Taking the SASSAk12 toolkit abroad
Dr. Katherine Erdman incorporates community heritage and engagement in the Kazakhstan classroom
By Dr. Katherine Erdman
To say that my time with SASSAk12 influenced me as an educator would be an understatement. Having the opportunity to see a compelling vision which prioritized community and inclusivity, and to help implement an important mission statement, was formative. I was lucky enough to be a part of SASSAk12 from its early years. I led initiatives to develop learning modules for students in Native Alaskan communities, in partnership with the Council of Katmai Descendants, Katmai National Park & Preserve, and members of the Village of Perryville in the upper Alaska Peninsula. I was also editor of Public Engagement and Education: Developing and Fostering Stewardship for an Archaeological Future (2019) and, as such, invited members of SASSAk12 to share their own experience and expertise in a contributed chapter. Finally, I was the website designer for the initial SASSAk12 website, with much of my core text and design carried over to and serving as inspiration for the new SASSAk12 website (so Dr. Carrie Miller says).
While I do not get to participate in SASSAk12 as I once did, I have kept the values of SASSAk12 close and use them in my current role as an anthropology instructor at Nazarbayev University (NU) in Kazakhstan. In particular, this summer I began a new interdisciplinary research project with colleagues and students from NU. Our main goal is to study labor camps which were part of the Soviet gulag prison system here in Kazakhstan. To do this, we want to survey the landscapes surrounding some of these camps, and identify and map structures associated with the camps to bring awareness to them as historically important structures and places of heritage.
Incorporating NU students in the project was a no-brainer. It is their heritage after all. But how to make it more than just a one-off experience? I decided to use the research as a base for my new course called Applied Public Heritage. In the course, students learned archaeological fieldwork methods, but also learned about communicating heritage with different audiences in different settings. Along the lines of SASSA in the Classroom, we visited a local school and organized hands-on activity stations where kids got to learn about the work we were doing in their village. My students also helped lead a weeklong summer archaeology camp back at our campus to teach local kids about archaeology and how to excavate. Additionally, many also took part in interviews with people who knew prisoners from the camps.
Another important component was introducing NU students to Katrina (President and Founding Member of SASSAk12). During several virtual meetings, they learned how to share their research and considered how to work as a team and with local communities. They also had the opportunity to share with her lessons learned while working with different audiences. For the final course project, I let students pick the format, sharing the results of their work in a way they thought would appeal to Kazakhstani audiences. They settled on the concept of an open-air museum where the visitor could approach different structures we surveyed and learn more about them and the prisoners who constructed them. Their final meeting with Katrina helped them synthesize their ideas and consider some additional points which contributed to an amazing and compelling project.
This student-led course really illustrated the power of being a learning facilitator and the importance of collaborative research. I served as a guide, helping to bring them into contact with new and unique experiences and people, but they led the way with their contributions, enthusiasm, and connection to the heritage and local communities. In this case, meaningful learning for all groups came directly from hands-on experience and community support—the SASSAk12 way!
