Returning to home

As of today, I have been back in Togaik for about ten weeks.  Returning to Dillingham for All District Training, it was a much different experience than last year when I knew nothing.  Now I knew where to buy the good coffee, which seat was best for me to stay awake and focused during the dryer portions of the training, and best of all, I knew people.  People I liked.  People I didn’t like but now knew enough to stay away from (hey, nobody can like everybody, and if they say they do they are a big liar) and people that I knew I would get to know soon enough.  There were a lot of new teachers last year, almost the entire elementary core but since 6^th grade has officially been moved into the secondary school, I wouldn’t get much chance to get to know them until we flew back to Togiak.

Flying is still not my favorite thing to do but I think it’s getting better for me.  When another teacher pled on Facebook for someone to bring her Dramamine for her child, it occurred to me that perhaps part of my problem with flying is simple motion sickness.  It also helped that our flight back to Togiak was in a plane with stairs.  It is such a small thing but I feel safer in a plane that has a staircase instead of just, basically, crawling through the window.  There was an aisle between seats!  Such luxury.  Not great, but better.

My apartment was just as I left it.  Sparsely decorated but in my big suitcase I brought with me a few small items to make it more like home.  My Death Star cookie jar found a place on a bookcase and the planetary glasses are now shining in the window of the bathroom.  No, I will not drink out of them, but both items were purchased more as art or sculpture, however pop culture-y.  Something to look at that isn’t brown or white.

The routine of school was very easy to slide into.  Now that I know where to find the staples and Post-its, and how to unjam the copier.  My room has changed in some senses because I have almost double the number of 6th grade students in my room at any one time, and this year I am teaching some combination classes of 7^th and 8^th graders for a total of 51 student contacts per day.  This is a record for me, surpassing the year I had 47 in my student teaching class.

One of the biggest chores that I was not looking forward to was blowing up all the ball chairs.  The gym compressors were both broken when I returned and I despaired at the idea of having to use my tiny hand pump to pump up all the chairs.  I thought about having the kids do it as a “fun teambuilding exercise” on the first day but quickly realized the folly of that idea.  Maybe if they all had a hand pump, it would have worked to make it a competition but not one by one.  Luckily, the new shop teacher Dave offered to help me using the school air compressor.  It still took over an hour to blow up thirty chairs.  Carrying them from one end of the building to another was no happy task-those suckers get heavy!  But it did make the classroom feel more complete.  And the night before school started, I felt ready.  Boy, was I wrong.

The Play's The Thing

 

In the first few weeks of school, I had my first student ask, “Can we do a play?” 

“Do you want to?”

“Yes!”  Head nodded enthusiastically all over the room, and the seed was successfully planted.  Later that day, I asked the VP if it would be okay and he too was enthusiastic about the idea.  I decided to start small with something in my reading class, a mixture of 5^th and 6^th graders.  They read a highly abridged version of Tom Sawyer and loved it so much I expanded the lesson plans.  To wrap up the unit, they wrote their own play, performed for our Reading Buddies in 2^nd grade.  It was more of a Reader’s Theater since none of the actors knew any of their lines and the narrator basically stood there announcing each scene like “Now we will do the scene where Tom talks the other kids into painting the fence” or “Now we will do the scene where Tom kisses Becky.”  This particular scene caused some consternation because the kids playing Tom and Becky are cousins.  So we utilized that old theatrical tradition “kissing behind a screen but not really kissing because no one should kiss their first cousin.”  It was actually very sweet.

 

The experience was so great for everyone, I committed to doing an actual full blown production.  After searching in vain for anything in Yupik, even asking my Yupik Cultures professor from UAF if she had any suggestions of culturally responsible plays, I chose a dumbed down kid version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  I hoped that the fairies would make it fun and the lover scenes are minimal. 

I explained that each student was required to participate but those who didn’t take roles would be doing other play related jobs, like Stage Manager.  Only one student took me up on it, until the very end.  Casting was pretty easy; no auditions.  I put kids in the roles I thought they were best suited for and was pleasantly surprised at how wrong I was.   

