Response to Materials Development Grant

Material Development Grant Ideas

I think that it is great that you will be working on this grant to help develop materials for the Yupik/English program. I think it is a worthwhile project that will benefit and strengthen our Yupik language programs even more once lessons and activities are created. The stakeholders are the teachers, students, and parents. If the lessons are created by teachers that already work for the district, I don’t see any problems with sharing materials with eachother on the Yupik share folder that Sally already uses. I can’t really see myself being able to participate in this grant until I am finished with this Masters program. I am also confused about it in the sense that it may just involve the Yupik teachers and not the ESL/ English only teachers. It seams like there is enough websites and curriculum in English, but maybe not in the sense of culturally relevant kinds of activities that are tied to this unique area and culture.
I feel that one important part of the grant should be to focus on the history of the Yupik people and where we came from so that students feel like there is a strong sense of identity and pride built into the curriculum. It would be interesting to talk to Cecilia Martz who was my college professor in Alaska Native Studies to see how her knowledge could be somehow put into some Yupik Eskimo Social Studies guide or curriculum. I remember how powerful her class was to me as a college student because it was like I was learning about myself and where my roots were for the first time because it was never told to me before. I feel like the core values of being Yupik is taught through the central grain of the curriculum, but I wonder about our past history and all that we can learn from the taboos, qasqik, and the struggles that our people had to endure to survive. I don’t know how much of this is being passed on and feel like there is a lack of pride and identity in many of our youth today due to the influence of television, technology, and possibly gambling (bingo).