Sunday, September 27, 2009

A Walk South

Last weekend, we walked south. Here are the photos. This weekend it snowed.

Friday, September 25, 2009

It snowed

This morning OFL brought me outside to point out the snow that had fallen overnight on the hills surrounding The Village. No kidding. These are the same hills that S, E and I hiked up to on Saturday when we stretched out in the sun and watched the ocean. Now there's snow up there. It is possible that the adventure is just now beginning.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

A day in the life, S's version

My day is the same as B's in lots of ways, but here's where our paths diverge:

From 8:45-10:45 I'm in my classroom, teaching reading and writing to 8 students, ages 8 to almost 13. They're all in phases 7 and 8 for these subjects, which are third grade phases. They are frustrating at times, just like all kids, but (like all kids) generally delightful. I really enjoy them. We sing every day, and they teach me Yup'ik words which I usually mangle, and they work really hard. But the language barrier is a real challenge, and I'm learning a lot about teaching kids who are English language learners, and also just about being patient. The most frustrating thing is when I do a mini-lesson (for example, maybe I do a little lesson on how to write an outline), and I show an example, and then I ask them to try it out, and maybe I hand out a graphic organizer or a worksheet or books or sticky notes or whatever, and they just stare at me blankly. Absolutely no idea what to do. Now if one kid does this, it's usually because he wasn't listening. But if all 8 kids do it, it's on me. We go back to the beginning, start again.

From 10:45 to 11:45 I go down the hall to another teacher's room for math, and she brings her class to mine. We made this switch at my request, because my math kids are bigger (11-14), working at 5th and 6th grade levels, and can't really fit into the chairs and desks in my room. Math has its ups and downs. The most difficult thing has been that even though the kids are all in the same phase, they were all over the place within that phase. Some needed to pass tests on polygons, some on decimals, some on fractions, some on probability, some on circumference. So teaching that math class is always a juggling act, and the hardest thing is when some kids are done or need help, but I'm working with a different student on something totally unrelated. I've put together a big bin of math activities that they can do when they're done or when they're waiting for me, but this has only helped a little. Still, they are making progress, and it's a good challenge for me to work with kids who are too old to be motivated by my pleasure or displeasure, like young kids are. Keeps me on my toes.

After math I eat lunch, and for the rest of the day I pull kids, usually in ones or twos, to work on math or reading skills. This has been a totally new thing for me, and in general I like it. We get some really intensive work done, and there's usually no behavior issues. But I do miss having my own class.

I also try to leave by 4:30 or 5 - lately it's been more like 5 or 5:30. But the evenings are still long - darkness falls around 9-ish. It's easy to stay up too late talking and drinking tea with E and B. But it's a nice way to end the days.

Back to Athol this weekend for a training with B, E, and another teacher. Not really looking forward to it, though it might be exciting to see cars and grocery stores again.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Day in the Life

Monday to Thursday-

6:00 AM: Wake up, go to the "fitness club" (a room with a couple of treadmills, stationary bikes and some weights).
7:10: Back to the apartment for shower, clothes, smoothie & coffee.
7:55: Head up to school. Walk 200 feet or so, climb 45 stairs, walk another 100 feet.
8:00: Arrive at school.
8:30: Contract day officially begins.
8:45: Help out in E's first period high school math.
9:45: Help out in 2nd period writing in the transition class. (These are students who were in the Yup'ik only grades previously and are now transitioning to English education.)
10:45: Help out in H's 3-4 grade math class.
11:25: Teach my high school writing class. Up until this period I am in other people's classes helping special education students - and anyone else who needs it. During this period I'm the regular ed. writing teacher for eight high school students. This is the first time since I left NYC that I've done that. It's great.
12:20: Lunch.
1:00: Pull out services for either a 13 year student for reading service or a five year old for speech.
1:30: Speech pull out for a five year old student with severe articulation issues.
2:00: Pull out two 9 year olds (who don't know the alphabet yet) or high school students for reading services.
2:30: DEAR = Drop Everything And Read. The whole school (in theory) spends twenty minutes reading.
2:50: Paperwork (writing IEPs, grading papers, preparing materials, etc) or meet with staff about special education students.
3:40: Student dismissed. Two or three times a week I have after school meetings. Otherwise, I spend this time preparing for the next day.
4:30: The end of the contact day. I try to go home not too long after this. I'm usually out by 5.
5:30: Saxophone practice for an hour.
6:30 - 8:30: Make & eat dinner. Usually students hang outside our window asking to come in, pressing their faces against the window and yelling.
8:30: The day usually ends by hanging out with E & S drinking tea.
10:00: In bed with the hope of getting 8 hours of sleep.

