How can school leaders help each other to grow professionally?

One of the most powerful and supportive ways school leaders can help each other to grow professionally is by networking and sharing successful, practical, classroom and educational models.

Northern Territory school leaders continually find positive and practical ways to link theoretical governmental curriculum, including networking and partnership policy, with hands-on, flexible and practical applications to regular school life. The challenge is to apply networking theory to actual classroom delivery, classroom practices and school management systems.

‘Many Australian schools are already engaged in partnerships with other organisations including community and nonprofit agencies, philanthropy, local government and business. These partnerships … bring needed resources into schools serving disadvantaged areas and direct support to improve outcomes for young people. …These local school networks became the focus for significant and sustained partnerships with other agencies that provided all young people in the area with powerful learning resources.’
(Rosalyn Black, Education Foundation Australia, 2008)

There are striking similarities in personal and professional challenges faced by school leaders and teachers in the Northern Territory, Australia and those of Alaska in the United States. A particularly successful and practical educational model can be observed in Anchorage, Alaska.

Background and challenges

Throughout Alaska, there are 11 distinct Alaska Native cultural groups with numerous social subgroups, using at least 20 different languages and dialects. The Native people represent 16 per cent of the state’s residents and live in more than 200 rural villages and communities. Anchorage is Alaska’s largest village. English is the official language of the state and school leaders find that a curriculum suitable for Non-English speaking background learners is often more appropriate for classroom studies than a national curriculum.

There are a range of challenges common to school leaders and teachers both in Alaska and in the Northern Territory. Among the key challenges are issues of:

• isolation – need to address isolation on a physical level and on an educational level, for example, away from mainstream services and technologies /support services like admin.
• crisis of identity – need to acknowledge young indigenous pre-teens and teens are going through a mainstream crisis of identity with additional customs and traditional overtones
• engagement – need to engage pre-teens and teens at both a physical and mental level in the education process
• inter-generational cultural and skills learning - need to secure inter-generational cultural and skills learning in conjunction with skills valued and link to vocational or employment skills and all tied to a curriculum
• learning styles – need to address learner styles that don’t follow traditional/ mainstream / academic / European / white / Anglo / visual and literacy based learning styles
• family and community obligations – need to acknowledge and include family and community obligations into educational curriculum (for example, celebrations, ceremonies, spiritual commitments, and so on).
• motivation – need to motivate admin staff, teaching staff, support staff, students, community groups, partnerships, and so on
• operation constraints – need to operate within stringent government / state funding constraints and search for community support / other funded projects
• networking or partnerships – need to work with other services and community groups to support/ promote community beliefs and values (for example, binge drinking, teen pregnancies, bullying, a ‘benefit driven’ income base)
• role models – need to collect and introduce role models to students, teachers, leaders, systems
• physical constraints – need to work with physical locations, weather and classrooms, irregular start and finish times (for example, seasonal requirements)
• practical links – need to find positive and practical ways to link government policy/ theory / curriculum to actual classroom delivery / practices / management.

There is rarely a ‘one size fits all’ solution to significant challenges such those listed above. In Anchorage, however, a skillful combination of factors is used to create a particularly successful working cultural and educational model.

A successful working model

The Alaskan Native Heritage Center (ANHC) High School Program skillfully combines a culturally relevant curriculum to stimulate intergenerational learning relating to eleven major cultural groups with a general state education program. There is an extended option available for students that includes vocational education, training and work experience in a range of small business situations starting in year nine.

The ANHC High School Program is carried out at the Alaskan Native Heritage Center. This is a place where Anchorage area Alaska Native and American Indian youth celebrate their culture in guided after-school classes. Student options start with short, after-school classes consisting of two hours a day for four days a week, and can extend to obtaining Anchorage School District elective credits for attending at least 120 hours per semester, with credit able to be accumulated over several years. Classes are taught by Alaska Native educators and are structured to respect both traditional and contemporary methods of learning. The program is free and includes a school shuttle pick-up and student door-to-door home drop-off.

The accredited high school program has an associated high school summer internship program and an apprenticeship program to promote vocational training and experience within the centre and with local businesses.

The Alaskan Native Heritage Centre opens six days a week and provides an extensive range of daily activities including cultural tour groups, school visits, regular lectures, master artist classes, regular and special exhibitions, professional Native dance programs, craft activities and an Alaska Native games program. There is a theatre that hosts a variety of movies all day, including films offering opportunities to learn about the many different cultures of Alaska Native people and its beautiful landscape and regions. Curriculum material and resources for teachers are available and a cultural outreach program is run to schools in the state. The Alaskan Native Heritage Centre manages and operates several small business on site. There is a restaurant, a gift shop and a series of master artists who run workshops and carry out businesses on site. The multi-purpose facility is available for hire by the community. Guests can stroll through six authentic, life-sized Native dwellings situated around a small lake area and are introduced to the traditional life ways of the Athabascan, Inupiaq/St. Lawrence Island Yupik, Yup’ik/Cup’ik, Aleut, Alutiq and the Eyak, Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian peoples.

