Community School Committee

According to Cam, if you want anything to change or get done or improved, the Community School Committee is the place to go.  Made up of five residents of the village (four females and one male) and our two (male) school administrators, they meet monthly for the good of the school.  The CSC has no actual power.  They can only make recommendations but you can be sure that if they recommend something, it is likely to be done.

I went to the meeting partially out of curiosity and partially to make some connections outside of the school.  I wanted to float the idea of a Parent School Village association similar to a PTA but with a bigger scope to include everyone in the village, not just those with a vested interest.  Because in a community this small, everyone has a vested interest in the school being successful. 

Thus far, they are not doing a very good job.  That is not a bland comment.  During the course of the meeting it came out that 64% of Secondary (7-12th) are failing at least one class.  64%!  There is likely to be no girls basketball team because so many of them have an F.  One teacher was there to defend himself against rumors that he and his wife deliberately failed students to keep them from playing.  At one point, I spoke up for middle school girls coach who resigned rather than be bullied by the administration to allow her girls to travel even when their grades weren't up to snuff.

The meeting was very formal and Parliamentary, yet there were tears, recriminations, name calling, apologies, more tears, stern words and gentleness.  It also took five hours.  The agenda was adhered to but one item (the one about the academic sports policy) ate up three hours.  By the end, everyone got to have their say, much of it contradictory and even more a mixture of Yupik and English that made it hard for a newbie like me to follow some of it.

I think the only thing that was decided was that there would be a push to move basketball practices around to the morning so that Gym Night can open up again and not be cancelled until March.  I spoke to that, focusing on how it gave me, a person with no vehicle, a chance to meet and mingle with people from the village I might not ever have a chance to talk to, and to get to know the kids in all grades of the school, not just my twelve students.  I didn't mention that I already spent my Gym Night money on ball chairs for my students (more on that later) and about half of it came from my personal pocket.  But someone made the point that tobacco use has gone way up since basketball season started and someone else suggested we talk to the police to see how crime may have gone up also.  At the same time, we were very clear that having Gym Night after practice was not an option since we volunteer and no teacher wants to stay up until 10 at night. 

This led to a digression about the curfew.  It is 10 on weekdays and 11 on weekends for all kids, regardless of age.  There have been stories told to me about seeing kids as young as five years old out and about with no supervision as late at 11:30.  Tardies are running over 800 this term because so many students don't make it to class in the morning because they are too tired from staying up into the wee hours.  Parents do nothing to stop it, according to people who know the facts.  I kept my mouth shut but the parents of one of my chronic sleepers were there, and his dad is the mayor!

What many of the items boiled down to was what can only be called poor parenting.  No discipline at home but angry phone calls when it is used at school.  No supervision but resentful grumbling when teachers don't make time out of their off time to provide entertainment, like Movie Nights.  Harsh words when a students grades are outright terrible, but only from the parents who never come to Parent Teacher conferences but would rather blame the teacher instead of the student who refuses to do the work.  It is a quandary that is not limited to this community but this is the community in which I live, so I am challenged to find suggestions to create positive change while not offending anyone by my Outsider perspective.  A heavy task indeed.



Here is the hat Madame Chairwoman wore: seal with wolf tail.

Student vs Athelete

Growing up in 1970s Seattle, soccer was king.  We played at the park, we played on the concrete playground at school, we played weekend games on crushed brick fields.  I played for eleven seasons with essentially the same neighborhood team.  Go Pounders!  The best team with the worst name.

I also played softball and basketball with my school teams and ran track.  It was just something you did, not because you were particularly good or even enjoyed it much.  To this day, my only memorable moment playing basketball was getting a technical foul for ripping the ball out of another player's hand (in my own defense, if the other girl had let go, it wouldn't have been a big deal-gawd). 

Here in Togiak, sports are the only after school activity there is.  No arts.  No jobs for the high schoolers.  No community center, though the Seventh Day Adventists do have a Teen Night once a week where they show movies and teach rudimentary cooking to any young person interesting in learning.  Mostly they go just for something to do, not out of any religious reason.

In the Fall, there is volleyball for girls (boys are allowed to play but they don't) and wrestling for boys middle school age and older.  To be on the team means travel.  Teams fly about every other week for weekend long tournaments to other villages like Twin Hills, Manakota and if they are lucky Dillingham where they get to buy Subway sandwiches for the first time in their lives.

But basketball is The Sport.  The reason is obvious; basketball is an indoor sport.  It doesn't matter how much snow or ice is on the ground outside.  At Thanksgiving, the middle school teams put on a tournament for kid and adult teams that was well attended but the adult teams showed such poor sportsmanship, they were disqualified from the tournament that was supposed to be held this weekend.

Supposed to be held, but was cancelled when only one team, made up of Fifth grade boys, signed up.  The high school girls have yet to field a team because there are so few girls and of those, all but four don't make the grade cut.

The middle school girl's team had their coach resign from coaching when the administration wouldn't support the academic contract she had the team sign.  It said that no player would travel for games if they were getting an F or a D in any subject, a regular clause in any sports team I know of in Oregon.  But the principal insisted that as long as a student had a 2 point grade point average, they were to be allowed to travel.  She quit rather than compromise and I immediately sent her an email of support.

Yes, athletics are important.  But school is more so.  What would we be teaching these kids if we told them outright, Oh yeah, grades aren't really anything to worry about, the game is more vital.

Ice Rink Parking Lot

When the kids say they stayed up late at the ice rink, what they mean is the frozen over area of standing water downtown.  But I have an ice rink closer to home, formerly known as the parking lot.  In the past two weeks, we have had snow, melt, ice, freeze, more snow, more ice, just ice and freezing rain until now the parking lot is socked in with around 3-5 inches of solid ice depending upon where you step. 

Last week, I used a large cardboard box to assist me on the slippery way home after Open Gym and for two days I would not have even made it to school if not for a colleague giving me a ride on his 4 wheeler from my front door to the school front door, a distance of about 100 feet.  I tried every variation of shoe I had.  My rainboots?  Great for slushy snow and indeed are waterproof but no tread deep enough to keep me from flailing around.  My Doc Martens were the same.  I tried to "embrace the slide" and wore my treadless Topsiders but, again, barely made it.  Remember, this is my year to not break a leg so this ice thing is really getting me down. 

The guy with the 4 wheeler showed me his "creepers", a band of plastic spikes that slide with a Velcro strap around the toe of his boot.  I had hoped to avoid buying any until I got them at the awesome surplus store in Portland where I got so much of the other cold weather gear that has served me so well (Yay Andy & Bax!) but I fear I am going to have to buy some here in town first.  Until then, I finally had a moment of inspiration looking at all my leftover cans from my Thanksgiving meal.  So many lids.  So many Amazon boxes.  As I was putting my can opener away, it struck me that I could McGyver some creepers on my own at a minimal of cost to me, the sliding cheapskate.

Here is the result.  Sure, it looks ridiculous but it works.  I got all the way to school today in fewer than five minutes wearing one of these.  The design needs some work but for a short term fix, it'll do.

UPDATE:

My creepers showed up and now I am able to cross the ice with no trouble at all.

Thanksgiving, Yupik style

For some reason, Thanksgiving is a holiday that never really spoke to me.  Which is odd when I think about it, because I love food, cooking, football.  When I was a kid, my dad always took us younger kids to Green Lake to feed the ducks and get ice cream from Baskin and Robbins (and get us out of the house so that Mom could have an hour of peace).  I guess it was the forced BE HAPPY and THANKFUL Hallmark marketing that got me down, and once I learned the true story of the so-called Pilgrims and how much they sucked, most of the allure was gone.  Thanks a lot, Howard Zinn.

But this year, I spent Thanksgiving with real live indigenous people, and for the first time in too many years to count, I have more blessings than challenges.  At school, there was a potluck open to anyone on staff who wanted to attend, and about half showed up.  Of those, half were Yupik.  They brought things like dried salmon strips and frozen berry concoctions but also things from a traditional New England dinner like ham and pumpkin pie.  The guy from Minnesota made wild rice, the lady from Texas made green been casserole, the other lady from Texas made an upside down pineapple cake.  There was no moose or whale or seal, though I guess in the past there has been.