With the help of my para-professional Lynnette, we transformed the grimy beige stage into a fairy wonderland with a waterfall of paper and fabric found in the staff room, Roman columns borrowed from the prom decorations, paper flowers large and small, cut branches from alder trees covered with yet more paper flowers.  It looked so great I was asked by many staffers if we could leave it up for prom and then for last week’s graduation and promotions (Ks and 8^th graders get their special day too).  It made a beautiful backdrop for pictures.

On performance day, there was some concern since the kid who was supposed to play a combined role of Oberon and Theseus didn’t come to school, and the girl who was Hermia was also absent.  But other students came to the show’s rescue and agreed to fill in, much to the delight of the Stage Manager who thought he might have to do it.  And to me, because I remember my own 8^th grade play when the boy playing Black Bart was late getting back from a track meet and the director of the play, George H., seemed a little too keen to fill in.  I wasn’t going to scar my students the way he did me, so there was no discussion of me understudying.  Besides, I’m too tall to play Hermia.

Early in our rehearsal time, I showed the students a technique I have learned from Portland’s wonderful theater company Original Practice Shakespeare Festival of using on-stage scrolls.  Since actors in The Bard’s time had to perform upwards of 5 different plays every week, they carried their lines on rolls of paper on stage with them in case they got lost.  Hence, an actor’s part is called a role!  We spent an inordinate amount of time creating the rolls and learning how to use them but when two actors was called upon that day to fill in unfamiliar parts, scrolls were a life saver.

All in all, the play was a mixed success.  From my perspective, the transitions took forever (mostly due to the understudies needing to change costumes between scenes), only one or two were loud enough to be heard in the echo chamber that is our school’s Commons, it never got dark enough for the glow sticks all over the stage to show, most actors just read their lines with very little emotion or character development.  Everyone decided it was best to stand in a line as close to the back wall as they could.  I realized later this was because every one of them had stage fright.  After all, most of the school was there in the audience, including the "big kids" from the middle and high school, plus a few parents and elders from the village.  But the audience really seemed to appreciate the effort and I only heard good comments from everyone.  A few classes left near the end because their schedules are so tight but they didn’t disturb the action as far as I could tell.  Within an hour of the play wrapping up (fifty-six minutes on the dot), I was asked if I was going to do one again next year, and it wasn’t with any kind of negative tone but genuine interest and some hope.

This year's Puck, next year's Benedick?
 

A few days before our performance, we had the traditional World’s Worst Rehearsal When The Director Has To Lose Her Temper and Yell At the Cast.  No one knew their lines, or their entrances. I couldn’t hear anyone.  Everyone complained about their costumes-too small, too long, too ugly.  After I yelled at the kids, they got it and went back to working hard on making the play not suck.  That night, I realized that I had been holding them to a higher standard than was realistic.  None of these kids had ever been in a real play, and few of them had ever gone to see one.  They literally did not know what it was supposed to look and feel and sound like.

Now they have some idea.  Next year they will learn a little bit more.  On tap, Much Ado About Nothing.  Seems fitting.

Moving Day

Moving D

Today, with help from neighbor’s Monty and Carol, and Greg the shop teacher who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, I switched apartments and moved upstairs. The only thing I didn’t like about my apartment this year was the lack of view. While I was able to see the changes in the tundra from rusty-green to white to brown and now back to greeny-rust, my best view out the windows was of the berm that surrounds the back of our building. Not too inspiring.

Upstairs in Cam the Counselor’s former apartment, I get mountains, hills, tundra, water and most of the village. On a clear day like today, I can even see the next village over, Twin Hills. This unit does not have a burbling toilet, so only time will tell if I grow to miss that particular white noise. I can see more of the runway, and in my time here am actually getting to know which plane is which. There was a huge commotion in my classroom a few weeks ago when we all heard a much heavier plane than usual coming in. "It’s the Coast Guard!" one student screamed. "Search and Rescue! I wonder who got lost?" It was rivaled in excitement among the kids only by the Everest plane that brings in big supplies. No disrespect to the Coast Guard who do such an important job, but I favor the Everest plane since it usually has ‘a little somethin’ special just for meeeeeeee.’