Friday -
7:00: Wake up. We skip the "fitness club" on most Fridays.
The rest of the day is the same as others until...
12:30: Twice a month we have "reading buddies" (older and younger students pair up and read to each other), once a month we have "field day" in the gym and the 4th Friday of the month we have "elders" (groups of elders come to the school to speak to the students about the Yup'ik way of of life).
2:00: Dismissal.
4:00: End of contract day.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Trash on the Beach

We took a long walk heading south on the beach. Here are some pictures I took along the way.

UPDATE: I added a few more photos from that I took the next day.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Stresses

UPDATE: I don't think I mentioned it when I first wrote this post, but I got so annoyed about the whole situation that I actually emailed the state commissioner of education, who got back to me within the hour, promising to look into my situation. Two days later I got a call from some high-up muckety-muck in the state Dept of Ed, and was told that if I sent my application in again, they would issue me a two-year certificate. Woo hoo!

Warning: this is a boring post that is mostly me venting my frustration about red tape, with even more boring background info. Feel free to skip it.

When I was in high school, I talked to several of my favorite teachers about wanting to become a teacher. A few of them gave me similar advice: don’t go to college for education. The programs are a joke, you won’t enjoy it – study the topic you’re interested in, and get certified afterward.

I took their advice and got a degree in English Literature. I don’t regret earning that degree, because I loved getting it. I took classes in poetry, science fiction, Latino literature, Chaucer, short stories, post-modern fiction and lots of other fun stuff, and I loved almost all of my lit classes. But, “getting certified afterward” turned out to be a big headache.

In New York City, at the time I started teaching, there was a shortage of certified teachers. In the years leading up to my graduation from college, the city had a policy whereby a non-certified teacher could be hired if she had expertise in a certain area, and if she began to work on her certification once she started teaching. Throughout college I planned to use this route to certification. However, the New York City Teaching Fellows program took effect, as did a new mayoral administration, and this path to certification was closed. So, I worked for a year as a research assistant at City College, and applied to the NYC Teaching Fellows.

I was accepted as a Fellow and began teaching and taking classes toward my Master’s in Education. But my first year of teaching was a nightmare, and by March I was determined to get into a better school. I applied and was hired at a charter school, which was great except that it meant I could no longer be a Teaching Fellow – my new school was not considered “high needs”, rendering me ineligible. Not wanting to have to pay back the subsidies the city had provided toward my Master’s, I quietly left the Fellows program. However, by that time I had earned enough education credits to apply for NYS certification independently. My credits combined with my year of experience got me an initial teaching license.

When I moved to Oregon, I was able to use their reciprocity agreement to obtain a transitional license, and have since been taking the classes and exams I need to move up to the next step of licensure there. By December I’ll be done with my Master’s degree.

But, now I’m in Alaska. And Alaska has all kinds of ridiculous forms and requirements for state certification. So, even though I have 6 years of experience, a nearly-completed Master’s degree, and certification in two other states, I’ve been found ineligible for certification here.

And guess what I have to do to get certified here – this is the real joke – enroll in an initial teacher preparation program. The same exact program that people with absolutely no educational experience whatsoever would have to apply for, if they wanted to become teachers.

