Conference Gathering Shares Ideas on Education

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Created on Tuesday, 17 September 2024 16:01

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By CATHY LI
Special to the Sentinel
A keynote discussion Thursday about compacting — the ongoing process to give Alaskan Native tribes control over their K-12 schools — and a keynote address Friday on how education shaped the Native Land Claims movement were features of the biennial Sharing Our Knowledge conference, held on the SJ Campus.
The keynote panel discussion, “What is compacting? Education and Indigenous Sovereignty in Alaska,” was moderated by Lisa Milne-DeWitt and Matthew Spellberg. The featured speakers were Mischa Jackson of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska; Sonya Skan of the Ketchikan Indian Council; and Paul Berg of the Douglas Indian Association.

Emil Notti delivers the keynote speech “From Dog Teams to the Space Race, and Winning the Fight for Land Claims—How Education Shaped a Movement” Friday at the Sharing Our Knowledge Conference. Notti spoke about the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. That included his tie-breaking vote, as president of the Alaska Federation of Natives, to include Tlingit and Haida Tribes, arguing that their earlier settlement of $7 million and no land, as compensation for 18 million acres of southeastern Alaska, was inadequate. He told of the overwhelming opposition from Alaska business leaders, sportsmen and miners, and how critical it was that Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall decided to freeze Alaska’s land selections until Native claims were settled, making it “everybody’s problem.” He told of meetings with Governor Walter Hickel, and of critical
allies, including former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg and national church and labor organizations which made the ground-breaking settlement possible. (Photo by Cathy Li)

In the second keynote, Emil Notti, the first president of the Alaska Federation of Natives, spoke about the history of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
Both talks revolved around building knowledge for future generations, the theme of this year’s conference. The gathering of Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian tribes has been held intermittently since 1993.
“That’s the only reason we all kept going in those doors,” said Mischa Jackson, a negotiator for compacting on behalf of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. “For Indigenous educators, that theme is inherent. [For] tribal citizens, that theme is inherent too. We are natural teachers, and we are always looking at different ways to ensure those teachings are passed on. Compacting is really just a codified way of representing what has existed since time immemorial: passing on wisdom and thinking of our grandchildren.”
Jackson, who once trained university and secondary school teachers, believes that participating in negotiations was proof of a step in the right direction.
“It was so humbling to have read and seen and heard everything people had been doing, and then be in a place where we could build a system from those experiences,” she said. “To be able to take all of that and innovate, it was an absolute honor to be at the table.”
Paul Berg, a teacher for almost 50 years, reaffirmed the necessity of education — especially a curriculum that does not remove Indigenous children from their culture.
“You can’t reprogram somebody with non-Native teachers in English in a Western perspective; they become lost. You’re removing a knowledge base in a culture that’s been in existence for 20,000 years,” Berg said. “That’s wrong. That’s morally evil.”
In Friday’s speech, “From Dog Teams to the Space Race, and Winning the Fight for Land Claims – How Education Shaped a Movement,” Notti also addressed the importance of cultural knowledge.
“People just have to have confidence in their own society and realize who they are. They have to know in order to be confident in dealing with the world that’s been imposed on them,” Notti said.
Despite the different focuses in each keynote discussion, every speaker highlighted work, past and present, that is leading to a reserve of knowledge to be passed on. 
“I didn’t know being exhausted could be so beautiful,” Jackson said. “It’s because we were so empowered by the possibility of what it could become, even if there are challenges.”
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Cathy Li, a 2024 graduate of Walnut  High School in California, is a student at Outer Coast College in Sitka.

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