling on their allegiances, too.
When teacher Beverly Chmielarczyk wanted to teach her eighth-graders about aquatic science and the life cycle of salmon—exploring why local salmon runs were dwindling—she bumped up against their suspicion of Western views about how the land and its resources should be managed. They'd heard adults in their community talk about the Katie John case, in which an Ahtna elder from the Copper River delta had successfully sued the federal government 10 years earlier to extend rural subsistence priority to 60 percent of Alaska's rivers and streams. This ruling would have given many people in the village priority over the outdoor sports enthusiasts—from cities, mostly—who descend on the rivers and delta muskeg every summer for fly fishing.
But the state of Alaska fought the decision in the courts, losing five times until, just weeks ago, Alaska Governor Tony Knowles changed course. He urged an amendment to the state constitution to agree with the federal ruling, saying he wished to mend the "bitter urban-rural divide" over this issue. But bitterness lingers for some of Chmielarczyk's students, who point to continuing interference by outsiders—state fisheries managers—who had just that summer imposed restrictions on fishing in the rivers, and were counting fish populations from the weir at Three Step Mountain on the Kwethluk River.
Chmielarczyk decided to embrace the debate in the classroom. She designed a class project around the state's fish recovery activities on the Kuskokwim and Kwethluk rivers. During the next few months, students will investigate what Native knowledge and Western science reveal about salmon and the wisest use of this valuable resource.
"I want to do a formal investigation," she said. "I want them to really learn how to get both perspectives, to get all the facts before they form their opinions about such questions as, How do the choices we make about the environment affect the salmon? What are the environmental concerns of Yup'ik and non-Native people? Who should make the rules about salmon harvesting?"
The project will integrate social science, environmental science, math, and language arts. Students will study the scientific method, the water cycle and oceanography, and the interdependence of habitat and salmon. "To me, that's what project-based learning is. You're taking a theme and incorporating it into your everyday classroom learning."
For several years now, Chmielarczyk has taught her students about the life cycle of the salmon by raising fry in a tank in the classroom, adjusting the thermal units in the tank to control the development of the eggs. The students have learned how to monitor water temperatures, and oxygen, ammonia, and pH levels during the incubation period. They will use these same skills on the banks of the Kwethluk River to gather data about the habitat and health of the wild salmon. Then, they'll examine the interdependence of humans with these natural resources.
"We'll look at the news coverage of salmon issues in The Delta Discovery and Tundra Drums newspapers. The kids have done artwork and expository writing about salmon and what happens at fish camp in the summer," she says.
Learning Together
Last summer, Kwethluk's Principal Dave Keller and some of its teachers traveled across the river to Bethel to attend a class on standards-based education presented by the Lower Kuskokwim School District. One of the speakers, Bob Crumley, assistant superintendent and director of instruction for the Chugach School District—recently recognized by President George W. Bush for its excellence in standards-based teaching—described his district's project-based learning activities.
"Bob presented a video showing students completing a marine science experiment while doing their traditional subsistence fishing," recalls Keller. "Many of us from Kwethluk were impressed with this project because our own village community relies on subsistence activities as part of essential daily life."
But they weren't sure how to design projects that integrate multiple subjects and involve students over an extended period of time. Keller called the state department of education and was directed to Helena Fagan, an adjunct instructor at University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau and expert in project-based learning. She flew out to Kwethluk to lead a four-day workshop.
"Helena Fagan did an exemplary job of demonstrating how secondary teachers could weave meaningful projects into their class offerings," says Keller. "Helena made it clear that the foundation for project-based learning was the state standards."
Fagan says she showed the teachers how to align their projects with a target standard, or learning goal, which would allow them to feel more confident that, every day, they were taking their students a step closer to meeting that standard.
She also met with students, showing them videos of young people from other villages as they worked on projects and presented their findings—images of young people taking responsibility for their own learning.
"One of the beauties is if teachers include authentic tasks in their projects. If they get the kids and the community involved in something that has real value to the community, project-based learning can be especially effective," says Fagan.
Keller agrees: "I think the community wants students to have acquired skills they can apply in the real world, and you can't always get that kind of knowledge out of a book. Sometimes you have to do that by putting your knowledge and skills to work in a project."
Keller also thinks it's important that students see their teachers as learners, too. Projects create circumstances in which teachers and students can learn together.
"As educators, we need to model an excitement for learning," he says. "If there was ever a time when teachers were supposed to act as if they had the final word and authority on their subject area, that time has, hopefully, crumbled and died."
Success In What Matters
By February, the chicken enterprise is a going operation. Hautala and his seventh-graders are selling eggs in the village store for $3 a dozen, a tin can for cash sitting beside the carefully arranged brown eggs. The money goes back into the project, which Hautala intends to keep going for next year's seventh-graders. He harbors few doubts, now, about the value of project-based learning—while nurturing the chickens, teacher and students have forged a friendship based on mutual respect.
"These kids have been a success" in all ways that matter, says Hautala. They've not only gained practical skills they can put to use in their community, he says, their self-esteem has blossomed, and they show greater respect for their classmates and others—which some students have difficulty demonstrating in an academic setting. "There's been a bonding between us, and they feel included and important," he says. Even the boys who nearly dropped out at the beginning of the year have become valued members of the class community, and that, says Hautala, is sometimes the most important contribution a teacher can make.
"My experience is that if you don't somehow include them, you lose them," he says. "The truth is, these kids are very excited, each day, to go get the eggs. The first eggs that were laid was a big deal, we were screaming, it was like Easter morning. It gives us one more exciting thing to come to each day."
