My Grandfather, Herb Francis, grew up in the roaring 20’s and the Depression. And for me, he, his values, provided a counter point to other male role models, negative role models in my life. His presence in my life offered me the possibility of being someone other than what my conditions required of me. I owe any success as a parent, as a husband, as a professional to his presence in my life. That said, his shit stank too. And it is from this perspective that I begin exploring this unit on Elders.

I think a fruitful place for me to start this work is Wilson’s paper “Not Just Knowledge but a Way of Looking at the World,” in particular, the “survival pact” and the notion of community healing.

The pact covered such areas as sharing and distributing of food and making sure that traditional ceremonies were carried out in the correct order, with no omissions. As this survival pact was responsible for more than basic survival, but for the mental and spiritual well-being of the community, it may be more accurate to call the pact the tradition of the people (Peter, 1989). The concept of traditions implies a more inclusive base, both historical and comprehensive, for this unspoken understanding which the more narrow concept of rules may not. The traditions were not rigidly enforced or restrictive but allowed for community-sanctioned flexibility to meet the individual needs and differing circumstances faced in the community and in the environment (Berger, 1985). These traditions included psychological and sociological survival skills that were necessary for strong kinship ties, solid leadership, and physically and psychologically healthy people (LaDue, Marcelley & Van Brunt, 1981). Thus the traditions were seen as the foundation of a healthy community, rather than merely what was necessary for its survival (Katz & Craig, 1987). It was the job of the Elders in the community to interpret the rules and tradition and to ensure that these rules were passed to the next generation.

I suspect that the meaningful difference between the “survival pact” and more broadly culture is that the pact is essentially the difference that makes a difference. So, in business parlance, the mission and core values are what uniquely identify a group. But, hearkening back to my thinking in the last paper, so do the site-specific skills required in a particular ecosystem for survival and more thriving – after all “healthy community” suggests more than mere survival.

As long ago as the seventeenth century, Sagard, noted that the Native way of life was conducive to serenity and the avoidance of tensions which plagued whites. “What also helps them much to keep in health,” he wrote, “is the harmony which prevails amongst them and the older people in their tribes” (Sagard, 1939). Studies have already shown that some indigenous peoples believe that they possess methods of intervention within their own communities (Mohatt & Blue, 1982). They believe that although Native people face more social and psychological problems, they have the traditional methods to both prevent and treat these problems if given the proper environment to nourish their skills. Red Horse (1982) looks at the prevention of mental health problems in Native communities through the use of a community model. He believes that the interaction between the individual and the community is vital to an understanding of American Indian mental health. As a part of understanding the community model, it is important to understand the role that the extended family plays in the community.

In my last paper, I touched on the issue, the role of leadership. I suggested that many of us have roles as leaders. Leadership has in part the task of diagnosing problems in group dynamics, and that leadership looks different based on style, temperament, and situational needs. Much of that seems apparent as well in Wilson’s exploration of community healing. I think to understand this we have to set aside our Western theories of sense of self and explore more deeply a traditional Native sense of self. “Self” is always an aspect of relations, social and ecological, implicit to both are spiritual relations as well. For example, a person’s name traditionally was in part relational, so, “Ryan, my nephew-in-law”… or I suppose someone in no way related to me would be “John the stranger.” The point remains that my own sense of self is in no small way known through my name a part of which changes each time I am addressed depending upon who addresses me. Certainly, this doesn’t explain all of the power of “community healing” but it suggests a way to start understanding the potential.

The spiral logic of Elders’ communication is at times inscrutable to Western observers. I offer for example Nutemllput – Our Very Own. Approached from either my philosophy background or my business background I can make little sense of Paul John’s arguments since the patterns of form and evidence are alien to Western logic and argumentation. Rather my ability to make sense of Paul John, or the elders in Passing On arises first from my experiences with Herb — his narrative also struggling with the bounds of logic and evidence and second John Schumacher another mentor pointing me to David Bohm:

There is the germ of a new notion of order here. This order is not to be understood solely in terms of a regular arrangement of objects (e.g., in rows) or as a regular arrangement of events (e.g. in a series). Rather, a total order is contained, in some implicit sense, in each region of space and time. Now, the word ‘implicit’ is based on the verb ‘to implicate’. This means ‘to fold inward’ … so we may be led to explore the notion that in some sense each region contains a total structure ‘enfolded’ within it”. (Holograms and implicate order, Wikipedia, Bohm, David (1980), Wholeness and the Implicate Order, London: Routledge, ISBN 0-7100-0971-2, pg 149)

The logic of synecdoche. Roby Littlefield in the essay “Elders in the Classroom” also through the use of “metaphor” shows my meaning:

Most traditional stories are like a round, crocheted pot holder. The storyteller goes round and round the subject until it all comes together and finally comes to the lesson or point. Be patient, allow the Elders to share their culture in their own way. Your students are learning how to listen. Students should refrain from interrupting to ask questions. There will be a proper time to ask questions.

