Passages Alaska curriculum launches on Indigenous Peoples' Day
We are thrilled to announce the national launch of Passages Alaska, our arts-infused high school Social Studies curriculum, through a new partnership with the University of Alaska Anchorage.
Passages Alaska is derived from PCC’s interdisciplinary production ALAXSXA | ALASKA, a multimedia theater piece created in 2017 by Ping Chong, Ryan Conarro, Gary Upay’aq Beaver, and Justin Perkins. The show illuminates lesser-known moments of cross-cultural encounter in the epic changing landscapes of Alaska through three lenses: an Alaska Native perspective, an outsider/settler perspective, and a “historical” perspective that tends to show up in Westernized accounts of the state’s narrative.
Alaskan educators who saw the production on tour in rural and urban Alaska in 2018 recognized the potential of its critical and Indigenized perspectives to deepen students' understanding of Alaska histories and cultures, and provide a counter narrative to the largely Western lens typically represented in the state’s social studies curricula. In response to teachers’ call for educational materials, and with support raised by the Lower Kuskokwim School District (LKSD) in southwest Alaska, from the AK state Council on the Arts, and the New England Foundation for the Arts, PCC began crafting the nine-week course for 9th graders. The curriculum development team was composed of ALAXSXA | ALASKA cast member Conarro, as well as Bunnell Street Arts Center Artistic Director and University of Alaska Anchorage–Kenai Peninsula College art instructor Asia Freeman, longtime educator Nita Yurrliq Rearden who won the 2023 Alaska Federation of Natives’ Culture Bearer Award, and Alaska Social Studies curriculum expert Jen Romer, who is indigenous from three different communities.
The curriculum, which fulfills Alaska History content standards, Alaska Arts Standards, and Alaska Cultural Standards, uses a holistic, arts-integrated approach to invite learners to respond to cultural and historical content by artistically expressing their own personal, familial, and community stories. In so doing, the course helps to acknowledge and uplift the lived experiences of students’ communities (many of which are composed of largely Alaska Native students) as an integral part of Alaska’s unfolding history.
After piloting the Passages Alaska course in LKSD schools, PCC has partnered with the University of Alaska in Anchorage to house the curriculum locally, and to provide access to teachers across the state, and indeed, the nation! PCC and the university intend to partner further on professional development for educators interested in teaching the curriculum, as well as on revisions designed to broaden the curricula’s representation of the 20 different Alaska Native cultures and histories, and an elementary-level version for 3rd grade teachers. Through the UAA/APU Consortium Library, teachers and administrators who wish to implement the curriculum in their schools can download Passages Alaska.