On top of this lovely little debacle, I’m also trying to figure out how to fulfill those requirements I mentioned earlier for my next Oregon license. There’s this civil rights knowledge requirement that, until this month, I would’ve been able to complete through an online class. Suddenly the requirement has changed and I now have to take a test in person. There’s some chance I could take it in Anchorage – at a cost of several hundred dollars to get there and back – if not, I’m not sure what I’ll do there.

And then there’s the matter of the district office not giving me or B full credit for our years of experience. No big deal, just a little clerical error, but it means neither one of us got the full paycheck we should’ve gotten this month.

I’m also trying to apply for graduation from my current Master’s program – so far that’s been straightforward enough but I’ll stop holding my breath on that one when I actually have the degree in hand.

And, finally, one of our four renters has informed us she’s moving out.

And to think I thought life would be simpler, less stressful, up here.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

More photos

Here are some photos of our hike to The Bay. We sent out a larger album to our email list. I think that some people on the list aren't getting emails because their spam filters are blocking them due to the large number of recipients. If you're not getting our emails and you want to be, please leave me a comment here.

I wasn't able to upload the videos of the dancing, our internet connection is just too slow right now. Sometime soon I hope.

Hike to The Bay

Last weekend B, E, G, H and I hiked 6 miles over the tundra to the nearest village, which I’ll call The Bay (it’s accurate – this village is on a large bay). The Bay was hosting their annual Blackberry Festival and though we didn’t really see too many festivities exactly, we did get to see some more Yup’ik dancing. I’m going to post some pictures of our hike as well as a couple of short video clips of the dancing very soon.

Our hike over was beautiful, it was actually a lovely day, sunny, kind of warm even – basically it felt like my conception of a fall day (minus that leafy smell and plus the smell of “tundra tea” underfoot – a piney, lemony smell). G and H were going to stay with G’s mother, who lives in The Bay, but B and E and I weren’t sure where we’d stay – maybe at the school. Anyway, as B mentioned earlier, it was suggested that we wear rubber boots, but we don’t have them, so we just both wore our hiking boots. Well, the tundra is a lot more like a marsh than you might imagine. By the time we’d walked the first two miles, all three of us had soaking wet feet and muddy pant legs. You’d take a step onto what looked like solid land and just sink down right up to your ankle, or calf. It was okay, though, because then we finally crossed “The Bridge” (some rickety sheets of metal under several inches of thick, slick mud) and began to ascend “The Mountain” (more like a big hill, but the rest of the tundra in this area is so flat that the hills around here get counted as mountains). The going was a little harder since it was uphill, but on the other hand so much more pleasant, since the ground underfoot was both solid and dry. We stopped to rest and snack a few times, then G’s mother showed up on her ATV and gave H and all our bags a ride into town. This made cresting the hill even nicer, and from there it was just a long downhill stroll into town.

The Bay is about twice as big as The Village, and feels like it. Actually after a month here, The Bay felt like a booming metropolis. It has more than one “street” (dirt road) and three stores, plus a playground at the school. We saw a bunch of kids from our Village, then went to the community center to see some Yup’ik dancing. That lasted more than two hours, and then we were able to connect with some teachers from The Bay, one of whom generously put us up for the night. We stayed up late talking with her and another out-of-town teacher who was also visiting, then woke up on the early side, ate a little breakfast, and headed back for The Village.

I’ll say here that the dancing we saw in The Bay was not nearly as nice, in my opinion, as what we saw a few weeks ago here in The Village. It could be because it wasn’t new for me, but I think it was due more to the surroundings – here the dancers had performed in the gym, with the drummers/singers behind them, and everyone just sitting on the floor around the perimeter of the gym. There, the dancers were on stage, under rather bright fluorescent lights, with the drummers in front of them, kind of blocking them (at least for someone my height). It felt less personal, less engaging. Still, I wanted you all to be able to see some of the dancing. Apparently in mid-winter our village hosts a dance festival, and there’s a big festival in Athol, so hopefully I’ll be able to post some better video then.