When deciding what to make, I looked at my stock of canned food to see what wouldn't make too big a dent in my stores and decided to make something easy.  And wound up making a pretty good corn and potato chowder which easily weighed twenty pounds in the crockpot as I staggered down the hall with it.  I had packed everything over to the school in a backpack so I could use the school's internet to Skype with friends while it cooked.

Deciding where to sit was a major dilemma for me.  Do I go for the new and sit with people I sort of knew but not really?  Or with those more familiar?  In the end, I kinda split the vote by sitting with the people who live in my building but I don't know all that well.  I was saved from having to be too social by a student of mine who was there with his "Amma" (a kind of grandmother relative but not an actual grandmother--relationships are hard to unravel here).  Roy is very sweet but does need to work on his social graces like any 11 year old.  He talked non-stop, ate anything with sugar in it, tried and spit out the wild rice, and tried to get the lyrics to the "Batman smells" version of Jingle Bells for so long, I finally told him to flat out give it a rest.  He grinned,  wandered off to get yet another soda and spent the rest of the time running around aimlessly with the other 6th grade boy.  When he first sat down, he had one plate that was filled only with desserts.  The rest of us laughed until he came back, loaded down with another plate of actual food.  Which he devoured, minus the rice, because he is, well, an 11 year old boy.

Although advertised as a two hour thing, after an hour, the Vice Principal very obviously started not only wrapping up the leftovers of the turkey he brought, but stacking chairs as well as tables.  So, we finished up, cleaned up and set up the Commons for the basketball tournament that was to start later that day and run all weekend.  Basketball bores me to tears, so I plan to spend the rest of the break cleaning my house, binge watching that new show on Amazon and sleeping up to 18 hours a day.  And for that, I am thankful.

Let it snow!

In the Pacific Northwest, there are two kinds of snow: the kind that sticks and the kind that doesn't.  Here in Togiak, that is laughable.  I now totally understand why it is said the Eskimos have 50 different words for snow.  It's because there are 50 kinds of snow. 

There is the heavy, soggy wet flakes that turn quickly into ice, causing me to do the Icey Snow Shuffle-feet stay on the ground going from one textured spot to another to avoid slipping.  There is the dry, tiny swirling snow usually accompanied by a fierce wind that prompts me to wear my goggles over my glasses.  There is the regular snow that piles up in drifts that is easy to walk on and squeaks.  I like the last kind the best when I am outside, but any variation makes me grin when I look out the window and see that it's snowing.

Last week we had enough snow to close schools.  In the PNW.  Here, it was no biggie.  Everyone got out their snow pants and went about their business as usual.  But there was enough of it, after two years of no snow, that the school secretary sent out an email asking to update the phone tree in case school gets cancelled.  Which it only does if the bus company decides it's too icy to drive. 

I have seen full sized trucks and 4 wheelers and one Sno go (a smaller version of a snow mobile) slipping and skidding all over our ice rink of a parking lot.  And all the kids are up late going ice skating on the huge puddle just outside the post office.  A puddle the size of a house lot that is constantly full; in the fall, kids played in the muddy water, now they slide along its icy surface.  There are no traditional ice skates worn for this, just regular boots and momentum.  I guess it is good that they are getting exercise in the fresh air, but I do wish they would go to bed before midnight!

So far, I have fallen once.  I was on my way home from Open Gym and didn't realize that under the crunchy snow was ice.  I had that odd experience of realizing half way, "Oh, there is no recovering from this fall so I had better fall the right way" in the nano-second before I hit the ground.  One of my personal rules for this year is to not break my leg again as I have the past two years.  So I flung out my computer bag so it landed soft side down, protecting my school computer inside, and fell face forward spread eagle.  Onto my tummy, my (now) wonderful corpulent tummy.  No damage done, especially since there was no one around to see me.

So yes, this answers the timeless question of if Amanda falls in the parking lot and no one is there to see it, she does make a sound--"ooooph!"

The Wheels on the Bus

You would think that in a village where all the kids go to the same school, the bus situation would be a snap.  Kids get on the bus in the morning, come to school and six hours later they get on the bus again and go home.  But you would be wrong.

Sure, every once in a while, children do not want to get up and go to school.  Some are chronically tardy.  This is as true in Portland as it is in Togiak.  But in Togiak, there is no backup system for kids who refuse to get up in time to catch the bus.  There is no public transit bus system, there are no taxis, and the walk in most cases is 3 miles uphill.  Sometimes parents are willing to bring the kids to school by car, or more likely, four wheeler, except for parents who work in the morning or don't have a car or a four wheeler or just don't feel like getting up either.

The buses are operated by a private company owned, I think, by the tribal council.  There is a contract with the school and someday I would love to get a copy of it because it gives a whole lot of power to the buses and their drivers, very little to the school and none to the teachers.  We truly are at the mercy of the bus.

For example, one day there was only one bus for pickup when usually there are two.  The driver of the other bus was out of town or unwell or just didn't feel like driving that day.  My students waited patiently for the bus to drop off all the primary little'uns, turn around and pick up the upper elementary kids.  But when the bus returned, the driver got out, told the teachers of upper elementary that it was his break time and that our kids would have to wait until the high school bus riders were ready to go.  Ok, no problem except that the high school bus leaves thirty minutes after the elementary bus is supposed to go and I have to stay with my kids until they are all physically on the bus.  This driver was unwilling to make a second round trip with them, which would have taken about ten minutes total because he was afraid it would cut into his break between the elementary and secondary runs, regardless of the fact that half of the elementary hadn't gone anywhere and his break was now extended by 25 minutes.  25 minutes that, by contract, are my prep time when I get the classroom ready for the next day.

Then there are the days when there are two buses but they arrive early, load up and leave before my kids have even left the classroom.  School is supposed to get out at 3:30 but more often than not, the buses leave anywhere from 3:18 to 3:25.  The only time my students get a full day of school is when we know in advance that there will be only one bus, and I keep them in the room attempting to learn until the official end time.  So much for having consistency in my daily schedule.  So much for the drivers taking any kind of head count or know the kids well enough to notice than an entire grade is not on the vehicle.

Once on the bus, the students are supposedly no longer our responsibility but are in the hands of the bus company.  The school takes this clause very literally.  I was told last week "that's not our problem, the driver will deal with it" when I came running into the office to tell the principal, the assistant principal, the counselor, anyone that there was a fight on the bus.  A fight on the bus going on right now!  Only when the counselor rushed out to help, did anyone else bother to move.  An adult witness to the fight was reluctant to the point of pouting, to write out a report of what she saw.  The adult actually on the bus at the time was too busy chatting away with the driver to pay attention to the students wailing on each other until alerted to the disturbance by a teacher outside the bus.  Oh, did I mention that part of the reason I believe the fight started in the first place was because no one told the school that there would only be one bus and far to many kids had far too much time (20 minutes) to wait for the first bus to return, during which they are expected to wait quietly in their lines?  I was feeling feisty and in the mood to fight by that time too.

The Halloween Carnival

One of the biggest social events of the year in Togiak is the Halloween Carnival held at the school on the Saturday before the holiday.  Luckily, this year Halloween was on a Saturday so we scheduled the fun for mid-day, giving teachers time to set up while still allowing for a sleep in.

My booth, shared with Colynn, was a game suggested to us by Tobe; Spot the Pop.  We ordered 200 mini-Tootsie Pops, 100 full size Tootsie Pops, 72 scary erasers and 72 spooky coloring books with crayons from that life-saver of teachers everywhere, Oriental Trading Company (your home for cheap plastic crap!), charging it to our classroom accounts.  Sam the principal didn't even blink when I gave him the receipt for reimbursement, even though roughly a third of the cost was shipping.

The game itself is easy.  Players pay us two tickets, pull a Tootsie Pop out of the board, if it has a mark on the stick, you won a prize in addition to the Tootsie Pop.  We scattered a few full size Pops on the board but none of them were marked.  It was my own version of the Marshmallow Test (more people will choose to eat one marshmallow immediately than wait an hour to have two) and it proved true.  The full size Pops were more likely to be picked, even when it became clear they were unmarked.