The furniture in this apartment is miles better than downstairs. My couch there was missing a full section, and I never used the recliner because it has so many springs poking my gazitska. I thought I liked the heavy country-kitchen table and chairs until I faced the prospect of swapping with the lighter Mission-style. I decided angles are more my style than curves, body-type notwithstanding. I have bookcases upstairs and sturdier dressers. There’s some kind of weird flat lamp thing in the bedroom that I hope is a sun lamp for the Dark Time. Plus, another bedside lamp-bonus! Now maybe I can go back to reading in bed (again, in the Dark Time, because last night the sunset wasn’t until 11:02 so night reading was not a problem).

Unfortunately, it wasn’t until Cam brought down all his leftover food, freezer and ridiculously large television set that it occurred to me to move into his space when he left. I had thought to move directly above to Nancy’s place but one look at D4’s view sealed the deal in my mind. Plus it gave me an entire extra week to move my stuff. Other than the heavy totes and a few large boxes (thanks again Carol, Monty and Greg!), I packed with my limitations in mind. Many trips with manageable loads rather than further injury (I banged up my ankle last week, more on that later when I write about the play) has worked out pretty well, and I am pretty sure by Monday I will have buns of steel. But having to move Cam’s supplies back up after he brought them down just a week ago is a bummer. A heavy bummer. Dude left enough food for a year!

To make the move more fun, and because I have the sense of humor of a fourteen year old boy, I labeled the boxes things like "severed human heads" and "sex toys." "Einstein’s brain" made it up okay as did "proof of alien visitation." Did I mention the sun is up until eleven pm? It makes people weird, I tell you.

Night and Day

 

A few months ago, my friend Lindsay sent me a list of topics she wished I would write about, including Living Where It’s Dark All The Time. For me, the dark wasn’t as much of a problem as Living Where It’s Light All The Time. Growing up in Seattle, there is a fair amount of darkness in the fall and wintertime, and the spring is often rainy and dreary so I feel like the Dark time wasn’t that big of an issue. My Portland apartment has great sunlight in the bedrooms but the living room is often a dark tomb. Who knew what a help that would be for me!  I like the dark.

When I moved here in August, it was light all the time. It was fun and exciting to see the sun up after 11pm during my training time in Dillingham, and when I moved to Togiak everything was awesome so it didn’t matter that the days were sixteen hours long.

Now that it is past spring and inching toward the Summer Soltice, the days are stretching out. When I get up, the sun shines into my kitchen. When I go to bed, the sun shines into my bedroom. I recently rigged up my version of "blackout" curtains by hanging the World’s Worst Blanket (probably a relic of the Civil War era made with compressed felt and the tears of Confederates) using thumb tacks and heavy paper clips over my Eastern-most window, but all that does is filter the golden sunlight into a light blue.

Sometimes I still have that sense of wonder when I am getting ready for bed, and see the incredible light shining down on the village. The pink clouds scudding next to the purple mists above the increasingly green tundra marvels me. But, by now, I am less enthralled by the constant light. Constant light means days stretch out. If it is a weekend, and I all I have to do is clean my apartment it seems to take so much longer when the shadows never seem to move. It’s like paddling against the current. I do stuff, I pass time but I never get the satisfaction of really feeling time pass. One night, I was starting a new book and found myself startled to find it was hours past my bedtime, because I had no visual clues that it was getting so late.

My students are feeling this excess of light also. I would wager that not a single one goes to bed before eleven and none are actually asleep before midnight. But they still have to get up and be in school awake and ready to use their brains at 9:30 in the morning. Some sleep through the morning, literally in a few cases. Some show up right around lunchtime. One doesn’t bother to come at all. The sunlight has somehow made him forget how to follow the rules and he spends more time under suspensions than not so his dad pulled him out rather than have to come and get him every day.