Anyway, our walk back to The Village was a little more adventurous, because we were without G to guide us. Getting down the mountain was easy enough, we just followed the ATV tracks, and we made it back to the bridge without too much trouble. But then we were back in the swampy, boggy tundra. With each step our feet seemed to sink further into the ground, coming up with a loud sucking sound. If we stopped to get our bearings or choose a better path, our feet would sink slowly down – several times I looked down at my feet, thinking I was on solid ground, only to find that my feet had disappeared. So eventually we were just like, ok – we’re wet. But we’re on our way home and as soon as we get there we can put on dry socks and drink hot tea, so let’s just get there. So we stopped being so careful about our path. At one point B was crossing a particularly swampy area while E and I watched to see if we should follow – suddenly B’s lower half disappeared into the tundra. While E and I tried to stop laughing (and I yelled to B to get the camera out of his pocket), he jumped/ran/struggled out of the waist-deep pool of water he’d stepped into and up onto a low ridge. His entire lower body was absolutely drenched, his jeans were dripping, and the water was cold. It was a funny sight, but I was glad we were only about a mile out from the village – it wasn’t very warm out and I know B was not very comfortable in those sopping wet boots and jeans.

By the time we arrived back at the BIA, E and I were soaked up to our knees with mud and water, and B of course was still very wet.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Our New Camera is in My Pants Pocket



And the water is waist high.

College, my job, and some thoughts on culture

When I was applying to NYU, I had a choice in housing between traditional dorms and apartment-style dorms. On my housing form, I originally checked off apartment style, imagining myself in some hip, loft-style Greenwich Village spot, but when my older sister suggested that this might make it hard to meet people, I crossed it out and checked off traditional instead.

I was placed in an apartment style dorm anyway, and my sister’s prediction turned out to be true. I didn’t really click with the other 4 girls in the apartment, and on our floor, everyone kind of kept to themselves. It wasn’t until much later, when I met B, that I realized that other people at NYU were having radically different experiences in the dorms. In B’s dorm, everyone’s doors were open, people would pop in to one another’s rooms just to say hi or hang out, and most people on the floor knew each other.

After two years at NYU, I switched to City College, which didn’t have any dorms, so I lived in apartments for the rest my time in college. And it’s one thing I’ve always been sort of sad about, that I never had that traditional college dorm experience. Which is why I find that I’m really enjoying life in the BIA (our housing unit – it used to be the school when it was administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs). If we’re up for visitors, we keep the door open – if not, not. While our door is open, people come by to say hi, drink tea, invite us over, offer us cookies, play Wii, or anything else. At first this made me a little uncomfortable. Now, though, after a few weeks, I love it.

My job is turning out to be different from what I expected, in both good and bad ways. Even though I teach reading, writing and math in the mornings, I don’t really feel like a regular classroom teacher. I only teach the first two hours, reading and writing, in my own classroom, then I switch with another teacher for math, since I have different (bigger) kids – my tables and chairs are too small for them. Then, for the rest of the day, I’m on Special Ed duty. So, I feel more like a specialist than a classroom teacher, and I don’t love that. I don’t feel like I’m able to cultivate the same kinds of relationships as when I had the same kids all day. I find that I don’t care as much about my classroom – it doesn’t feel as important to make it cozy and homey, since no one spends that much time there. On the other hand, my days are certainly easier – I have more prep time and fewer lesson plans than the other teachers, and since I’m not a homeroom teacher, I don’t have to worry about taking attendance or handing out forms or establishing coming in or leaving routines. All the same, I think I prefer the more traditional elementary school classroom teacher job I used to have, and I miss it. But maybe it’s just that I’m transitioning – maybe by the end of the year I’ll be totally sold on doing it this way.