In total, we spent less than an hour prepping this game: marking the Pops (160 were marked so the odds were ever in your favor), making the board, loading it up.  I spent the most time poking the holes in the board but switched to Donna's drill when I realized the holes were too small to accommodate the sticks.  The drill made it super easy, which was good, because both Colynn and I were sick.  She has strep throat, and I have an undiagnosed sore throat, fever and one of the worst non-migraine headaches I have ever had.  We joked that our booth may give an unexpected surprise in the form of infection.  I told her while we set up that our booth was so lame it was scary, getting a big laugh from this generally quiet understated Yupik woman.

It turned out that our game was the perfect slow burn.  It took a bit for kids to give it a try because it was so low key, compared to the Haunted House or throwing wet sponges at targets.  But once we got going, it took less than 90 minutes to give away all the Pops and prizes.  There were a handful of students who returned again and again.  One Fourth grader must have come back a dozen times!  I am not sure how much the tickets were but I suspect they were a buck each.  This translates into more than a hundred dollars each for Colynn and me to spend how we wish on our classrooms.

On my walk home, I saw that the parking lot was as close to being filled as I have ever seen it.  I suspect that 80% of the village came to the Carnival. It is a huge money maker for the school but also a chance for everyone to have a good time.  The annual Dividend checks (more on this phenomenon in another post but basically, if you can prove you lived in Alaska for a year, they pay you.) came out earlier in the month so everyone is flush with cash.  All the dudes at Open Gym are sporting new gym shoes, fewer hand-me-downs are worn to school and kids with fistfuls of tickets were commonplace at the Carnival.  All of the costumes were store bought and there was even a Waldo among all the Elsas.  Really, so many Elsas!

Colynn and I left as soon as our Tootsie Pops ran out and our game put away.  But, lame as it was, I am keeping the Spot the Pop board.  Maybe next year, we'll dress it up a little but why mess with success?

Movie Night: The Sequal

After last week's debacle, I told Donna my new last name was NeverAgain in terms of Movie Night.  She agreed, and we both, being teachers, started working on ways to learn from the disaster and make it possible to host community gatherings that didn't end in cursing.  A flurry of emails went out, asking why the same few people have to volunteer for everything with no help from the rest of staff, concisely worded suggestions of how to re-boot events, and blatant please for specific help doing specific tasks.  These were responded to with angry words by some, the overt silent treatment by one who literally told me to my face she wasn't speaking to me, and the stepping up by many who said they never helped because they never knew there was such a need.

One major change that happened was a change in venue.  Rather than show the movie on the wall of the large Commons area, this week's movie went up into the unused band room, an acoustically sound room nestled between the stage of the Commons and the stage of the gym.  Another fix involved the movie itself, Jurassic World.  A PG-13 movie required a signed permission slip for anyone in grades 6 and 7, and anyone 5th and younger had to not only bring their parent or guardian, that person had to stay with the student all night.  No more drop and go.

To keep the numbers up, the gym stayed open past the end of the volleyball tournament (yes, before Movie Night even started there was a middle school volleyball tournament that started at 6:30) for anyone who wanted to come in and run around for the same $5 the movie goers had to pay.  At the height, I heard that there were upwards of fifty people running around of all ages.  It really had turned into a Community Gathering.

I was assigned a job that could have been awful or great.  I was to chaperone inside the band room; making sure no one got rowdy, that kids attending with their parent stayed with their parent and vise versa, and that no electronics were used.  It turned out to be a piece of cake.  For the most part, everyone understood that this was not a free for all, when anyone tried to move chairs around a short "Put it back, the chairs stay where they are" was enough, though one middle school girl nearly got charged twice when it looked like she was going to refuse to take her feet off a chair.  The only "trouble" all night, was the fact that this movie, like last week's was too long by about a half an hour (and why did Richie Cunningham's daughter's clothes get more skimpy and grimy as the movie went on until she looked like the ad for that Raquel Welch caveman movie from the 70s while Chris Pratt just looked slightly damp?)

I did have two middle school boys who decided it would be fun to poke the girls sitting in front of them.  At least it was fun until I PBISed them by standing a few inches from their chairs on the aisle and faced them.  They clearly thought I would go away after a minute or two of good behavior but I stayed there for almost twenty minutes, not moving, not looking away until one finally broke and went off mumbling something about getting a drink.  His friend lasted thirty seconds before bolting after him.  When they came back, they sat in the few empty seats in the front and were perfect angels after that.

At the end of the night, the seven student government members cleaned up the band room, put away all the chairs while we on staff congratulated ourselves on solving a problem.  I didn't hear the final take but fifty in the gym and fifty in the band room makes for about five hundred bucks before concessions.  That, added to the take from the volleyball tournament of around 100 people at $2.50 each should add up nicely.  Too bad I was just there as a volunteer and not a recipient.

The only grumbling I heard was when, at literally the last minute, the AP suggested we cancel Movie Night because everyone was too tired after the volleyball games.  This very thing was suggested to him last week but he turned it down.  I guess the reality of how much effort goes into these events finally sank in.  I expect we will have a lively discussion about this next week too, but at least it's coming off a win.

The Tea Station

A few years ago, I subbed for a 6^th grader teacher on paternity leave after the birth of his twin sons.  In his room, he had a tea station set up for anyone who wanted to use it.  Students brought their own cups from home and were free to make a cuppa anytime.  Rather than being a messy pain in the neck, it was a great way for restless students to take a few minutes to relax away from their desks, get their extra wiggles out and usually did better work when they sat down with their steaming mug.  I never once saw any student take advantage of the tea station to avoid work, and only once did I have to suggest that a girl replace the honey from the honey bear when she used up nearly all of it in a single day.  She did, but grudgingly.  And this was at a school where money was no object, at least not for her family.

I always thought this was a great idea.  So, when I saw on Amazon’s Daily Deal a hot water kettle for 58% off, I jumped at the chance to try a tea station in my classroom.  My students were very enthusiastic when I explained to them the concept, to the point I kind of wished I hadn’t mentioned it to them until the kettle came because it was a month of at least one person asking me “Where is our tea set?” every day.

Once it arrived, I set it up in a corner of the classroom with a tray for cups, a bowl for discarded tea bags and a donation box.  I told kids they were not obligated to donate either tea or money but it would help if they did.  Everyone is limited to two tea bags per day, are not allowed to bring tea bags for only their use, and only one person can be at the tea station at a time.

I asked them to bring either .25 cents or 5 decaf tea bags per week, if they could.  I think it’s important that they have ownership of the tea station and not just have everything handed to them on a silver platter.  It makes me happy that none of them have teased or pressured their classmates into donating to the tea station but boy they sure notice if someone tries to use more than two tea bags in a day!

The other rule that I changed from Mr. Tabshy’s room is that no sugar or sweetners of any kind are allowed in the classroom.  No sugar packets or honey or agave.  I want to try in a small way to wean these kids away from processed sugar.  They eat healthy when the food is something they picked or caught themselves, with the exception of Eskimo ice cream, berries with sugar and Crisco frozen into a gooey treat.  But they make up for it with tons of sugar from the local grocery stores.  Candy is expensive but everywhere, as are soda and energy drinks.  My students know that if they want to eat a snack in my room, they have to show me the wrapper to prove it’s healthy.  Same with drinks; water only unless it’s tea from our tea station.  Just today I heard a student explain it to a visitor, “She’s a health teacher, duh.”

In just a week, students who took advantage of the tea station went from hating green tea for its lack of sweetness to appreciating it (somewhat).  Black tea is a hit, and I think there would be a standing ovation if I brought in a box of Red Rose, the most familiar brand.  This week I brought in some peach tea and the room smelled delicious.

The obvious side effect of all this tea drinking is an increase in trips to the bathrooms.  But in my case, it is right down a short empty hallway so it hasn’t been too much of a problem.  One student who used to use bathroom trips to get out of doing work, or just because he was bored, has been getting more work done than ever because he only goes now when he really has the physical need.

All in all, I am very pleased with the tea station and hope it lasts all year.  In the meantime, I’ll just sit back with a cup of Earl Grey and bask in the silence.  And a drop from my little honey bears.

