It all began with a girl. Or so many people thought. But the idea of moving to a remote Alaskan village has been with me for much longer. Back in my married life, my now-ex husband and I would joke about moving to Barrow just to see what it would be like to live in a place with weeks of no sunlight in winter and no moonlight in summer. But when the marriage dissolved, so did the dream.
Then I met the college professor from Anchorage and fell hard. She encouraged me to get my teaching license, which I did in the single hardest challenge I had ever faced. Other than negotiating life as a finally out lesbian and a single mother and a divorced woman with few financially viable skills, that is. The relationship didn't survive but the revived notion of moving North, way North, did.
In the winter of 2013, I went to live in Medford, Oregon for two weeks, working for striking teachers at an exorbitant daily rate. I ignored the politics of the strike and looked at it as a chance to work in a new district, excited to have two groups of my own students every day after six years of working as a substitute. The experience taught me that school districts are mostly the same but some things stood out: in Medford I had two or three paraprofessionals in the room with me at any given time, whereas in Portland paras only come in for severely disabled students; classroom management is the same as far as kids are concerned but teachers who don't have good skills in this area are dazzled by those who do (more than once I had to console a crying colleague who couldn't control their class). I told them subbing is the best way to learn how to keep a class in order, and shared some of my many stories of classes gone awry. The main takeaway from Medford though was that I could teach anywhere.
Fast forward to my last birthday. During a quick visit to my parent's, I mentioned that I planned to go to the Educator's Job Fair for the first time in many years. My mother chimed in, "You know, you don't have to stay in Portland now that Wendy is in college and seems to like it there" meaning I should move back to my hometown of Seattle. This got me thinking, hard, about where I should focus my attention. Returning to Medford seemed like a good idea, though I wonder how the other teachers would react if they found out I had worked their failed strike (really, their demands were ridiculous).
At the fair itself, I took a different approach than I had in the past when I had gone to this specific form of torture. No fancy suit, I wore my regular work clothes. I brought updated copies of my resume but no reference lists or elaborate lesson plans. My attitude was...not cocky or arrogant but rather a little tired and weary of subbing while acknowledging that my time as a sub taught me skills I would not have had otherwise (see classroom management above). I didn't intend to come off as desperate for a job but more as someone ready for a change. I explained to everyone I talked to that my daughter asked me to stay in Portland for the first year she was away in college but since she was thriving, it was time for me to move on. I got a lot of knowing nods at that instead of the blank incomprehension when I tried to convince people I subbed by choice, not because no one would hire me in Portland.
I talked to people from Medford, Palm Springs (mostly because their booth person looked so lonely-no one stopped to talk to her), Anchorage (where the Superintendent grilled me about my intentions, clearly wanting to weed out people who hadn't done any research into bush teaching), and Ashland before being asked if I could interview right then and there by the Bering Straight School District. This thrilled me no end, and I feel like I pretty much nailed it (and was proven right by an offer two weeks later). I decided I was done but in a spare glance back, I saw the South West Regional School District with its Alaska flag draped over the table. I thought to myself, "Hmmm, I wonder where that is?" and stopped to see.
It turns out, this pivotal moment changed my life. I met two very nice women who asked me to interview, again right then and there, this time not bothering to take me to the official interview room at the convention center. The discussion covered the usual teacher questions, then turned to realities of living in an area so remote it is literally impossible to drive there, a town with 1 store but plenty of high speed internet and salmon. I left feeling that this might, finally, be The One.
Another interview, this time by phone, and a week later, I had a contract signed, sealed and delivered. The position, 6th grade teacher to 12-14 Native Yupik children. The school, a PreK-12th grade school with a student population of 200. The town, Togiak Alaska above the Bristol Bay, a subsistence fishing village of 820. Sounds perfect to me. I leave in 6 weeks.
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