I also wanted to say a few things about culture, since B has been writing some interesting stuff here on the blog. He’s definitely right about how many things are unfamiliar to our kids. When we come across new words, we first have to see if the kids know that word in English, and then, if they do, do they really understand what it means. It can make reading choppy, and it’s hard for the kids to comprehend a story when you have to stop a bunch of times and explain things.

But beyond just the language barrier and the isolation, there’s such a huge cultural gap between us and the native people here. It’s something I’m actually having a hard time with, and I’m curious to see how my thoughts and feelings about it evolve over the year. My main reservation is this – when I read about what this culture used to be like, before the arrival of westerners (or outsiders or Anglos or whatever term you prefer for non-natives), and compare that to what the culture is like now, and think about what was gained and what was lost, it seems to me that the losses far, far outweigh the gains. And even though I didn’t cause that change, by being here, especially by being here as a representative of something as fundamentally western as the American public educational system, I feel like a part of it, and right now that’s not a good feeling.

B disagrees with me, and points to the many things that the people here have gained as a result of western contact – access to modern health care, electricity, plumbing (somewhat), technology like snowmachines and guns and ATVs that make hunting and gathering easier, and perhaps most significantly, access to other cultures, places, and ways of life. That last one is the only one I find truly compelling. It’s certainly the case that, prior to western contact, people would have only one choice for their lives. Now, they can choose – stay in the village and continue the (sort of) traditional way of life, or leave. And what’s interesting about that is that even kids who absolutely do not succeed in school can still have a successful life here. As long as they can hunt, and fish, and pick berries, they’ll survive. And for people whose abilities may be limited to the extent that they can’t practice those subsistence activities, the network of extended families that exists here pretty much ensures that everyone will be cared for. But, if someone wants to leave the village, they are really going to benefit from the content and the form of education provided here at the school.

Still, that being said, to me as an outsider, the losses seem tremendous. How do you sum up the loss of a way of life? Here are things that didn’t exist in the village prior to western contact: alcoholism, drug abuse, plastic, gasoline, litter, soda, Catholicism, pollution. In many villages, the traditional dances were stamped out by Catholic and other Christian missionaries, as well as the masks and traditional spiritual beliefs. In our village, dancing exists, although in a much changed form, but the masks are gone and everyone is Catholic. And in a larger sense, one of the native presenters at our inservice training talked about how, prior to western contact, there was a balance preserved among the human, natural, and spiritual elements. Western contact disrupted that balance. Maybe it sounds a little new-agey, but you can see it and feel it – at least, I think you can. Here we’ve dressed the people in our kinds of clothes (and taken away their mukluks and qaspaqs) and housed them in our pre-fab, single family houses (and taken away their qasgiqs) and for what? Have these things, on balance, improved their lives? If so, I don’t see it.

I don’t mean to sound bitter – I’m a complete outsider myself and may only be dealing with misplaced white guilt. Who knows – maybe by and large the native population prefers it this way. But the feeling I feel is not unlike what I used to feel, often, when we lived in New York. We could only ever afford marginal neighborhoods, neighborhoods that were often about to become gentrified but hadn’t quite undergone that change yet. And I always felt guilty, being one of the first white people in a neighborhood that within 5 or 10 years would probably be filled with white people and fancy restaurants and boutiques. Just by living there, I was helping to bring about that change. It feels sort of like that here, to a much greater degree.

I hope B responds with his own post, because I know he feels differently. We got into a pretty heated debate about this one night and it actually sort of started to become an argument, so we dropped it and haven’t really gone down that road again. And, as I said, I have no idea how my own thoughts will change. But so far, this is where I’m at.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Translation

Some notes about language issues we've been having:

Being Polite
Students can appear to be very demanding and bossy. They say, for example, "Bob, come." That means, come over here because I need help. I assumed that, like a lot of kids, they were still working on manners. However, there seems to be no Yup'ik word for 'please'. So, "Bob, come," is not impolite at all. It's just a direct translation.