Movie Night

A few nights of every term, Open Gym is set aside in favor of Movie Night.  This is one of the only times the Student Store is opened, a version of a concessions stand with handmade cotton candy, fresh popcorn, canned soda, chips and many many kinds of candy.  It is a quick, relatively easy money maker, if you are running the Store and have any kind of retail experience.

For those of us helping in other areas, it can be more challenging.  All of the proceeds go toward Student Government and the Prom, so only the Secondary teachers work Movie Night.  But I had nothing better to do so I wandered over after dinner to lend a hand.  The two female teachers were running the concessions stand, the two male teachers were collecting money, though why it took both of them to do this is beyond me.  One was much more needed to help me oversee the fifty or so kids from the lower grades and their even younger siblings who were literally running wild in the viewing area in the school's Commons, the main open space that multi-purposes as a breakfast/lunch room, meeting place for the entire community, where we had our potluck last month.

Most of the kids made it to the school on their own (it was still light at 7:30 when they walked the 3 miles from downtown), or were dropped off by parents with a handful of money.  The older the child, the more still the child.  If one had a phone, there would be a few comrades clustered around, watching a game or YouTube or whatever keeps kids of all cultures busy in the internet these days.  This added up to about a dozen students.  The rest were, in no particular order, running aimlessly, moving chairs around, sliding on the slick floor in their stockinged feet, jumping off the stage, chasing each other, climbing on anything that looked remotely stable and basically acting like unsupervised kids in a big open space with time to kill.

I, foolishly, thought that once the movie started, things would settle down; kids would watch the movie seated in their chairs or sprawled on the carpeted stage.  But nothing changed from the pre-movie activity to the during-the-movie activity.  In desperation, I started a game with a group of little kids that revolved around my pretending to be holding a balloon that I would then hand to one of them, he or she would hand it back and I would act as though it weighed fifty pounds or as if it was lifting me off the ground.  My tippytoes got a workout last night, as my calves will tell you this morning.  One second grader named Nikolas* added to the game by describing the balloons whenever he would "hand" one to me.  "This one is Mickey Mouse" or "this one is a rainbow" he would say with a big toothy grin.  I pulled out every mime skill I had, and some I never knew I had and clowned for these kids for nearly an hour before someone across the room bumped the projector, shorting out the movie.  While Brian the Math teacher got it back running, Donna the Science teacher came out of the store to bellow at the kids to sit down, stop running around, be quiet and watch the movie.  They did.

The calm lasted for about three minutes, then all the same kids were back at it.  Now, all throughout the evening, and my time as Mandy the Mime, I was also keeping watch on the bathrooms.  Through the open doorways, I could see the sink lines in both gender's rooms.  I am pretty sure some older girls, high schoolers, were doing something illicit but whenever I wandered in to try to catch them in the act, all I saw was a mighty struggle to insert contact lenses.  Is there some kind of new way to get high with contact lens solution?  But my time with the little kids was well spent, as they are all little informers at heart and any time they knew someone was up to no good, their first stop was to tell me and accompany me as I went in to check, under the guise of washing my hands.

So, now my time was split between keeping kids from getting hurt and hurting others and hurting the school.  The movie chosen for the evening was "Tomorrowland" a movie so long and boring it explained why the audience was so restless.  But around 9:30, the dark was pierced by the bright flash of headlights as 4 wheelers and cars came to extract their over-excited, sugared up kids.  When the movie finally ended, only ten or so people remained.  Cleanup was easy, and home I went but not before learning that nearly 500 bucks came in, and that this was the first time the Secondary team could remember an Elementary teacher coming over to help.  The thanks I got was sincere and, while my immediate "Oh hell no" to the invitation to come back next week for "Jurassic World", I know they understood it wasn't because I don't want to help out but that I had earned a pass.

It occurred to me, as I listened to Donna yell at the kids, that the reason these kids don't know how to behave in a movie is that, literally, they have never been in a movie theater.  They have never known the anticipation of waiting in the red room with the red curtain, for the curtain to close on the trailers and open again for the Feature Presentation.  They've never acted along with the pre-show roller coaster.  They have never sat in a fully dark room to watch a movie with a hundred other people.  No one has ever shushed them during the climatic scene or felt the twinge of fear that they might get kicked out for singing along with "West Side Story" when it played at the Neptune.  They didn't know how to behave at a movie, because they've never been to a movie.  This insight really helped me give all those kids a break.  But I'm still not volunteering next week.

The Liquor Question

There are three kinds of towns in Alaska: wet, damp and dry.  Wet means anyone over the age of 21 can buy alcohol in stores, bars, restaurants.  Damp means people over the age of 21 can possess but not buy alcohol anywhere within the town.  Dry means possession by anyone of any kind of alcohol is illegal.  The reasons for this are many and varied and simple: alcoholism is a huge problem in Alaska.  It is genetic, generational and historic.

Togiak is a dry village so no relaxing beer at the end of the day, no chilled white wine spritzer at potlucks, no teacher bar to do shots after a difficult day to vent with other teachers about how we hate our jobs, our students, our lives. 

Drugs are also a huge problem in Togiak, due to many of the same factors.  I do not know a single kid here who has not been affected negatively by drugs, partly due to the fact that everyone is someone's cousin here.  But between the lack of economic opportunity, poor education and plain old boredom, addiction is part of life.

Marijuana is now legal in Alaska to those over 21 for recreational use, but smokers here are not usually that old.  Where they get it, I have no idea but at this time, it is ubiquitous and unregulated.  I don't know if there is an official prohibition on the books yet, but I imagine there will be soon enough.

I had a beer the day before I left Oregon.  The only alcohol I have had since then was in the mouth wash I keep in my desk for days I have salmon for lunch.  It burned like the first time I ever tried Irish whiskey.   Minty fire.  I suddenly realized that I could probably be fired for having this travel size bottle in, not just my desk at school, but in my possession at all.  They literally put people in the village jail when caught with alcohol.

I remembered seeing at the store a bottle of vanilla extract, behind the register next to a bottle of hand sanitizer.  I didn't think about it at the time but I wonder now if there is some kind of formal registration one has to sign when purchasing these items.  Like with Sudafed in Oregon.  Here, I can't even buy Nyquil from Amazon; it brings up a prohibited message.

My students always always always ask before using the hand sanitizer bottle that was in my classroom before I got there.  These are the kids who help themselves to everything in the room: pencils, tape, liquid paper all had to be locked in my desk drawers after the first week when we went through so many supplies I feared we would run out by October.   But they respect the alcohol content in hand sanitizer.  Now my job is to teach them that alcohol isn't the problem, alcoholism is.
And that there is so much more to it than that.

The Potluck

The all community potluck was billed as The New Teacher Welcoming Potluck, and the whole town was anticipated to attend.  I pondered what to bring.  Potato salad, the food of my people?  Cake made with old bananas for something sweet?  In the end, I chose a kind of made-up succotash of canned black beans, canned corn and canned red peppers.  The red peppers made it flashy and it actually wasn't too bad, alongside the variations of salmon brought by the others.  I don't know if people liked it but it was all gone when I left so it can't have been too bad.

There were two kinds of baked salmon, dried salmon skin that was crunchy good, and a bowl filled with strips about half an inch wide by 3 or 4 inches long of cured smoked salmon.  The kind of smoked salmon that in an average Safeway store in Portland sells for nearly twenty dollars per pound.  This was in a huge wooden bowl, clearly hand carved, with a diameter of about two feet.  It was amazing and reminded me of the salmon my grandpa would bring over every once in a while when I was a kid.

There was also rice, boiled and roasted potatoes, things made with local cranberries including a lovely vibrant pink pudding kind of thing, dozens of baked cookies and bars, and moose stew.  Finally, I had a chance to try moose!  I am delighted to report that it was delicious.  Much like beef in consistency and flavor but just more meaty tasting.  Very rich indeed.  I am glad I only took a small bit because I am sure it would have caused much more intestinal distress the next day than the slight inconvenience I experienced.

There was a local band from the church playing country songs and before we ate, a woman whose name I never did hear gave a long speech to welcome, not the new teachers, but all the regional tribal elders and leaders who had completed their final day of regularly scheduled tribal council meetings.  There were visitors from all the villages around us and many of the names echoed those of my students.  Then a man said a long prayer in Yupik, the only thing I recognized was "Quyana Jesu" which means "Thank you Jesus."  I didn't understand the words he said but the meaning was clear, and it reinforced my desire to learn Yupik, a language of many consonants and sshhhhh sounds.

