‘Alaska Gateway Students and Elders Integrate Local Culture and the Arts’ by Erica Burnham
- Our Alaskan Schools Blog
- May 21, 2025
- 1 min read
As part of a grant from the through the , Alaska Gateway School District began a project this year to integrate local culture and arts.
As part of the project, Tanacross drummer Jerry Isaac taught students in our middle school performing arts class traditional drumming and dancing. Elder Harold Northway taught students how to make traditional Athabaskan drums, bows and arrows. Cheryl Silas taught the Northway dialect of Upper Tanana Athabaskan.
Tanacross elder Isabelle John, now 103 years old, spoke with journalism students about her early life and what she learned from her elders. Using the video, middle school students worked with Fairbanks puppeteer Maïté Agopian to turn this interview into shadow puppet performances. These were recorded and edited so Isabelle could narrate them, and they could be shared more widely. Part of her interview was also shared with students in 2nd-5th grade, who created shadow art drawings that could illustrate a digital book and video.
Moving forward, the hope is to bring this model to other district schools as a way to bring together community, schools, and the arts. Students in the elementary school used clips of Isabelle’s interview to create shadow art, which was used to create illustrations to narrate Isabelle’s interview. This is a project we hope to expand going forward.
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