Reticence
This is partially cultural and partially language: it can be difficult to pin down exactly what the speaker means because they are often unwilling to be definite out of politeness. For instance, when we were going to walk to Tooksook Bay, which is seven miles across the tundra, we asked whether we needed to have rubber boots or if our hiking boots would be OK. The answer we got from G (see the 'who's who' on the sidebar) was, "You can make it in hiking boots". Well, that's true. You could also make it barefoot. But no rubber boots equaled sopping wet feet because you're slogging through calf-high water at times. Another example from this same trip: One of us waved at a plane that was passing overhead while we were midway between the two villages. G said, "We don't usually wave at planes." After a few minutes of asking clarifying questions we were told that if you're on the tundra and you wave to a plane it means you're in trouble and need help. It's like tundra 911. I think most non-Yup'ik folks would have said, "Definitely don't wave at planes unless you're really in need of help."

Time
We were told early on that Yup'ik folks don't like to talk about what will happen in the future. Asking about whether you're going to catch a moose or not is uncomfortable and impolite. I think this translates into the language because a lot of the students have difficulty conjugating verbs to indicate past, present or future. For example, a student told us that there was going to be native dancing at the school one night. We asked when. "It already happened." "Oh, I thought you said it was happening tonight." "Yes." "What time?" "Already." "....So is it going to happen or has it happened already?" "Happen." Turns out the dance had not yet happened but was about to start. We only found that out by going to the school to see what was up.

Colloquialisms
- When a student is kidding with you she'll say, "I jokes." As in, "I didn't do my homework. I jokes." And then she gives you the homework.
- Taking a photograph is "picturing". For example, "Can I picture the ocean? Then can you picture me and her with the fish?"
- You can travel by walk here. "How did you get to Toksook Bay?" "I went by walk."
- 4 wheelers are Hondas. All of them.
- Things are often, "So easy," or "So hard." But 'easy' becomes "eeeezy" and 'hard' is "haaaard."
- For the "she's going too?" or "can we have dessert too?" construction, one says, "Even she is going?" and "Even dessert?"
- When you are finished you say "already". As in, "Did you finish revising your essay?" "Already."

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Traffic Cops and Technology

A couple of days ago I was teaching a lesson on punctuation. Our text book, which is a pretty good book, told us, "Punctuation is the traffic cop of a sentence." No traffic and no cops in The Village. They obviously know what traffic and cops are but they probably have never experienced a traffic jam and have probably never met a cop. That metaphor is supposed to be instructive. You're supposed to suddenly have a real idea of what punctuation does in a sentence. Oh well.
_____
Clearly, we are quite isolated up here. But due to the wonders of the 21st century there are ways in which these students have opportunities and experiences that many students in far less isolated places do not. For instance, many students in my writing class finished their first essay of the year today. They had all typed it on their laptops. Every middle and high school student has his or her own laptop for use at school and home. Pretty amazing, right? When the students finished the essay they emailed it to me. All students have email accounts through the same service that all of the staff have. So I downloaded their essays, made comments electronically and sent it back to them. No problems. That is something that never happened to me in NYC or Oregon. However, I think this is pretty commonplace throughout all of the villages in this district.

Furthermore, the students all double spaced, used 12 point, black font and included a heading. I had to remind my students elsewhere again and again of these basic formatting customs. I didn't have to say it once to these students. Also, there was no abuse of the laptops. The students typed their essays using Microsoft Word, saved and emailed them without help. I didn't hear a single note of music or catch anyone on the Internet. Yow.

Also of note, cell phones, high-speed Internet and satellite TV are all here and used widely. But the nearest roads connecting us to a highway system are 500 miles away, the airstrip was closed for over two weeks in a row last year requiring all travel to go through the nearest village (7 miles away by snow machine) and few students have running water.