Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska walker tax,tax,tax, tax

One of the things that I feel we've failed at - that I failed to be a better, more effective proponent of- as educators in rural schools, was trying to help students become more productive in an independent way. Back in the early 80s when I started, there was more latitude for that - if fewer resources. (As a result, I become pretty resourceful, sometimes frustrating my superiors with my failures to spend enough money, once it became available.) But the emphasis in education for the past decade or two has been to make students become contributing members of a global market. Does anyone really think that rural Alaskan, subsistence oriented people really look at their lives in that way. Sure, there are some who do, but the majority stay where they grew up, and those who do try to "better themselves", "reach their potential", or whatever you want to call it, do so most often with the idea of giving back - helping- "their people" in some way. What we have now - and some of that is the vast array of choices that western culture offers: television, videos, cell phones, video games, internet, crap "food" of every sort, etc - are villages where larger and larger percentages of young people who are losing their connection to the land, who, if they hunt, have become fair-weather hunters, or one season hunters. They'll gladly do the fun hunting or gathering. Granted, that's not everyone, but it's becoming more and more common. Those who are still at home (in the village) could revert if they were forced by economic need if they had to. Then there are those who have moved to 'town' (Anchorage/Nome/etc) who either don't work or do the most menial of jobs to get by. It's not like they add much if anything. (Though perhaps the Fed Gov aid they receive in order to live in and apartment is someone else's windfall?)

There are a lot of things we did which I never regretted. I'm not a certified welder, but I can weld well enough to teach some of the basics, to make kids functional in a practical way. I never regretted teaching any of those skills. I graduated college with some skill in fine cabinetry. I tried my hand at passing those skills along but quickly realized that wood had a more beneficial purpose when applied to things like sleds in rural Alaska. I never regretted teaching those skills either. Nor did it ever trouble me that I got kids' hands dirty working on engines....not B&S lawnmower engines either. Nobody ever came to me years later and asked or thanked me for anything related to algebra, language arts, or science (though they still remember mapping the lake bottom of the lake which the engineers decided to switch our water supply to based on the data the kids had gathered). But I watched quite a few kids become young adults who could take care of themselves, who didn't have to pour their family's dividends into new machines each year because they knew a few things that were useful for being independent.