Card of Thanks
Dear Editor: I recently took a bad fall in the Sea Mart parking lot, and I want to thank the two men who came to my rescue and stayed with me until the ambulance arrived. Plus they fetched my 10-year-old granddaughter to tell her what had happened. The ambulance crew were so professional, kind and caring.
I also want to thank Sea Mart employee Sara and any others who stayed with my granddaughter until family arrived. The medical staff and radiologists were very kind and attentive. What a blessed community we live in. Sincerely,
Cathy Bagley, Sitka
Native Navigation
Dear Editor: In April, the Blatchley Middle School seventh grade teaching team integrated the Native Navigation Unit into five subject areas and I don’t think I have heard of that happening anywhere. This means each seventh grade team teacher took a part in teaching it.
To start off, Alexander Allison’s classes got to hear the old Kiks.adi Kaax’achgóok story about how long ago hunters blown out to sea for over a year made it home. The Kiks.adi oral history told by A.P. Johnson was recorded in the book ‘‘Haa Shuka,’’ edited by Richard and Nora Dauenhauer. On the video, the story was read by Kitty Eddie and George Holly who brought it to life with historical pictures in a video as a part of a teaching team led by Nancy Douglas. In the past, Daunhauers, along with Andy Hope, had a dream of public school teachers bringing Tlingit literature into the classroom, and Alexander Allison is making that dream come true.
Next, for three days Meghan Devine’s science class looked at the many science components of the story like Pribilof fur seal migrations, Gulf of Alaska currents, wind direction, use of celestial navigation, etc. We also looked at the parts of a NOAA nautical chart and learned to interpret abbreviations on navigation markers.
Next, Ashley Nessler’s social studies classes spent two full days learning how to find latitude and longitude from NOAA chart locations and one day on compass reading.
The next two days were spent in Ms. McCarty’s PE classes getting azimuths off Sitka Harbor bearings and attempting triangulation.
Lastly Ms. Mullin’s class worked on creating a sailing plan, measuring distance, finding headings and thinking about distance, rate and time.
The whole seventh grade class got to go on one of two Native Navigation Allen Marine boat field trips on May 17 and practice their navigating skills. The idea was for students to “navigate through the story,” recording Native place names from the story as they passed them and going to the place where the lost hunters returned.
On the field trip, cultural teachers Jamie Bradley, Erin Rofkar and Roby Littlefield came aboard to point out Native place names as we passed them and to share Kaax’achgóok’s (over 300 years old) song that he wrote while he and his nephews were lost.
To make this happen, it took a lot of people behind the scenes to pull it off. First, Juel LeBlanc at Sitka Native Education Program helped by providing funding for SNEP cultural staff and helping with resupplying navigation tools and lots of encouragement. Next the BMS administrators and staff worked really hard at supporting the seventh-grade team and all the students in so many ways.
Diana Fulton is one of the best administrators I have ever worked with. She attacks every problem with a smile and logical solutions! Ben White is the rock that supports grade level team curriculum integration. Add them with the “rock star” office staff and good things happen for students and teachers! There were so many hurdles to jump over but the BMS teaching staff and administration were all about teamwork. But when it really comes down to making things happen for kids, it is the wonderful BMS parents who stand up and give their support by sending in donations to cover the reduced school discount that is requested and showing up to be team leaders on the boat! Gunalcheesh to the parents who came aboard to lead a team! Teachers can dream up engaging activities that motivate students to keep learning until the end of school, but there are key components that always make the dream come true. In this event there were two key components. The first one is the Kiks.adi story that brought meaning and purpose to all the hard work that comes with learning navigation in seventh grade in the land of the Tlingit. Gunalcheesh to the Kiks.adi clan for holding on to this remarkable story and sharing it so it can inspire us to never give up, be brave, dig our paddles way down, when things get tough!
The second key component is giving the students the opportunity to practice navigating on a boat. A boat trip motivates students learning in the classroom like nothing else. Since I wrote the first grant to do this in the 1990s, Allen Marine has charged us the same incredible educational discount price all these years (since 1997)! When it comes to supporting Sitka students, learning traditional Native place names, and how to navigate Sitka waters, Allen Marine shows up for our kids – even fitting us in during their busy tour schedule! They provide the best captains and crew for us AND after our Sitka kids grow up, they provide them wonderful training and job opportunities!
Gunalcheesh to Allen Marine for all the educational support for so many BMS students for so many years. It is especially fun to get to work with former students working for Allen Marine who actually got to go on a Native Navigation field trip when they were at BMS! In fact this year’s Allen Marine boat captain was one of those students. How fun is that?
I also wanted to thank the United States Coast Guard Aids to Navigation Team that always sends us some folks to go on the boat trips to support the student’s navigation efforts. This year we decided to make them team leaders on the boat and it was fun to see them take on a more active role with the students. This year’s crew were especially engaged and supportive so thank you to BM1 Isaiah Gerke (Executive Petty Officer), BM3 Jonah Samuels and EM3 Garrett Wandel. These guys actually took some of their free time off to show up for our young BMS navigators and Isaiah told me that they “were impressed with how much knowledge of navigation the students had!”
One of my best memories of this year’s boat trip was watching Kate Mullin walking the students step by step in how to calculate the speed of the boat after they had found the distance and time as it raced home (without a calculator)! She is a masterful teacher who challenges students not by giving them the answers but by asking them questions. It was so fun to watch her cast a spell on the students and watch the students apply the skills she has taught them to nail the boat speed exactly! She is the reason the seventh grade math scores this year are the best in the region. It was so fun to see her work her magic.
I feel so grateful to live in a community with such hard-working supportive educators, parents, and community members who step up for our children. A team of wonderful folks managed to revive the Native Navigation study out of the pandemic craziness for our children, because they want them to be safe on the water this summer and have an opportunity to apply what they have learned this year. This is one of the things that make us “rural.” We teach our children to navigate in public school and take them all out on a boat to practice their new skills! Who does that? Gunalcheesh to everyone!
Patty Dick, Sitka