Although I have been trying to get out of my comfort zone, this time I did sit with the other new teachers.  I was surprised that none of the teachers, new and old, wanted to go to the potluck, and many left as soon as they wolfed down their food.  I didn't see why they showed up at all if they knew they were going to leave 20 minutes into a 2 hour affair.  I hung around and was delighted that at the end of the eating portion, there was a kind of local karaoke.  As the band played, women went up front to sing various Yupik and gospel songs, including my former para-professional aid, Frieda.  I teased her a few days later about knowing her all that time and never knowing she was a singer!  She raised her eyebrows and beamed back at me, "Oh yes, there is a lot of singing we do.  But mostly at church."  Maybe if I ever get a vehicle here, I can join the church choir, something that definitely is out of my comfort zone in Portland, even though it is only a half block walk away.

As I sat listening to the singing, the light broke through the clouds and made the view from the Commons so incredibly beautiful, I tried to point it out to anyone who would listen.  But my fellow teachers hardly noticed and the villagers just shrugged, their way of saying "Yeah, so what?  We know it's beautiful here."  I wished with half a heart that I had brought my phone but there is no camera good enough to capture what I saw.

Toward the end of the evening, a few of the elders got up to make more speeches.  This time I was lucky enough to have a very kind woman sitting next to me who whispered what the people were saying.  One very elderly woman told of how she was widowed early in her life but knew her husband was always with her, and how she wished the community would find better ways to combat the drugs and alcohol problems in the area and how sad she was that so many children don't speak Yupik any more.  All the while she was saying this, about a dozen kids from toddler age to 10 years old were running around making quite a lot of noise with no one supervising them.  When a little one bonked her head and wailed, then one of the women went over and scolded the little ones and read them the Yupik Riot Act because they all hurried back to their chairs and sat quietly from then on.  I sure wish I had a translation of that!

When it was at last time to go, Emma, the woman who had been translating for me, told me that since the woman who is supposed to be my Cultural Mentor for the class I am taking is unable to fit me into her busy schedule, she (Emma) was possibly going to take up the task.  She told me I was free to visit her anytime, that hers is the blue house up the hill and she would talk to my teacher about it.  I sure hope this happens because I like Emma and felt we were on the same page that I am just a nice White lady who wants to learn about the people with whom I now live.  Quyana Jesu!

Let's Meet The Team

Now that we are officially off to a good start and half-way through the first term, I feel the time has come to introduce my co-workers.  In no particular order, they are:

Katelynn- a 21 year old newbie, fresh out of undergrad from Montana teaching the 8 First graders.  She is a very sweet girl but has never lived on her own and I fear that she is living on rice and frozen veggies because she has never been taught how to shop.  For food, at least.  Like me, she has no vehicle and is reliant upon the kindness of others to pick up her mail or provide a ride.  Most of the time, though, the packages she picks up from the post office are clothes or make up.  She has already decided she will not be coming back next year.

Donna-an older woman within 5 years of my age but new to teaching.  This is her 3rd year in Togiak teaching Science to the Secondary grades (7-12).  Prior to this she was a landscaper and already has plans to start a Native Plant garden in the school greenhouse, currently unused and teach the kids the joys of growing their own food.  For a place with 18 hours of sunlight in the summer, there are shockingly few veggie gardens, perhaps because of the wild life.  No one wants to grow lettuce for the moose.  Donna has a huge heart but sometimes comes across as a Know It All Texan who assumes she knows more than anyone else.  She sponsors the current 9th grade class and plans to take them to Hawaii when they graduate; good thing there are only twelve of them, and probably fewer when the time comes but she is already fundraising.  Last year, she sold soda after school but that was shut down by the admin this year for obvious reasons.  We're supposed to be teaching the kids good eating habits, not selling them sugar in a can.  She is responsible for our weekly teacher viewing party of Fear the Walking Dead, and often organizes Teacher Movie Nights with movies she downloads via the school internet.  Her not-so-secret crush is Thor.

Brian-a quiet guy, in his middle 30s who teaches Math to Secondary.  He is originally from Wisconsin and now that he has been here over 4 years, has tenure.  I don't know much about him because, as I said, he is a quiet guy.  But we share responsibility to supervise Gym Nights on Friday so I am getting to know him a little bit.  He doesn't take no crap from nobody but doesn't need to raise his voice to do it.

Tobe-a big, loud Texan in his mid-30s also, married to another Texan named Donna who also works as a paraprofessional at the school.  I see Tobe regularly throughout the day and he has been a Godsend as I navigate the ins and outs of this new experience.  He has only been here a year, running the Special Ed department but is already one of the leaders of the school.  He would make a great administrator, hopefully sooner than later.  Three of my students are with him as long as they are with me during the day so we talk all day long, and have established a good relationship of mutual respect and humor.

Patrick-another quiet guy in his late 20s who teaches 5th grade.  We trade a few kids every day for reading and since my 6th graders have been moved back into Elementary, we meet weekly so I am getting to know him a little.  Teaching is not his passion but he does the best he can, knowing that in a few years he will have enough saved to buy a house when he and his wife Julia move back to their home state of Montana.

Julia-married to Patrick, teaches a First/Second split class.  Julia is a mover and shaker in the lower grades and she is the true teacher in the family.  They just had a baby last year, a sweet girl named Ira.  Whereas Patrick will move on to another job someday, Julia is a teacher for life.  She takes on all the little jobs that help a school run smoothly with a cheery, if tired, smile.

Kevin-Secondary Social Studies, mid-20s, coaches the cross country team.  Yes, we have a cross country team that travels by little tiny plane to other villages for meets.  Often it's only one student who goes but we are doing well in the district so I guess that's something.  Kevin is married to Shayla and they have been in Togiak for 2 years, I think.

Shayla-Secondary Language Arts, married to Kevin.  Shayla is on every committee at the school, it seems.  If it has an acronym, she is involved in it.

Nancy Bell-a quiet Texan (I'm surrounded by Texans) who lives above me in our apartment.  She is a proud 64 year old who taught her before, took last year off, decided retirement was boring and came back to teach another year of 4th grade.  She is an old school, no nonsense-style of teacher but her students and former students love her.  She and I bonded over our lack of affinity for technology.

Susan-twenty year veteran of Togiak School.  Susan is one of those teachers who comes across as quiet yet always manages to ask a million questions in every meeting, often needing clarification of something she already asked.  She has taught a generation of Third graders and has a husband whom I haven't yet met.  She is very sweet and wears her emotions on her sleeve, refers to her students as "kiddos" and surprised me by volunteering to help me supervise Gym Nights on Mondays.  But only after being reassured that there would be a man in the building (the custodian) at all times.

Freida-former para in my class, now moved to Secondary for the increased hours.  Freida is one of the few Yupik people that I have gotten to know, at least while she worked in my room.  She was great at giving me non-verbal cues as to what was going on in the room, and can transmit more joy at a simple raising of the eyebrows than anyone I have ever met.  And the Yupik are a very joyous people, who laugh easily and love word play.  Yes, this is a stereotype and a generalization, but it has been my experience so I can't write it off as purely racism.  Freida is great at helping me navigate my ignorance of all things Yupik, and I never feel foolish asking her questions about the culture.

Colynn-mid 20s, First grade teacher with a few years experience at another school.  Colynn is one of the village success stories as a graduate of Togiak School who went Outside for college, became a teacher and came back to the district.  She and I are going to set up a Reading Buddies exchange between our classes, and decided to work together on a Spot the Pop booth at the Halloween carnival next month.  (Spot the Pop is super easy, kids pick a Tootsie pop off a peg board and if it has a spot on the stick, they win an additional prize!)  Her father teaches Kindergarten, at least until we can hire someone else to take on the job.

Of course there are more but I don't feel I know them well enough to write about them.  But it's early yet.