I find myself waking up in the middle of the night, usually around 3 am when it is truly dark. Or at least as dark as it’s going to get with the parking lot flood lights that never turn off. But from the living room, I can see all the way into the village and the amber street lights lining up the one road toward the school. Occasionally, there will be a car driving up the road. If it comes into the school lot, I know it’s the local cops doing their regular rounds. It is dark and nearly silent but for the hum of the freezer and fridge and the burble of the toilet. It calms me and I never have trouble falling back asleep when it is truly dark.

In less than two weeks, I will be in Seattle where the days pass, the shadows move and I can sleep at night because it is dark. Before midnight. What a thing!

The Cam Blog

The other night while I was doing Gym Night, Cam the Counselor came in to work out in the school's  weight room.  When he was finished, he came over, plopped himself down, and said, "I read your blog.  But there's nothing in there about me."  So here is the blog about Cam.

Cam is a 30-something Minnesotan who loves the Wild hockey team, knows enough to not get too invested in the Vikings and, like me, doesn't seem to care about basketball.  His facial hair changes with his mood, or so it seems because in a very consistent man, his face is always changing.  Clean shave, stubble, handlebar mustache, pornstache, full beard, it's all been there in the nine months I have known him.  With the exception of the pornstache (sorry buddy), all of them looked good on him, and it was kind of fun to play "I wonder what will be on Cam's face this week?"

Simply put, Cam is the best counselor I have ever seen (no disrespect to the one other counselor I have any respect for, Liz at Beverly Cleary).  All the kids know him and, while they may not know it, love him.  He takes the time to truly get to know these often highly troubled kids with home lives from hell.  He knows how to have the tough conversations (Look kid, you're twenty years old and never going to get enough credits for a diploma before we have to kick you out, by law.  Go for the GED instead and stop wasting your time around here.) to gently teasing my quiet student who says her lines in our play at barely more than a whisper, reminding her how loud she was in the gym during volleyball season.  He has fed these kids, clothed them and towed them behind a 4 wheeler.  He knows when to play and when to be serious.  His anti-tobacco campaign really sank it with my class-not one of them has been caught doing snuff at school.

Cam is a steady presence at all school functions: gym night, movie night, family night, dances, potlucks, you name it.  If he is not there, it is because he is out of town on school business or going to a conference learning how to serve us better.  And sometimes, he brings me apples!

Unfortunately, he won't get the chance anymore.  His position has been cut by the district, though for the life of me why they think a school of 200+ children and young adults don't need a counselor is beyond me.  A new position has been created, Dean of Students, who will take over some of Cam's duties but also be in charge of PBIS, discipline and who knows what else.  Tobe is taking that job next year and I am sure he'll be great at it.  But I really think a school our size with our population needs a full time on site counselor also. 

So, not only is the school losing a great educator, I am losing a new friend and one of only two others who really know what it is like to be the new teacher for school year 2015-16.  And that makes me a little sad.

The contract

For my birthday, I signed my contract for next year and delivered it to my principal.  This is the first time since I began working as an educator (let’s see, that was when Wendy was in first grade and now she’s in the 15^th grade so you do the math), that I have been asked to return to a school to do the same job before the current school year ended.  When I was an elementary “non-certified but doing the work of a certified” librarian (see, I’m not bitter), I had to wait every year until August to be rehired with only a vague promise from the Maplewood principal that the call would eventually come.  The call always did but it didn’t make up for a spring and summer of anxious waiting.  For three years I did this, for a part time job!  When I told the principal there that I was going to grad school and wouldn’t be back the next school year, he kind of grimaced and said, “Too bad, this was the year we were going to bump you up to full time.”  Just my luck.

This year, I did waver a little.  I made pro/con lists lying in bed listening to the wind gust, wondering if the power would go out.  I weighed the great paycheck against the unreliable internet.  I thought about my friends and family.  Seeing them had become a major endeavor, involving the thing I hate most in the world (see: little tiny planes) and if, god forbid, there was a major emergency I was at minimum ten hours away.