The mission and vision of the Alaskan Native Heritage Centre is to represent Alaska Natives with their many languages, creeds and philosophies, their common goals and values and to meet the challenge to embrace modern changes in such a way that they can be full participants in this new era. Visitors to the centre experience Alaska Native culture first-hand through engaging storytelling, authentic Native song and dance, artist demonstrations, Native games demonstrations and more. It is a unique opportunity to interact and participate in an enlightening educational experience for all ages.

The ANHC High School Program runs cooperative programs and has working partnerships with universities, schools, museums, businesses, community groups and experts at local and national levels. The Education through Cultural and Historical Organisations (ECHO) initiative is federal legislation tied to the No Child Left Behind Act. It provides funding from the US Department of Education for innovative, culturally-based educational programs, cultural exchanges and internship/apprentice programs for Native and non-Native communities through cultural institutions in Alaska, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Mississippi. These four regions are linked by the shared experiences and traditions of Native and non-Native peoples through trade, commerce and cultural interaction. These long-distance partnerships are models of national collaboration and significant outcomes include educational programs, public performance events, exhibits, staff training and workshops, workforce development, internship and apprentice programs, curriculum development, web-based distance learning opportunities, multimedia documentation and collections access. Ongoing operating expenses are funded through grants, donations, individual gifts and by revenues from visitor admissions, the businesses on site and facility rental fees.

The ANHC High School Program use partnerships and networks to share, perpetuate and preserve their unique Alaska Native cultures, languages, traditions and values through celebration and education. They build on the traditional cycle of knowledge that has helped to perpetuate Native societies for hundreds of generations.

Benefits

There are a range of benefits attached to this program. The ANHC High School Program:

• provides a safe after-school environment
• aids with dropout prevention
• enables elective credit towards graduation
• increases cultural awareness and inter-cultural awareness
• provides a free snack, free transport pick-up and drop-off
• enables students to meet peers from other schools
• encourages interaction with positive role models
• increases employment opportunities
• supports diverse Alaskan Native cultures and passing on live languages, traditions and values
• connects communities and inter-generational experiences
• encourages family and community participation
• improves understanding through communication
• strengthens appreciation of cultural differences and similarities
• provides intercultural and vocational educational opportunities
• encourages use of new technology
• lets students have fun!

This particularly successful and practical educational model links federal and state initiatives and policies to powerful networking and partnership options in order to deliver hands-on, flexible and practical classroom delivery within a linked school management system.

Sharing own successful Australian and overseas teaching models, networking with others and observing a range of methods and systems are among the most powerful and supportive ways school leaders can help each other to grow professionally.

Resources

‘Partnership plus: the power of new school networks’, In ‘iNet online conference for educators 2008’, Ms Rosalyn Black, from Education Foundation Australia, Victoria, June 2008, general site: iNet - Welcome to iNet , specific discussion paper : http://www.cybertext.net.au/inet_s4wk4/p24_48.htm.
‘Strangers in their Own Country: Teachers in the Northern Territory of Australia’ Students of Teaching to Teachers of Students: Teacher Induction Around the Pacific Rim – January 1997, Jay Moskowitz and Wes Whitmore. See: http://www.ed.gov/pubs/APEC/ch3.html
‘Education in the Northern Territory’, Department of Employment, Education and Training in the Northern Territory, June 2008, http://www.deet.nt.gov.au/education/
‘ICT in Schools’ and ‘Attendance Codes’, NT Department of Employment, Education and Training, June 2008, http://www.ict.schools.nt.gov.au/
Alaska Native Heritage Center Museum, at the Ship Creek Center, Anchorage, Alaska, June 2008, home page ANHC - Alaska Native Heritage Center Museum - Anchorage , education and programs ANHC - Education and Programs or http://www.alaskanative.net/en/main_nav/education/
Anchorage museum, June 2008, http://www.anchoragemuseum.org/favicon.ico
State of Alaska official home page State of Alaska Home Page or http://www.state.ak.us/
Alaska Department of Education & Early Development, home page Alaska Department of Education & Early Development or http://www.eed.state.ak.us/
‘No Child Left Behind’, State of Alaska, Department of Education and Early Development, June 2008, EED - No Child Left Behind or http://www.eed.state.ak.us/nclb/KeyComponentsNCLB.html
‘Native Culture’, 2007 Official Anchorage Visitors Guide, p.9-11.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ms Gail Bousaleh is currently a school leader at Hunter Community College, in Broadmeadow, New South Wales, Australia. During her 24 years experience in education, she managed a range of programs and taught both Indigenous learners and learners from a non-English speaking background.