Utilities

If you have ever been to my home, you know I like it cold.  In Portland, I kept my apartment somewhere between chilly "put on a sweater" and "see your breathe" cold.  The living room rarely had fewer than three snuggies, afghans or lap robes, some of which I used all at once, layer upon cozy layer.  I don't know if it's because I grew up in a drafty 4 story house with oil heat and antiquated steam radiators or just the way I'm made.  Heat has never been my favorite, and that's a good thing.

But part of the reason I became acclimated to a cold environment is fiscal.  For too many years, I had to make a lot of tough choices about which bills to pay and which to let lie for another month.  Keeping a cold house, especially during the weeks my daughter lived with her father, diverted monies necessary to keep up the charade of living a normal middle class lifestyle while trying to get by on poverty level income.

Now I find myself in the odd position of making a living wage, yet also living in teacher housing where the utilities are included.  I can wash my clothes whenever I want in water as hot as I want, rather than waiting for enough quarters to accumulate.  In the time I lived in my apartment, the cost of doing a full load increased nearly twofold.  Here it costs me detergent.

When it started to get brisk outside, I held out as long as I could, feeling it was wrong somehow to turn on the heat while the calendar was still on September.  But when it's mid-40s during the day and cold enough to freeze the parking lot puddles by morning, it's time to try out the baseboard heat in a building constructed in this century.  Realizing that I wasn't going to get a huge bill in the mail next month prompted me to set the heater to a comfortable 60.  How lovely to live in a place where all the rooms are warm enough for comfort, yet cool enough to sleep.  I still keep a snuggie on the couch, and am never far away from a hoodie.

 In fact, I am thinking of taking a class next month in Dillingham at the Bristol Bay campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks on making a traditional Yupik garment called a quaspuk.  Yupiaq have been wearing this for generations but the general idea is of a hoodie, though some are long enough to be worn as a dress, and the pocket is often quite huge and not kangaroo at all.  The cost of the class is reimbursed by the district as it is seen as investing in my cultural understanding, the room and board is covered by the University who use rural travel educations funds, and I can use a school substitute day since, again, the class covers my professional development.  And come home to a toasty warm house without fear of declaring bankruptcy. 

The fishing trip

In my life, when the principal comes to the classroom, it means something bad has happened.  A student has had a family emergency, is in serious trouble with the police or I am about to get laid off-again.

So it was with no small amount of trepidation that I went to the hallway outside my door when beckoned by Sam, my principal.  "Do you have boots?" he asked.  Because Sam wears a cochlear implant and is hearing disabled sometimes it is hard to understand him so he is really good about gesturing to be understood.  He pointed to his feet.

I told him yes, I had boots wondering why in the world he was interrupting my classtime on a Friday to ask me this.  Sam is not the kind of efficient, businesslike principal I have worked for in Portland; he is much more laid back, always has a smile even when discussing something serious (like the boiler room break in) and rumor says he has his eye on retiring as soon as the new Assistant Principal has a few years under his belt, so he can spend all his time fishing.

"Would you like to go upriver to fish after school today?"

Oh boy, you bet!  In my time in Togiak, I have been five places: school, home, teacher housing up the hill for Walking Dead night, the post office and one of the two grocery stores.  For the rest of the day, I was as anxious as the kids to get out of school.

But once home, to change into my crappy pants that I don't care if they get dirty or stained, long johns since it was already blowing outside though sunny, and my awesome, actually water-proof twelve dollar boots from Sears, I started to get more than anxious.  All my life I have suffered from panic attacks.  I just didn't recognize that's what they were.  Countless times I have bailed out, usually at the last minute, due to paralyzing fear.  Fear of what I cannot say, only that there are times when I just can't.  Can't leave the house.  Can't imagine doing the thing that sounded fun when I agreed to it.  Can't go to work because, ironically, I am afraid of losing my job.  A million kinds of can't.

But two years ago, my very wise wonderful oncologist put me on medication to help me cope with the unrelenting hot flashes that come after one has a life-saving hysterectomy.  The side effect was that I was pulled out of years of chronic depression.  I was actually...happy?  Woah.

Being happy for the first time in years, made me more aware of when I wasn't happy.  I didn't care if the happiness was drug induced; I could cope better with my life.  So I decided to take the next step and talked to my regular doctor about getting medication for social anxiety disorder.  When I told him how many times in an average week I panicked, he seemed stunned and said, "Well that's no way to live" and put me on a co-med with the anti-depressant. 

Now let me be clear about this for those who have no reference.  I do not panic lightly or get depressed because I am sad about external factors.  My kid was great, I enjoyed my job and wished I could do it all the time, I loved my friends and family.  But chemical brain stuff can easily take over and become the norm.  When I found what the norm was supposed to feel like, I felt liberated like never before.  Without the help from Big Pharma, I wouldn't be here.  I would still be in Portland stuck in my apartment bemoaning the fact that I didn't have any money because I literally couldn't go to work because I was panicking or depressed.

So, when I felt the fear coming on, I did what now works.  I talked myself into it.  I reminded myself that this was the reason I was here; to experience new things, to have adventures, to not be afraid any more.  And I took a backup med that I use to fly to keep me over the hump and able to go on the fishing trip when Cam the Counselor and Katelynn the First Grade Teacher came to pick me up.  This was to be an all newbies trip, and we surmised that Sam probably paid for it out of school funds, calling it "orientation."

Another fear I have is boats, as I am a poor swimmer to begin with so it didn't help when we ran into Sam's wife Mary at the store, a very nice cheery White lady who warned us that Sam tended to drive like a New York cabbie in the boat.  Awesome!  Just what I needed to hear.

One of the best decisions I made before coming to Alaska was going to Andy 'N Bax surplus store for gear.  This was my first chance to try out my balaklava to protect my face and keep my hair out of my way.  I also put on contacts so I wouldn't have to worry about dropping my only pair of glasses overboard, and brought along my amber lensed goggles.  I may have looked like a total dork but I was warm, dry and could see.

After boating across Togiak Bay, we followed the river for about ten minutes.  We stopped and since I was in the front (the bow?) of the boat, I had the best view.  It was so beautiful that no picture could do it justice.  Short trees, tundra, mountains, gorgeous.  I was told to drop the anchor but didn't realize that just throwing it over the side would result in a huge splash and probably chase all the fish away.  We had seen silver salmon jumping all the way so we knew they were there but after only about five minutes, Sam insisted we pull anchor and he found us a better spot.  We stayed there for a full ten minutes, then moved again.  This time, it was only minutes before Katelynn had a fish on.  Her father is a fishing guide in Montana so with the help of Sam's gig hook, the big fish was soon in the boat.  Cam was next, but he only caught a flounder.  When we asked Sam if you could eat flounder, he smiled and said "Sure.  But no one does" so Cam threw it back.  This act of mercy was rewarded by an almost immediate hook of a silver, which heck yeah we kept.  In little more than twenty minutes, the two of them caught six fish!  All beautiful silver salmon weighing at least ten pounds each.  Finally, I decided to take a turn, though to be honest I was pretty happy just sitting in the boat with the sun on my face, watching the fish jump and get caught.  But I wanted to at least try, so with many (many) lessons from everyone else (hold the line, flip the thingy down, draw back the rod, let it fly over my head remembering to let go of the line, flip the thingy up again, reel it in, repeat repeat repeat).  I did this perhaps one thousand times before I felt something tugging on the line that was not the bottom of the river or a piece of seaweed getting gunked up on my hook.  I had a fish on! 

Holy cow!  Katelynn screamed directions, Sam yelled to keep the tip up (tip of what?  oh, the rod/reel/pole!), and Cam just yelled.  Since all the previous fish were caught by people in their early twenties, I didn't quite realize how much force it takes to reel in a five hundred pound fish.  I nearly let go of the rod but it wasn't until Katelynn offered to do it for me, that I really got serious about getting that fucker in the boat. I found that if I stabilized the rod against my tummy it was easier to reel.  Once the fish was in, I kind of collapsed on the seat and while my right hand cramped up into a ball that I had to use my left hand to unwind it from itself, Sam bashed the fish and Katelynn removed the hook.  I am very proud to say that it was the largest one caught that day, according to the others, not me.

