Education In Alaska

There exists a town named Whittier, whose almost all of about 200 inhabitants live in a fourteen-story building called “Begich Towers”. It reads like fiction, although it is not—this tale-like town is merely a dot, albeit a wonderfully curious one, in the vast Alaskan landscape. Alaska, the state which calls the northern lights its own; the state whose enormity sleeps beneath the drifting snow, the state of the colorful songs of the earth—has been molded over and over again by its own soil and its living people. Highly important aspects of life, such as education, economy, and cultural heritage have been influenced directly by Alaska’s immense expanse of land and ethnic diversity.

Education in particular has been affected by the vast size of the state. With its more than
state. There are rural communities which can be reached only by plane or boat (M. Davis, “Retaining teachers in the Alaskan bush”). This leads to certain difficulties, especially that of finding willing teachers to work with children in these areas. Michael Tozzo, a teacher in Togiak School in Togiak, Alaska, has stated in an interview (A. Watson, “What’s it like to teach in a remote village in Alaska?”), that the towns he has lived in have very minimal road systems and also high costs of living due to their isolated locations. “You are literally cut off from most everything that people consider to be part of their daily routine. There are no coffee shops here, no bookstores, no movie theatre or bowling alley, no place to get your oil changed or mall to hang out at after school.” In addition, the extended dark hours and harsh weather