But one major thing was that I wasn’t offered a contract right away.  Colynn casually mentioned that she had signed hers one day during our daily chat in the morning.  I tried not to read too much into it, but as more and more of my colleagues got offers, and my neighbor was blatantly begged by the superintendent to stay (she isn’t), I started to panic.  The teacher who planned on leaving told me I should march right in and demand to know why I wasn’t given a contract.  But, after all these years pining away, I wasn’t going to grovel, or even question it.  If they didn’t want me, then so be it.  I would take it as a sign that this was meant to be a one year adventure of a lifetime.  I could walk away with my head held high, knowing I had done a good job, that I had made a positive impact on my students, putting aside the knowledge that they would go through the same abandonment issues that is part of living in the bush for them; teachers leave.  That is a fact of life.

The thing is, I did want to stay.  But I wanted to be asked to stay, not have to ask for it.  I have long known that I have too much pride for my own good but for once, I wanted to be courted a bit.  I wanted to be wooed.  I didn’t want to be cast aside for some unknown mystery teacher who would come in and take my place, and I didn’t think it was too much to want someone to say, “Hey, we would like you to return.”

In the end, I didn’t get exactly what I wanted.  There were no roses and champagne, just an email from the superintendent asking that I acknowledge the receipt of the offer enclosed.  I did but then waited over three weeks so I could give my answer on my birthday as the best gift I ever gave myself.  A job.

50 in the 49th

Today is my birthday.  Some years, I really care about my birthday and celebrating in a big way.  Other years it's more of a "meh".  In Portland, I never had to work on my birthday because it's always during Spring Break.  When I turned 30, I had a baby girl.  When I turned 40, I was just about to finish grad school.  Now, I turn 50 in Togiak.

This year, I also have a student who has the same birthday (along with other people in my life like Paul, Jack, Anne Marie, Uncle Chip, Elton John and Aretha) and it falls on Good Friday so I knew a party was in order.  My classroom aid, Lynnette asked me months ago what kind of cake I wanted and nothing would dissuade her from making one.  She decided to make me a German Chocolate cake to share with staff, and cupcakes for the kids.  The kids in class were also very enthusiastic about bringing in chips, cookies, popcorn, more chips, water-flavorers (no soda in my class no matter how old I am turning) and random sugar cereals in ziplock bags like Capn Crunch and Fruit Loops.  We all sat around eating and watching Three Stooges shorts, which the kids loved and had never seen.  Every once in a while, the fun would explode with a loud pop from a balloon.

You see, my students are the best.  They knew that I was missing my daughter and feeling kinda low that we couldn't be together on my birthday.  So they planned an elaborate surprise for me before school started.  I went out to get them at the usual time from the Commons where breakfast is held daily.  Immediately, I knew something was up because my boy who always wants to be first in line was telling me that we shouldn't get lined up yet, that we should wait a while and not rush to class.  This boy is on the autism spectrum so for him to voluntarily deviate from his daily schedule is a big deal.  I looked around, noticing that most of the girls were missing and that the remainders wouldn't look me in the eye but were all giggly.  Then the sped director pulled me to one side and had a long, involved conversation with me about a proposed schedule change-a conversation we not only had already had, like yesterday, but would never have just standing in the Commons for privacy reasons.  I played along and took my sweet time to get the line ready, meander down the hall, stop to talk to another aid about nothing at all, until finally I was able to walk toward my classroom unimpeded. 

SURPRISE!!  Not only were most of my kids hiding under their desks but had totally redecorated my room in paper flowers (that's why everyone kept asking me my favorite colors this week!) and the number 50 and, best of all, 51 large balloons in said favorite colors.  It was magnificent and there, in the middle of all the chaos, was Lynnette the aid who organized it all.  One student said, "We knew you didn't get to have your daughter here, so we wanted to make you have a happy birthday anyway."  Could you just die?!  Sweetness abounds.

After school, I stayed in the staff room and ate cake with first the elementary teachers (we finish a half an hour earlier than the upper school) and then with the upper school teachers.  It was really great and certainly made for a happy birthday to me. 
As a present to myself, I signed my contract for next year.