Module 1 – Post 3 Creating a Place for Indigenous Knowledge in Education: The Alaska Native Knowledge Network

http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/curriculum/articles/raybarnhardt/pbe_ankn_chapter.html

This article is chapter from the book Place-Based Education in the Global Age: Local Diversity by Greg Smith and David Gruenewald. It  describes a ten-year educational restoration effort aimed at bringing the Indigenous knowledge systems and ways of knowing to the forefront in the educational systems serving all Alaska students and communities today. It looks at the challenges native people struggle with living in two worlds and an effort of Alaska Federation of Natives, in collaboration with the University of Alaska Fairbanks and with funding from the National Science Foundation called the Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative (AKRSI). AKRSI’s task has been to implement a set of initiatives to systematically document the Indigenous knowledge systems of Alaska Native people and develop school curricula and pedagogical practices that appropriately incorporate local knowledge and ways of knowing into the formal education system. This can serve as model for other native people that are struggling with the same problem.

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