Ruth Hogle

Athabaskan Fiddle History: 19th-early 20th century

I will be creating a lesson plan on Athabaskan fiddling for sixth grade music students (specifically, string players). This lesson will be 45 minutes long. This lesson will be paired with Meghan Johnson’s lesson plan about modern Athabaskan fiddling and the group that has developed to provide quality fiddle music education to students in Fairbanks.

The essential question will be, “How do other cultures influence the music we make?”, as we look at how the music of the trappers and settlers of Fort Yukon in the 1840’s influenced Athabaskan music, which led to fiddle music becoming a significant part of Athabaskan culture.

Students will be working with several different artifacts documenting the development of fiddle music in Athabaskan culture, including photographs from the Alaska State Museum Archive (like the one above), texts that give an overview of the history, and actual Athabaskan fiddle songs that have been passed down and continue to be played in the Interior (a page of one is shown below). There are also many YouTube videos Meghan and I will be working with, documenting the more current history of the fiddle music.

This is where I am a little stuck. I am trying to reconcile the idea that this is not a complete, laid-out lesson plan with activities, and yet I still need to have something for students to “do”. I want students to take a look at the evidence and come up with their own thoughts about how these different people groups affected the development of fiddle music in Athabaskan culture. Beyond that, I would love to have a discussion where they think about their own cultures and musicianship, making the connection that the music they play in orchestra was also created from many different influences. I would leave them to reflect on the question, “How does your cultural identity influence the music you make?”.

The Not-so-Mythical Reindeer

During my visit to the Alaska State Museum, I was drawn to an Arctic wooden doll from near Unalakleet that was gifted by Marjory B. Major. Its year of origin is unknown, but I was interested in it because of my connection to Unalakleet (I spent a week living and teaching music there this year through the rural practicum experience), and because it was part of an exhibit that talked about the introduction of reindeer to Alaska by Captain Michael Healy and Sheldon Jackson in the mid-1800’s. I learned that Healy and Jackson hired Sami reindeer herders from Norway to come to Alaska in the 1890’s and teach Native people the trade so that they had a new food source, since the land was depleted of other animal food sources. This doll was believed to have been owned by a child of one of the Sami herders.

In 1937, an act was passed so that only Alaskan natives can herd reindeer. I thought it was fascinating to learn how this way of subsistence was introduced to Alaska and continues to be a major food staple to this today. In addition to the Unalakleet connection, I also gravitated toward the reindeer exhibit because before moving to Alaska last year, I actually did not know reindeer were real! I always thought that they were a myth, so I was very excited to see how wrong I was as I conducted my preliminary rounds of research, pre-Alaska-move.

I would like to know more about the child and the family who owned this doll, and I wonder where the doll was found to begin with. How do they know that it’s possibly from near Unalakleet? Beyond the doll, what was the interaction between these Norwegian herders and the native Alaskans like? Did all Alaskans likes this collaboration of cultures?
This exhibit is courtesy of the Alaska State Museum-Juneau, and the reference number of the doll is III-O-117. Thank you very much to the museum for giving me permission to take pictures of this work! Explore their site to see more: http://museums.alaska.gov/asm/asmhome.html

Nourishing Souls

I really treasured soaking in the wisdom of the three Tlingit elders- Selina Everson, Linda Belarde, and David Katzeek- today. Because I grew up on the East Coast/in the Midwest, I still have much to learn about Tlingit culture. Experiences such as today teach me so much about the wonderful Alaska Native beliefs.

In addition to learning more about this culture (such as more of its language and views of gender and elders), I took away many nuggets from the elders’ talks. I want to focus on one golden nugget that really stuck with me and even affected the way I approached teaching my group cello lesson directly after class. I also hope it will continue to inform my teaching for the rest of my career. This nugget is one that David spoke of toward the end of the talk: the idea that we are all desperate for love.

David alluded to this topic during his talk on Monday when he spoke of needing to love ourselves in order to love others. However, he offered it with a beautiful metaphor today: “If love is food, we are starving.”

If love is food, we are starving. That is powerful. This statement applies to every human being. We all desire and crave love, and it is no different for our students. Our students seek affirmation, care, and investment- from their parents, their peers, and from their teachers. When we recognize this need for love, we treat our students differently. All of a sudden, the student who seemed to be acting out just to ruin our day is looked at with a sense of compassion, and the possibility that the student is lacking love from a key figure in their life may be entertained as a factor of their misbehavior. And when a student struggles to understand a concept, we are led to guide them through with patience and empowerment.

I think that this truth should affect every interaction we have with humans. It reminds us that we are all imperfect humans with hopes, dreams, baggage, and fears. A little more indulgent love never hurts.

My Many Places

I was really excited about this technological storytelling project for multiple reasons. First of all, I love using technology in the classroom to enhance learning and am open to learning about new methods or platforms that can help do so. Also, I liked the idea of creating a visual representation of my experiences living in so many different places. Before we were even set loose to brainstorm and explore the possibilities of our projects, I had an image in my mind of exactly what I wanted.

It wasn’t too much of a learning curve working with MyMaps- I use GoogleMaps often, so I just needed to learn how to add markers to my searched locations and then add pictures to the markers. I was excited to use personal photos of me and my family, and I learned how to collect the photo’s link in order to upload that to my marked spots.

The videos provided by our professor answered many of the questions I had. I appreciated having the visual process to guide me through the steps, and I rewinded and fast-forwarded when needed, allowing me to move at my own pace.

I watched the videos to learn how to embed my Google Maps journey in this post and am proud to share it with the public. Please enjoy the tour of my many homes!