Ken Johnson: Science made me whole. Photo by Aaron Fairbanks

Studying science at Leech Lake Tribal College transformed Ken Johnson’s life. “Science took me back in my own culture and helped me understand how history unfolded. It sort of healed me. It brought me the interest I was looking for – or it was looking for me. Nature has a way of speaking to you. It’s like the elements – carbon connects with a different element because there’s an attraction.”

A member of the Leech Lake Band of Chippewa, he has lived on the reservation in western Minnesota all his life. Now Johnson is studying for his second associate degree, wildlife management. All his brothers and sisters are amazed that he earned an associate degree at the tribal college in natural resources last spring. “I still have people coming up to me and saying, ‘How did you do this?’ I tell them that anyone can look in their heart and figure out what they want to do. If they know what they want, they pretty much can get it,” he said.

Johnson, 55, discovered the joy of learning late in life. In fact, science was his worst subject in high school, and he quit school when he was 15. “I always wanted an education, but I was always afraid that I wouldn’t make it,” he said. Instead of learning, he found that alcohol, debts, and anger dominated his life. He went into the Army, drove trucks, and had various odd jobs. “I was going nowhere.” After almost dying in 1995, he quit drinking. “I don’t know how the spiritual got into me. I don’t touch anything anymore. It was such a miracle. Only God could take that credit.”

After getting out of the hospital, he asked the Lord to point him in a direction that wasn’t selfish. He ended up at the door of the tribal college where he became an eager student. His science classes seemed to bring structure and reason into chaos. “Science made me whole. I had felt empty, part of a part instead of part of a whole. Science filled that space,” he said. Now he delights in talking about science, even with strangers. “Humans and animals have the same sort of anatomy. When a bird has a nest, that is like a mother with children, how protective they get. The fear that we have in ourselves? That is like the deer and how scared it gets,” he said.

His classes helped him deal with his fear and his anger and gave him a sense of responsibility to the world and his community. Science took him back hundreds of years. He studied the arrival of Europeans on this continent, how they competed with the Natives for land and resources, and the differences in their cultures – “one was about giving and the other about taking.” “Why had I become hateful toward another race when I wasn’t even there? I tried to zero in on that for years. I was lacking education, and I was lacking the subject of psychology. Psychology is making me understand why we feel so inadequate and so insecure. — how nature can play a role inside yourself.”

“I will not go to battle anymore. But I will listen to how nature unravels. It was science that awakened my interest,” he said. Michael Price, one of his instructors, can see the difference in him. “Studying science helped him think critically and sort things out.” Johnson thinks it is important to recycle and clean the lakes. “A lot of this plastic stuff, you can bury it 20 feet under and never get rid of it.”

Now Johnson has a college degree, he owns his own house, and he has ideals and dreams. “Everything I ever wanted I can have since I started educating myself. I have been a selfish man, but I feel good whenever I do something that helps others. Science is always helping others.”