It is in this way that I can make sense of what Elders like Paul John are saying and our task as learners is to unfold, to make explicit in our own thinking the meaningfulness of Elders’ teaching or our own experiences – the part manifests the whole. Hence the whole community bears responsibility for and a curative role in an individual’s substance abuse/depression/violence/suicide. Throughout our readings, a shared value of Alaska Natives has been “conflict avoidance”. In the quote above Wilson shows Sagard saying “harmony which prevails amongst them”. “Harmony” is defined as “the use of simultaneous pitches (tones, notes), or chords.” But for this to be meaningful is the fact that the tones are different and that the musical effect arrives from them being situated together – implicitly the potential for conflict, or rather discord. Too we know that “conflict avoidance” at its most extreme can be complicity, codependency, and toxicity. So let’s imagine that the Yupik value of avoiding conflict is a synecdoche that we have to unfold to understand. Conflict itself is normal in human interactions perhaps more or less pronounced but always a potential. For many of us conflict is a problem once trust and respect have been violated. So perhaps what the heart of “avoiding conflict” is about is managing you and your response to conflict so that trust and respect are preserved. Indeed the language of these other value sets often explicitly call for “respect” and “trust” but also gentleness, humor, and dignity. In the document “Additional Native Values” we find the Eskimo Cultural Values, the legacy of Paul Tiutana, saying: “Our ancestor did not know criminals/People who do wrong are corrected on the spot.” Remembering back to our first readings, Okakok, shares a story of being scolded by an Aunt for not nurturing their relationship: “When I took my father there for a visit I was soundly scolded for visiting only when I had a purpose — in this instance, taking my father to see her. Although I was living in the same town, I had not nurtured my relationship with my aunt with intermittent, spontaneous visits.” Being scolded is a potentially conflicted situation, yet I suspect, that by confronting and correcting the little stuff in a way that preserves trust and respect crime or the potential for crime is prevented – or said differently “Avoiding Conflict.”

The second part of this assignment calls for us to make something real based on knowledge of values and the importance of Elders to cultural health and survival. I will draw again upon my work with the Chilkoot Indian Association (CIA), alas, not on something that we did but something we discussed. I think that one of the most striking elements of my visit can be summarized in the question: “what does the CIA do, or make?” There was a discrepancy between many tribal members expectations, the employees of the Association, and what is feasible at that place and time (this continuum extends to Washington, DC, Juneau, and Haines, town politics, it includes socio-economics, even personalities and skill sets of particular individuals). I as the consultant from out of town viewed the CIA and its various departments and saw an organization much like any other government. There were departments monitoring or creating youth programs, there were units aimed at roads and transportation, environmental issues, and construction. Another striking feature of the conversation was a recurrent theme from the CIA employees about the absence of leadership skills and absence of a mechanism for creating the next generation of leaders. And as I pointed out previously we were also acutely aware of the advanced acculturation.

So far in our discussion of curriculum/community/culture, there is a glaring absence and that is mid-life learners. Barnhardt touches on the learning that teachers experience as they do this work in his essay, Teaching/Learning across Cultures. But, in the video Passing On, we meet Cecilia Martz a Cupik educator and for me, these questions about mid-life learners crystallized again and took me back to the work with the CIA. Obviously, we have roles and titles for children and students, and we have roles and titles for Elders, but what about all the rest of us somewhere in the middle. Russell Means offers us one possible mid-life role that of the warrior. Cecilia Martz offers us the educator self-conscious of her circumstance between her students and her Elders. My point in this is that there are roles and titles for all community members throughout their lifetime – some of these exist already and some we need to re-discover. In that work with the CIA, it was this mid-life area that we felt we could see a gap and a place to do and make.

Tribal council members are elected from those eligible and interested tribal members. Election, however, is not the same as ready to go to work. Appropriate communication skills were one example of an area needing development – both a command of Roberts rules of orders, but, on the softer side those same skills that let us navigate conflict while maintaining trust and respect. Certainly, there were other skill sets that needed development as these leaders took on their roles, but, for the sake of this discussion, we will focus on communication here.

The council is comprised of four, perhaps five, task driven roles, President, Vice-president, Treasurer, Secretary and representative to SEARCH (Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium) and three general members. Our brainstorming focused on creating a career path so that the general members were elected and then served on committees that exposed them to the work of all roles, we explored the potential of the intern like relationships between these general members and the named roles. We explored the potential for retreats, for skill building and team building workshops and as I mentioned in the last paper for SPOC (small private online course) through the tribal online learning management system. We discussed creating training that supported the work of the specialized Treasurer and Secretary roles as well. Another pathway to leadership creation was to connect the work of the youth interns hired by the Association with the work and the members of the Tribal council. This hopefully mirroring the tradition of Elders and creating a feed-forward/ feedback loop crossing generations. As I mentioned previously the connection between young people and Elders seemed limited and to flow in one direction. Our hope was to build in the next generation a relationship where trust and respect flowed in both directions. It was out of this that other elements of our brainstorming grew, for example, making more of the Dragonfly program partnered between the tribe and Haines Public Library.

