Education, Alaska and Change –
Drive Time Reflections
By Lisa Skiles Parady, JD, Ed.D.
Leaving my home near Skater’s Cabin in Juneau for work
Chukchi Sea, as it did in the original one-room schoolhouses
last week, I was thinking about wild Alaska. Glaciers and
that we romantically remember in the mists (or myths) of a
bears, bald eagles and rainforest, spectacular mountains roll-
Jeffersonian past.
ing endlessly to the horizon all surrounded me – just another
While change is always hard, it is also ever present. The
day in the Last Frontier. I was enjoying a quiet moment of
challenges of every generation are to learn from the past and
reflection before the pace of phone calls, emails, texts, and
embrace what is just over the horizon, even as it comes inexo-
tweets overtook my soon to be legislatively dominated day.
rably like a glacier spilling to the sea.
It hit me that our education system across this truly wild
We can’t do what we’ve always done, but we have to map
state is on the cusp of change almost as intense as what came
the steps in between as we transition to new ways to ‘do’
with contact and settlement, yet
education. Trending nationally, es-
we struggle to find the time to
pecially from techies, is ‘disrupting
While change is always hard, it is also
think, plan, and lead the change.
education.’ But we are guardians of
I use the term “settlement” here
the young, and our duty is not just
ever present. The challenges of every
loosely as I am confident Alaska
to disrupt, but to provide stability
generation are to learn from the past
Natives believe contact was way
and leadership in our education
and embrace what is just over the
more significant.
systems in order to lead change.
horizon, even as it comes inexorably
Our challenges include flat
Education is fascinatingly
like a glacier spilling to the sea.
funding, vast distances with
complex. Policymakers want to
logistics beyond outsiders’ ability
lead us into the future but they
to comprehend, and the complex
shackle us with the models of the
cultural terrain of our first Alaskans and more recent immi-
past, their constant calls for accountability elevating compli-
grants, to name but a few.
ance to a new level and making record keeping and reporting
While absorbed by these challenges, I was contemplating
more and more a part of teachers’ lives.
the basics – a strong teacher in a classroom, cheeks in the
It is not that teachers don’t want accountability; it is that
seats, the traditional (in the context of contemporary Ameri-
they also need the freedom to deal with what is right in front
ca) education model of the agrarian calendar, yet in a modern of them – their students and their vibrant curiosity, their
technological world. And I thought beyond today to the kinds thirst for the new and the modern. Our educators are con-
of education it is going to take to thrive tomorrow.
fronted with a variety of challenges that affects their students.
Technology is profoundly changing education, yet
Some are ready to learn while others struggle with home-
education (the transmission of knowledge and values to the
lessness, hunger, poverty, trauma, and other factors beyond
young) still has the same purpose as it did in Socrates time, as the control of schools that make learning more difficult. In
it did in a Qargi full of young Iñupiat on the bluffs above the
response to this, teachers’ jobs have changed from purely
40 APR-JUN 2018