Everyone else caught at least one more fish before we called it good.  At that point, Cam, Katelynn and I were ready to go back home but Sam insisted we find a pretty spot on the beach to light a fire and cook the fish.  He also said that if we saw some ducks close by, maybe he would shoot one and we could eat that too.  That's when I noticed the huge gun on the floor of the boat back by Sam running the motor.  When it's the principal running the trip, it's best to be polite and stay out longer than you wanted to, but even more so when the principal has a shotgun.

We went upriver some more for about thirty minutes that were colder as we went.  But, again, it was so beautiful that I didn't have the heart to complain.  It was so magnificent, again beyond words to describe.  Suddenly, Cam shouted over the motor, "Is that a moose?"  We all looked to the shoreline where there was a great big blob of something alive.  I quickly got my phone from my pocket as Katelynn screamed "It's a bear!"

A big bear.  As big as my Honda sedan sitting in the parking lot of my apartment in Portland.  When the boat got nearer, it must have heard us shrieking like maniacs and started running along the beach, a huge salmon dangling out one side of its mouth.  I got one pretty good picture but since I had my contacts in, I was taking pictures blind (my contacts don't correct bifocally).  All the rest of the way to the beach, we talked about the bear, how the bear was at the place where the two of them had camped overnight over Labor Day, how big the bear was but still smaller than a grizzly.

Once ashore at a place called Three Rivers (guess what it looked like?), Sam set up his propane grill while we others tried to start a camp fire because with the sun going down, and the wind going up, it was getting seriously cold.  Like, see your breath cold.  But the wind made it impossible to start a fire so we snuggled into the sand or stood near the grill.  The grill Sam kept calling Hawaii, a joke that made him giggle in the sweetest way ever.  But cold or not, that fish was cleaned in a jiffy with an uluak that had belonged to Sam's mother and made by his father.  Technically, uluaks are "women knives" but Sam handled it like a pro, gutting the fish in no time at all.  We ate it seasoned with Johnny's Seasoning Salt, a familiar staple when I was growing up, atop Pilot Bread, a kind of big cracker that I have had before but the others had not.  Katelynn really enjoyed it until she saw how many calories they are.  But with the freshest fish ever, they are divine.

By this time, we White people were chilled to the bone and not at all looking forward to the ride home.  But Cam gently managed to get Sam to agree to leave and not stay out all night.  The sun set as we rode home, making the water look to me, in my amber goggles, like pink sand.  At one point, we slowed down, turned around and made for shore.  Sam had spotted a fox on the shore but something made him decide to not shoot it that day.  I don't know why, but I am kind of glad.  Fish are one thing, mammals are harder for me to think about killing, even if it is for subsistence reasons.

Back in the bay, we were joined by a bunch of other boats slowly making their way to the shore.  At first I thought it was some kind of maritime courtesy but actually Sam hung back to find out where the channel was that evening.  One boat carrying Sam's cousin (very few of the people we saw were not Sam's cousins) got stuck on a sand bar, so we drifted closer and once we got stuck too, Sam jumped out to help the other boat get unstuck.  Cam grumbled but jumped out too, while Katelynn and I discussed how glad we were for the cultural norm that forbade us, as women, from getting out to help too.  Then everyone was unstuck and we made our way to the shore near Sam's boat rig, where I was greeted by one of my students, who is the sister of the people in the boat that got stuck and so, is also Sam's cousin.

Hauling over 100 pounds of salmon from the boat up the beach, made up of mostly pea gravel, was no fun, nor was the realization that now we had to gut and fillet the fish.  Cam volunteered his kitchen for the job, and by working together we got it finished in little under an hour.  My job was to carry the fish from the truck bed up the stairs to Cam's kitchen.  While I was glad earlier for the balaklava and goggles, boy was I glad now for the leather work gloves I bought at the store on a whim right before we left!  Sturdy and thick and warm, they helped me get a good grip on those slimy fish, and I was thankful that my first few days in training I learned the proper way to hold a salmon.  Stick the index finger in the gill, and hunt around until you can hook it by the lower jaw bone.  That way, the fish is less likely to bite you back, it holds together nicely and using this technique I could carry two at a time up the stairs.  Until the last load when I only had one, of course this was the trip where my knee went out just enough, not to hurt, but to make me drop the fish right onto the carpet at the top of the stairs.  So while Katelynn and Cam washed the fish blood off the sink, floor and counter tops, I scrubbed it off the carpet.  I thought how strange it would sound to someone who didn't know what we were doing to overhear our conversation.  We looked like extras from Dexter when we were all finished but we also came away with lots of fish to share.  We all split the haul equally even though I only caught one, and decided that now we are fishing buddies for life.

 Even if I never go again, I can say with pride, "Oh yeah, I caught a salmon in Alaska once."

The first month

As of today, September 13 2015, I have been in Alaska for a full month.  In that time I have learned that I have a lot to learn.  But I have managed to pick up a few things:

If someone asks if you have boots, that means they want to take you fishing.

Water resistant clothes are rags, and Columbia sportswear is better known as kindling for their wonderful fire starting ability.

There is not enough beach grass in the world to start a fire when the wind comes whipping up the Togiak river.

Raised eyebrows means you did something funny.  Or yes.  Sometimes both.

Scowly faces means the kid didn't do the assignment and has no intention of doing so.

A shrug can mean "no", "I don't know", "I don't want to know" or "I'm tired of talking to you."

"Up the hill" means you live outside of the downtown area.

Yupik names carry great significance and are based on keeping the name of a respected person alive.

Birds are wonderful parts of God's creation but even more wonderful when eaten.

All birds taste like chicken, except ptarmigan which tastes like meat.

Fish nose is the best part.  Except for the hump of a male humpy.

Ball means basketball.

Sunglasses are dumb but goggles are essential.

There is such a thing as a dress hoodie.

And finally, sunlight has nothing to do with time.

The funeral

In a village of 800 people, one death ripples more than elsewhere.  Last week, an Elder passed away from cancer.  She was older, beloved and related, it seemed to me, to nearly everyone.  At our staff meeting last week, Margi the secretary announced the details of the funeral weren't set but that there would most certainly be a potluck after the service and everyone was invited to bring a dish.  She emphasized that everyone was invited, even those who had never met Flora.

This set me a quandary.  I feel that funerals are a private type of situation and I could never quite understand why anyone would want to go to one if they didn't have some type of connection to the deceased.  A few years ago, I did a one-day turnaround trip from Portland to Seattle to attend the funeral of the mother of a girl I went to grade and high school with but hadn't seen in years.  To this day, I am not sure if Anne Marie knew I was there but I felt better for having gone.

I asked around my fellow White teachers and only one planned to attend the funeral but she was a relative.  Finally I asked the Yupik teacher who works across the hall from me, and whose son is in my class, "Is it more offensive for me to attend a funeral for this Elder I never met or to not show up?"  Her eyebrows went up, a sign around here that someone is amused by my ignorance of local customs.  She told me that no one would think less of me for not going, especially since I am in the category of Newest Teacher.  But then she muddied the water by adding that I was welcome to attend if I wanted.

Part of me really wanted to go, for the pure motive of curiosity to see what a traditional Yupik funeral was like.  I do not know if Flora attended one of the four churches in town or if there would be a religious component to the service.  I thought about my food in the pantry and what I could cobble together for a "hot dish" to offer.  I thought about what to wear in this land of jeans and hoodies.

In the end, the decision was fairly easy.  I simply didn't feel comfortable going.  But when a few of us were retuning from town for mail and groceries, we found ourselves accidentally in the funeral procession.  How did we know?  Not motorcycle cops escorting a hearse but the sight of the casket in the back of a pickup truck, held in place with what appeared to be bungie cords and five guys hanging onto it.  Up the hill we went, eventually splitting off to the school road while the rest went to the cemetery, located next to the dump.  Alaskan practicality at its best or unfortunate coincidence?  Yet another question I am embarrassed to ask.

Gym Night, singluar

They come in pairs.  Sometimes trios but mostly pairs, due to the confines of 4 wheelers.  The carry their gym shoes in plastic grocery bags, like precious gems.  They rarely speak but greet me with lovely grins and upnods, a single dollar bill offered as they enter.

It is Gym Night.  The time when anyone from the village can come to play in the school gym.  It is broken into age brackets of youngers (age 6 yrs-5th grade), secondary (6-12th grades) and adults.  It is the adults who bring their special shoes that clearly have never been out of doors, are especially reserved for these nights when they gather to play.

