Alaska Native Cultural Considerations for Non-Native School Counselors

Whenever there is intersectionality between cultures, opportunities for growth arise for all around the table. In particular, Alaska Native school counselors have invaluable insights and suggestions for non-Native school counselors serving Alaska Native students. To share some cultural insights on how non-Native school counselors might better understand their Alaska Native students, Debbie Makiana (Inupiaq) and Joshua Mathlaw (Cupiq) offer some perspectives. The aim of this article is to introduce three attributes: relationship building, learning by observing and experiential learning. Each will be explored more thoroughly in later articles that will include how to understand the concept, and tools on how to approach students and staff.

First, relationships and how they are approached have cultural nuances that are important to understand for non-Native school counselors. Exploring some assumptions on how relationships are understood, cultivated and empowered lead to greater levels of trust and goal achievement. In general, how humans go about building relationships rests on implicit understandings that are assumed and not necessarily specified. Attending community events and activities with an open mind provides non-Native school counselors an opportunity to learn how Alaska Native people make connections and build community. In return, rural Alaska Native community members can see a non-Native school counselor showing genuine interest in their cultural ways. With more frequent contact and shared experiences, relationships have a greater chance to build based on trust and understanding.

Second, observational learning is a means that many Alaska Native people use to transmit how to do an activity. To learn how to build a basket, make a waterproof jacket, or harvest a moose, Alaska Native youth watch the process of the craft with great intensity. There can be great pressure to concentrate and watch because the young person will then be expected to do the same. Non-Native school counselors can leverage understanding of how observational learning generates knowledge to assist in promoting competencies with young Alaska Native students.

Third, experiential learning is an iterative process that translates the observed into action. Alaska Native young people move from observation into action – the doing. They draw on their memory of what they saw and replicate it through their own hands. Each time a young person does a task, they learn from the experience. Such learning is progressive by way of learning from each application and developing implicit knowledge that translates into mastery. With such mastery, Alaska Native people can demonstrate to the next generation what is to be learned and skills developed. This cycle of transmission of knowledge and skills are thus passed on.

The next article will discuss the nature of relationships and how non-Native school counselors can foster and build empowering relationships with their students, families and community at large. Future articles will further explore observational and experiential learning, sharing how the construct can be defined and how non-Natives can have a more coherent understanding of how each concept is understood within many Alaska Native communities. The articles will also offer some tools to promote learning through relationships, observations and experiential activities.

If you have any experiences you would like to share with the authors, please contact us. We would be happy to incorporate experiences, lessons learned or other information that you feel could assist non-Native school counselors to better serve Alaska Native students.

Debbie Mekiana, damekiana@alaska.edu, is with the Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Joshua Mathlaw, joshua.mathlaw@bssd.org, is a school counselor with the Bering Strait School District. James R. Morton, Jr., Ph.D., NCC, jrmortonjr2@alaska.edu, is an assistant professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.