As with any organization, pride and politics were stumbles that prevented crucial conversations. Part of my presence, my role as the consultant, was to say when I saw that the “Emperor had no clothes.” I have phrased this elsewhere as the task of leaders in diagnosing what ails the community. This allowed the tribal Administrator and staff to be the heroes and for any irritation to be pointed at the “white-guy-from-away.” Here, thinking back to my concerns about conflict avoidance that is actually toxic and culturally maladaptive, this was a serious concern in the highly politicized community of Haines. The Tribal administrator and the Association were seriously hampered by a Tribal council with insufficient skills for the work they needed to do and yet the Tribal administrator had no way to raise this matter. And in the end that is where the matter ended because evaluating the performance of the Tribal council was outside the purview of the Tribal association because no feedback/feed-forward loop existed and creating one required trust and respect that did not exist.

Returning to Cecilia Martz’s interview in Passing On we encounter this struggle to articulate the need for and ways to approach Elders for access to knowledge, at 4:20 -4:57 is one example. For me, the more tricky issue is the story from 7:38 – 8:50 where Cecilia had partial knowledge of a song lyric. For some reason simply asking for the rest of the lyric was inappropriate. Rather she describes approaching a group of Elders sitting and chatting. In a conversational lull she sang the lyric she remembered and stopped, then one of the Elders picked up and finished the song. Cecilia sang the whole through to show that she had it and to ask if she had it – which she did. She then gracefully timed her exit to go off and document the lyric and iron it into memory. For me, this is both a beautiful moment and an incredibly tenuous one because at this moment the survival pact can work or it can break. What if no Elder finished the song? What if Cecilia did not show perfect memory? What if Cecilia had not understood what she heard and memorized? How is she to interrogate the knowledge to make it truly hers? This was an incredibly subjective moment, incredibly fragile and I think a large part of the dysfunction that was present in Haines. When it work it works beautifully and when it fail it is catastrophic because we are talking about cultural extinction not just a point of personal ignorance. In truth I can only marvel at this I do not pretend to have solutions.

However, I can offer that in my current job one of the skills I bring to the task is building relationships with other campus departments, my counterparts in the Physical plant, in ITS, Special Programs, Communications and the list goes on. This is some of what I hear Teri Schneider saying when she talks about how to approach an Elder and taking the time to get to know them and they you before the matter of asking anything of them comes up. She talks about introducing herself in terms of her family – even though her family is from Des Moines, for example, and the Elder has no idea who they are. But what matters is the knowledge of family tree and the implicit knowledge of self-realized in a relationship, the logic of synecdoche as it were. Another point Teri makes is that of patience her examples tread in that area that I describe above trusting conflict avoidance and people to work things out in their own time. In my workplace creating personal capital through taking interest in a co-workers beekeeping, or hunting, or building banjos from scratch, allows us to navigate those higher stakes conversations, to speak directly yet respectfully. Patience, although not talked about a lot in management/leadership literature particularly in this era of decisions at the speed of light, is a particularly important attribute/skill even in Western culture. In truth, I suspect that is why my work with the CIA, described above, did not grow legs. The local-white-guys were impatient and wanted to show progress immediately. Returning to Barnhardt Teaching/Learning across Cultures, “If you encounter situations of apparent social breakdown and dysfunctionality, be especially careful to exercise discretion and obtain the views of others before you take any precipitous action.” Part of what I hear here is what Teri says in Passing On, and Barnhardt as well:

Two of the most useful steps a new teacher can take to begin to see beyond the surface features of a new cultural community are getting to know some of the elders or other culture-bearers and becoming familiar with aspects of the local language. By visiting elders in the community, you will be giving evidence of your respect for the bearers of the local culture, while at the same time you will be learning about the values, beliefs, and rules of cultural behavior that will provide a baseline for your teaching. Showing enough interest in the local language or dialect to pick up even a few phrases and understand some of its structural features will go a long way toward building your credibility in the community and in helping you recognize the basis for local variations on English language use in the classroom.

For me the lesson is to trust my instincts and once we relocate to Alaska, to begin to build those relationships throughout the community in order to have the social capital to speak directly and honestly, humbly and respectfully. These conversations will, in turn, let me know that my diagnosis is in line with local leaders’ assessments. Also to be patient yet persistent in moving projects ahead even incrementally each day. Finally remembering the importance that Herb had for me, but more, remembering his frailties and failings, that “his shit stank too” to anticipate my own potential for mistakes and my plan for making them right.