Teachers monitor Gym Night and all the funds raised go to that evening's chaperone's class.  Most classroom teachers have a class that they sponsor and for whom they fundraise.  One ambitious teacher wants to take the current 9th grade to Hawaii when they graduate.  A huge project made easier by the fact that there are only 8 of them at present.  I sponsor my class, the only one not claimed at the start of the year, and I am glad.  I already feel a special affinity for them and I like the idea of raising money to do fun things later in the year, though what that will look like I have no idea.

I took Monday nights because I know myself well enough to know that if I took a later day in the week, I would be too tempted to beg off and that is not allowed.  In the dark months to come, Gym Night is THE entertainment in the village and I have been told to expect upwards of 100 people per session.

This night, however, I had a total of ten kids, partially because the middle and high school were banned from Gym Night when a can of snuff was found in the high school boy's bathroom.  Tobacco use, snuff specifically, is a huge problem so the consequences are dire for everyone when it is discovered.

There were also ten adults who came.  For ten minutes they warmed up, shot randomly, ran around even more randomly but then at some signal unknown to me, all but two lined up.  The two captains made short work of choosing teams between the men, all between "just out of high school" and "still old enough to run, mostly."

And then they played.  The game was nearly silent, broken only by the squeal of shoes on varnished wood, and occasional "hooooooo-oooooooooowooot!" when an individual felt they had done something extraordinary.  Other than the volume level, the game played out the same as any I have seen on any court anywhere.  I am not a fan of basketball but watching these guys play, who have obviously played together for decades was really great.

When it was time to go, they all quickly helped me return equipment to the ball room and just as quickly changed back into their regular shoes, mostly athletic shoes but these ones were covered in the dust and gravel that is everywhere outdoors here.  They all left within three minutes of getting the whistle from me.

So I was shocked to be called into the principal's office the next day.  He asked if I knew anything about someone staying after Gym Night was over.  I told Sam that the custodian was there, but as far as I knew everyone else had left.  I gave him the names of the few men who introduced themselves to me, and asked what was up.  Apparently, someone either stayed behind or left a rock in one of the back doors to sneak in later.  The vandal went to the school's boiler room and removed vital parts!  We are now down to one boiler, which is not that big of a deal right now but will be soon enough when the cold weather hits in a place where it takes months for parts to come in.  There wasn't any indication of why the boiler was targeted or any evidence that the rest of the school was vandalized but the damage to the community has been done.  No more Gym Nights for the foreseeable future.  Teachers will have to double up to supervise, a thought I am not fond of.  Not that I don't want to spend time with my co-workers, I just don't want to have to do Gym Night more than once a week.  Maybe I'll do Friday nights; at least then I get to sleep in the next morning.

What a good lesson in consequences for the kids.  What a shame it had to happen at all.

Testing testing Alaska style

Ask anyone committed to education and they will bemoan the focus high stakes testing has on our profession.  It was one of the questions I asked in my initial interview, knowing that Portland was implementing a test this year that predicted 60% failure rates.  I was told that they did one in Alaska but it wasn't that much of a big deal.

Good thing.  This week I was to administer the so-called MAP test to my 6th graders on four of five days in school, one subject area per day.  I got ONE test completed.  Not because my students are low academically (some are, some aren't) or don't know how to use computers but because my new district (that I love, don't get me wrong) gave me absolutely zero training in how to administer the test.  I never got the proper pass words.  The passwords I did get for students were both irrelevant (kids don't need them to log on) and wrong.  I was never given even the slightest bit of guidance of how to do basic things like turn the test on, load it for my students, etc etc etc. 

Finally, in desperation, I begged my colleagues for help.  The secondary Science teacher gave me her passwords to use but we couldn't be logged in at the same time so that didn't work.  All of the secondary classes (6th-12th) took the test at the same time, straining the limited bandwidth.  The counselor, also new to the district, called the district office and managed to get a new password sent to me that actually worked, then took the time to walk me through setting up the test while my guys sat anxiously but patiently, for the most part, waiting for it to load.  This was after three days of spending nearly an hour in the computer lab only to be told "Well, we can't do the test today either; let's go to the gym."

To their credit, my students were amazing.  Every day we would march to the computer lab and try to get the test to load.  Only once did they get in trouble, and that was while lining up to go to the gym where they started playing around a little too rough for my taste.  "I can't get the test to load and we broke a computer" is not a conversation I want to have with my AP.  An AP who, admittedly, is in his first year as an administrator and feeling the learning curve.  But when I came to him for help, his only response was "Talk to Jasper."  Jasper is the tech guy.  Except that he doesn't appear to be able to do anything.  He is the one who gave me new passwords for the kids, which you do not need to take the test.  I am sure his intentions are good but it did not do anything for my frustration levels to be told, "Try loading it again."

Finally, on Friday with Cam the Counselor just as determined by that point to get this thing to work sitting by my side we were victorious.  The General Science test loaded.  The kids took it.  All but one finished, though I suspect one kid just skimmed and answered with no real thought into his answers.  Since we had about 45 minutes left in the day, I tried to load the Math test to at least get a start on it.  No big surprise, it wouldn't load.  I sent an email to the AP explaining that 6th grade needed to make up three tests next week but it is a week set aside to do district specific tests on the same subjects as the MAP test.  I have had zero training on how to administer those tests as well.

Here we go again.

The First Day of The Rest of My Life

The First Day of School has come and gone.  A day that I have anticipated since April.  In my nearly 14 years in education, I have only worked the First Day once.  Primarily due to being a Substitute when no sub works but also because every other job I had started after First Day.  Having more than a week to set up my classroom, plan lessons, find supplies, negotiate the various computer systems that are the norm for Southwest Regional School District was an unknown luxury.

Because of the age of my class, the 6th grade is in a strange position; not quite middle schoolers, yet no longer elementary.  We are on the cusp, and this year my school decided to take steps to ease us into a more middle school mindset.  I have my guys (non-gender specific) all day except the period after lunch when they go to the Secondary wing for Science like the big kids.  The way my students' eyes lit up when they heard this was delightful.  During this time, I teach 7th grade Health, a subject for some reason all the other teachers balked at.  Personally, I love it but more on that in another post.

I have 12 students total.  An even dozen.  Which leans toward easy ways to break up into groups, is enough to have discussion once the kids realize it's okay to talk (a cultural thing), yet small enough that I really can see what everyone is up to all the time.  Also, three of my students are taken out for roughly half the day to go work in the SpEd room.  Basically, I have one third of the number I would have had in Portland.  And one boy never showed up at all.  According to the rest, he never comes to school so that should make it interesting to create a relationship with him.

Obviously, this is also cause for concern.  These kids have been with each other since birth and things that might not have been a big deal when they were in the Primary wing might suddenly take on much greater significance now that hormones are added.  Hard to say but I hope to keep the drama to a minimum.  When she saw her placement next to a particular boy, Jasilyn* asked why she had to sit next to the "mean boy."  I told her it was so she could teach him to be a "nice" boy.  How her expression changed then from concerned and worried to a girl with purpose!  I expect that boy to be whipped into shape in no time.  By the way, he isn't "mean" so much as "antsy."  Ironically, she left school early to go berrying with her aunt/grandmother/mother I'm not sure which.

Because it was the First Day, my lesson plans focused mainly on procedures, how we do things in MY room, what to expect and what I expected.  So when 2:00 rolled around and I still had 90 minutes and nothing left to say, I did what any good teacher does: took them to the gym to run around for 30 minutes.  At the time, I had an aide, Frieda, working with me (to handle the three challenging kids?) who quickly organized a basketball game.  Basketball is huge here and everyone played with vigor, running out the boredom of a day spent mostly sitting listening to me drone on and on about how only water was allowed in the classroom, not sports drinks.

In the course of the day, I was visited by the Assistant Principal, the SpEd teacher a few times, and the new school counselor.  It was clear that they were all doing the New Teacher Check In, making sure my room, or hair, hadn't caught fire.  It was also clear that since they all left soon after arriving, that, for today at least, I had things under control.  Can't ask for much more than that.



*names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty