Promise of things to come

Mom tells me that some people still check this hoping for updates.  I apologize for making you wait.  I've been posting my pictures and updates on Facebook, and you're more than welcome to check my profile there--I don't think you even have to friend me to see most of the pictures.

Knowing that some of you may still want to see them here, however, I will add the pictures and updates from fb, and duplicate any further ones here, but it may take some time.  I'll do my best to have it done by this weekend.

Tim

Playing with Polar Bears

Well, I'm going to have another rural Alaska adventure this year!  I'll be headed to Barrow--yes, that Barrow, the northernmost city in the US--tomorrow at 5:10 p.m.  I'll be teaching 3rd grade at Fred Ipalook Elementary School, the only elementary school in town.  It will be, however, the largest elementary school I've ever taught at--680 students K-5.  By comparison, Will Rogers in Edmond, where I first taught, had 600-620 students K-5.  The principal says that there are 4 or 5 teachers per grade level, so I should also have one of the largest classes I've had--when I do the math, I get an average of 25 students per class.

I'm very much looking forward to it, believe it or not!  First, I'm very glad to have a job!  Second, there's the cool factor (very cool, of course), of living north of the Arctic Circle.  Third, Barrow is a town of 4,000 people, complete with restaurants (plural) and a well-stocked grocery/general store.  Fourth (though this maybe should have been first), there's a Catholic parish there that I can plug into.  Like all parishes in the Bush, they don't have a resident pastor, but I'm used to that from St. Michael.  Fifth, I get to learn about and experience the Inupiaq Eskimo culture--somewhat like, but not entirely, the Yup'ik Eskimo culture I experienced last year.  Sixth, there are polar bears in Barrow! (Yes, Mom, I'll be careful.)  There are more reasons, but I'm a bit unfocused right now, since I'm trying to get everything done by tomorrow.  How do I have time to post, you ask?  I can't take my totes (never unpacked from St. Michael) to the post office until the pastor of my church here in Anchorage gets back with the keys to where they're stored, so, as much as I have to do, I can't do any of it for a while.  Hence the post.

I'll post pictures and more impressions once I get there, but I can't promise to be too prompt about it:  school in Barrow started today, and so I'll have only the weekend to get everything ready (at school and at home) and be ready to teach on Monday!  Prayers are still very much appreciated.

AMDG

Tim

School's out...and it's snowing?

Yes, my friends, today is a memorable day.  It's the last day of school in SMK, and it is not yet spring, anywhere in Alaska.  Anchorage, for example, expects to get three inches of snow today, and we had a mini-blizzard this morning around 7:00.

The last day was relatively peaceful and very enjoyable for all, though.  I held a sale in my classroom for the students to spend the rest of their classroom money, and they left laden down with pop, candy, and other similarly unhealthy junk.  We followed that with a performance by some of the classes (not mine) showcasing what they had learned from our percussionist-dancer-actor Artist-in-Residence, Eddie Wood.  I remembered to get a picture during the high school's performance:

The boys on the left put a little Yup'ik flair into their drumming, and the three on the floor were very concentrated on their rather complex rhythms.

After the performance, we had a balloon-stomping game, which most of the kids thoroughly enjoyed--I only saw one Kindergartener in tears from the loud balloons--and then hot dogs, french fries, and pop for lunch.  The kids' day was done at that point, and we resumed working on our checkout lists.

At a brief faculty meeting, the departing teachers were given going-away presents, which also had an Alaskan flair:

Aside from being very cool, I always had a rabbit skin growing up as a kid, and it's nice to have a souvenir that doubles as a "comfort object."

We have a work day tomorrow, and are expected to check out of school by tomorrow afternoon.  Anyone who knows my work habits knows this will cramp my style considerably--I'm not sure I've ever been done at school before a week after the last day of classes.  But the principal leaves early next week, so it's gotta be done.  I even have to "check out" of my apartment on Monday, though I won't leave until at least Friday.  Again, anyone who knows my housekeeping skills (or more precisely, my poor housekeeping habits--my momma did train me better) knows it's gonna be interesting to see if my house can be presentable by then.

For those of you who don't already know, I won't be returning to SMK next year.  I had to make the decision in February, since the village schools try to hire in March and April, but I didn't want to make it public until the school year was over.  It's been a great experience, but some of the challenges one faces in many village communities are ones that I don't think I'm the best person to help solve.  So where will I be next year?  Please tell me if you know!  I've applied throughout Southcentral Alaska (ANC and environs), but they (I think? I hope?) haven't started hiring yet, so I haven't gotten any more than one interview, and haven't heard back from them.  I'm not officially worried about next year--I'm quite sure that somebody will need a teacher right before school starts, so if I haven't gotten a job by then, I'll fill that need.

If I end up in another of "Earth's imagined corners" next year, I'll continue this blog (at least as sporadically as I have this year).  At the very least, I'll post once more to let interested parties know where I end up--you have to know how the story ends.  Thanks for reading!

AMDG

Tim Main

Field Trip!

All year I had been saving our science unit on oceans to do at the end of the school year, once the snow  and ice had melted.  Guess I'm still an Oklahoma boy at heart--there's still snow, and the bay is still solid.

In fairness, it has warmed up slowly this spring, but measuring salinity, tides, water pollution--not really all that likely in western Alaska in May.

Even so, we took a field trip to the beach yesterday.  We were planning to collect and measure rocks, clean up pollution on the beach, and then just enjoy ourselves.  The last two got done, an as the song says, two out of three ain't bad.

I'll let the pictures (and captions) tell the story:

On our way to the beach--a hike of 1/2 mile or so

I was with the last group to arrive--Elias, our janitor, led the first group.  Joshua (foreground) wanted me to retake the picture so it looked like he was holding the class, but I was eager to get the whole group together.  The kids are standing on the beach, but the (solid) bay is the expanse of white beyond them.

Students journaling about animals and other things they had seen.  Some of the journals "mistakenly" got thrown into the campfire and had to be redone at school.

Elias (center) had the fire burning by the time I got there (no more than 10 min after him).  The kids enjoyed using their graded homework as kindling, though you can see that some of it tried to blow away.  If Elias hadn't been there, we would have (1) had a cold lunch and (2) had to go back much earlier.

One of the local dogs, Chica, chose to come along with us.  She got at least two hot dogs for lunch; the kids wanted to feed her more since she has puppies to nurse.

A short-lived kickball game

On the hunt for pollution

Bernelle had the find of the trip--the skull (and backbone) of a small fox.  She and all the boys found it fascinating; most of the girls found it gross.

Another view of the skull.  Mr. Main found the skull fascinating, too!  The jaw was intact and operable, and there was a "beard" of fur left on the chin.

The results of one group's pollution hunt.  Many of the small pieces are "sea glass," from a ship that sank (?) in the 1800s.  Lots of glass still washes ashore, with the edges conveniently rounded, so it makes a nice collectable.

The pollution hunters that belong to the collection above: Jaylyn, Frank, and Cory

Pollution collection #2

Pollution hunters, group 2: Cheray, Autumn, Ryleigh, and Bernelle (and Chica again)

Last pollution collection.  Notice the black sand on all of our beaches due to its volcanic origin

Last group of pollution hunters: Eric, Silas, and Joshua.  Eric was also one of the 9 (all cousins) who made their First Communion two weeks ago.  I didn't get pictures of that, but I'll try to find some from one of the other teachers and post them.

Lunch around the campfire: hot dogs and s'mores

One more pic of lunch (and the photographer's finger) brings the photojournal to an end.

We left at 10:00 or so, but even leaving late, we were cold by 1:30, so we hiked back to school, watched science videos, and had a paper-airplane-flying competition.  Overall, a success: no injuries (we have our guardian angels to thank for that), no major discipline problems, and a mostly enjoyable experience.  Not so enjoyable for the kids was having to stay after school today when they didn't get their work done on time.  Lots of complaints!  Still, only two more days of school.  After that, I'll be packing up and leaving, to be back in Anchorage around the 25th.  I'll try to post at least once more from SMK before I leave.

Some will be interested to know that one of the students missed the field trip to go goose-hunting with his father, and another missed school today to hunt.  Like in earlier days in the Lower 48, hunting (always to eat) takes precedence over school.

AMDG

Tim

Tragedy in Stebbins

In Stebbins, the only village connected to St. Michael by road, one of the local residents was found dead today, a likely suicide.

The young man was a grandson of the head cook here at our school, and a relative of many of our students.  Suicide is all too common in Alaska's remote villages, so we're very fortunate that this has been the only such incident this year.

Please pray for all involved, especially those close to the young man.  The last thing we want is for this to be the first of many, and prayer is our greatest weapon against that possibility.

My classroom smells like seal oil...and other random factoids.

I plan on "mini-blogging" throughout the day, and updating as I go.

One of my boys went seal hunting this weekend.  The oil is notoriously hard to wash off hands and clothes.  Now he, and my classroom, smell like seal oil--a strongly fishy smell.

The snow is melting quickly--we're starting to watch where we walk, lest we fall into a pond.  I haven't seen signs of breakup on the bay, though.  It's light from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., and feels very warm, though the thermometer still says 15°.  I don't know if I believe that--it feels at least in the 30's.

20 more days of school, and we're all getting restless.  It's hard for people to go to bed at a reasonable hour when the sun doesn't!  Though students are increasingly tired and unmotivated, we're still seeing success: good 5-paragraph persuasive essays last week, and a good reading test this morning.

Spring in St. Michael

Yes, basketball season has been over for a while.  Sorry I'm just now getting back to updating this.

Spring in Alaska isn't quite what it is down south.  No flowers yet, nothing growing, snow still on the ground, and in fact, it still snows from time to time.  It's "warm," though--above 20° most days--and we love it!  The sunshine is beautiful to see again.  The sun is rising at 8:15 when I'm headed to school, and it stays light until around 9:00.  Soon we'll be back to long days.

I do have some pictures and videos, if they work, to upload, but I don't know if it'll happen today.  As I write, I have nine of my 12 students still here enjoying free computer time.  This is an important reward here, where most homes don't have Internet access.

At school, we have 11 days, as the principal reminded us this morning, until the dreaded "SBA's"--the state tests that determine so much about education in the modern American system.  We're preparing daily, but I'm trying to keep it low-pressure, since I don't want them to be so nervous they can't test well!

At home, I've been keeping myself busy with language learning.  Many of you know that I've always enjoyed learning languages, and I figured that was a more productive use of my time in the long winter evenings than video games or TV shows--although I have been doing some of that, too.  I've done some beginning work in Arabic and Yup'ik.  Arabic just because it's an important modern language and has plenty of resources for learning it; Yup'ik because it's the ancestral language of the people here.  Arabic has been fun, and I've been making some progress; Yup'ik not so much.  No one here really speaks it, as far as I can tell, and the best resource I could find is a university-level textbook with no audio component and no answers to the exercises!  I've been reviewing a few of my "old" languages, too: Spanish by watching a telenovela with English subtitles--not high-quality literature, but it keeps my attention--and French by reading one of Robert Heinlein's novels in translation.  Again, the goal is to pass the time with something that's not totally a waste of time.

I asked my seventh-graders if they had something they wanted to add.  Here's what I got:

"Natives rule!"
"It's open space here--lots of tundra, and all that other stuff."

Here are the advertised photos; I'll work on adding the video later.

Before an assembly last Monday, students with perfect attendance or no missing homework got rewards.  On the left is our principal, Carolyn Heflin.  In the middle is Pauline Richardson, one of our "parapros," or teacher's aides, whose daughter is in my class; on the right is another of our parapros, Bobbie Andrews, who's also the mayor of the village!  I thought it was neat that the mayor got to hand out the certificates, so that's why this picture made it.

In basketball-mad St. Michael, a visiting former professional women's basketball player, Tanya Crevier,  was a big hit.  She did a number of Harlem-Globetrotter-type stunts that were truly impressive, and gave the kids some good advice about work habits and discipline that I'm sure sank in much better coming from her than if hey had come from us.  I would have enjoyed the display even in the big city; out here, it was truly a wonderful opportunity.

The altar in our church decorated for Lent.  I may have been trying to capture the view through the windows as well, as it's been beautiful lately, but my limited photographic skills didn't allow that--obviously.

Some of the Yup'ik elders at prayer in the church.  The lady in the back is Rita Oyoumick, our parish administrator.  She leads services when a priest isn't available, handles the church's finances, cleans the church, fixes the stoves (heaters) when they go out, but is looking to retire now that she's in her early 70's.  No one has stepped up to take her place, though.  Our average Sunday attendance in 2013 has been 13 people.

Sorry if this was a bit random, but I figured stream-of-consciousness, at this point, was better than nothing.  I hope all is going well where you live!

TM

P. S.:  If you have any questions about St. Michael, or Alaska, or the tundra, or my seventh-graders, please ask them.  It would be easier to post regularly if I knew what you wanted to know about!

Interesting article in the Anchorage Daily News

The Anchorage Daily News, Alaska's paper of record, published a story a few days ago that described the situation of education in the Alaska bush very well.  I recommend it to all readers of this blog.  The title and link follow.  I'll talk more about what's happening in SMK soon...really!

Rural teachers struggle to make school meaningful to kids

http://www.adn.com/2013/03/01/2807644/rural-teachers-struggle-to-make.html

Basketball season!

We resumed school last week, and it seems to be going very smoothly so far.

It's a busy time of year, though, since basketball season has started (first game last night, another game this morning), and that's the most exciting part of the school year for most of the community.  As I did in Texas, I'm running the clock for the games.  I enjoy it, but I worry a lot about getting it right.  After a few games, I hope to be more comfortable and less worried!

Because of basketball, though, I'm likely not to be posting again until late February--with one exception I'll explain below.  Before I sign off, though, I'm going to upload a few random pictures that I took last semester but didn't get uploaded.

This and the next few pictures were taken from the top of the hill to the west of the village, which separates the village from the dump.  Taken at the end of September, and intended to provide a 360° view from that vantage point.

This one is facing north, more or less: the school is in the middle ground, and Whale Island is in the background.

The shadows are either me or Perry; the pipe in some of the pictures is our water/ sewer system.

Facing west (ish), overlooking "downtown" St. Michael.  My house isn't visible here, but would be just behind one of the light blue buildings.

Facing northwest (?) (Have I told you that St. Michael isn't oriented north-south, so directions are hard to estimate?)  The school is in the middle ground on the left this time.  The large white "wall" is the material for repaving the roads.  About half of that wall is still there (1/12/13), waiting for summer.

Looking towards the southwest.  The post office and the road to Stebbins are there somewhere--or at least in that direction.

Perry enjoying our outing

This one out of order chronologically--the beach in late October.  If you look carefully, you can see a ship on the beach that has been there since the late 1800s.

Perry enjoying our September walk again.

My mom at Christmas wearing the qaspeq (summer parka) that was her Christmas present.  In St. Michael, qaspeq are used as formal dress (for women) in the winter as well as in the summer.  This one was not locally crafted, but is similar to those the Yup'ik women of St. Michael would wear.

Christmas in SMK

Christmas is starting early here this year!  This is the last day of school for the calendar year, but we wrapped up the semester last Saturday with a faculty work day.

Monday of this week was mostly dedicated to practicing for the Christmas program.  My seventh-graders sang "Silent Night" in both English and Yup'ik.  I was very pleased that all of my students participated, despite some last-minute cold feet (so to speak).  Before practice, my reading class watched The Outsiders, which we had just finished reading.  They enjoyed seeing it, and wanted to watch it again Tuesday, which we did.

Besides rewatching the movie, Tuesday was spent reviewing our astronomy unit, having a guest speaker to finish up our unit about Japan and the samurai--one of our teachers went to a school where Japanese was taught, so he qualifies as an expert here--and the Christmas performance itself.  My favorite was probably the preschoolers, who said the Pledge of Allegiance in Yup'ik and sang "Must be Santa."

For the linguists in my audience, this is not a village where Yup'ik is alive and healthy.  All the students use a few Yup'ik words, and "village English" is highly influenced by Yup'ik syntax, but only a very few elders actually speak Yup'ik conversationally these days.  (Disappointingly for me, I haven't been able to find someone fluent enough to really begin my research for my thesis, but I haven't given up hope.)  There are villages where Yup'ik is healthier, but like most minority languages, it probably won't last much longer.

Today we're having our Christmas party (see pictures below)--Coke, "juice" (the local word for Gatorade, Kool-aid, or anything of the kind), cookies, A Charlie Brown Christmas, the newest Ice Age movie, and computer time (especially valued since very few have Internet connections at home here).  I wasn't able to do as much in the way of Christmas presents for the kids as I would have been able to where I had access to a Walmart or something like it, but they each got a candy cane and a toy nutcracker, which they seemed to enjoy more than I expected.

Before our party, though, we had an experience unique to Alaska--stargazing during school!  Since it was still dark at 9:00, 15 min. after school began, we were able to cement our study of constellations by going outside of school and identifying them in real life.  We found Gemini, the Great Bear (of course--it's in our state song!), Leo, and Canis Minor.  We had learned more, but they weren't up.  The kids and I were both fascinated by the Skywalk app on my iPad that let us make positive id on the constellations we saw.

At church, the tree (plastic, of course, since the nearest live Christmas tree is probably at least 50 miles away), the Advent wreath, and tinsel are all up and decorated now, but Father hasn't been able to be here for Mass during Advent, since he had knee surgery a couple of weeks ago.  At midnight on Christmas the church will either have Mass or a Communion service, depending on whether a priest is available.  Fr. Mariusz will be here for New Year's, though, and I'm hoping he'll be here for Epiphany when I'm back.

Some of the houses have Christmas lights up, and some have Christmas trees (again, plastic, of course) in the windows--and the AC has Christmas items for sale and had a "Midnight Madness" sale until 9 p.m. the other evening (normal closing time is 7 p.m.).

Most of the teachers, myself included, will be leaving for Southern vistas (looking forward to more sunshine!) in the next few days, and then will be back in 2013, when winter is expected to really set in. So far, it hasn't been colder than -20 (air temp--wind chills have occasionally been down around -50), but we do have about a foot and a half of snow now, and temps should drop as the New Year begins.

I leave for my Christmas vacation tomorrow, first to Anchorage until Sunday, then home to Oklahoma; Perry leaves for his Christmas vacation tonight.  He's staying with a co-worker in Stebbins, and they get along well, so his weeks away should be relatively calm.  We'll see.

It's almost lunchtime here, so I need to start getting the kids ready--Merry Christmas to everyone out there in the other imagined corners!

Sunrise (around 10:00) from the windows in my classroom on Monday.  Can you see the snow gathered between the screen and the window on the left?

St. Michael's three-year-olds singing "This Little Light of Mine."

Two of my students enjoying their computer time

Some of the boys enjoying the movie

Most of the rest of the class enjoying their party.  The remains of the food are on the desk in the background.

Spelling Bee

A pic of the school in action.  Photos taken by Jodi Grewe, one of my colleagues.  The collage was put together by Jessie Peterson, another colleague and the announcer of the Bee.

Apologies

Yes, I'm still alive, and yes, I'm still in St. Michael.  I've never been very good about keeping up with correspondence, and the busy-ness of the school year has, typically, consumed most of my time.

Having said that, it should be noted that the past couple of months have been quite ordinary, and not really blog-worthy at all.  Every day in teaching has its joys and frustrations, and the first year in a new position is usually more frustrating than joy-filled.  This is a typical first year in a new position.  Each day I learn more about how to teach seventh-graders, and in particular, how to teach seventh-graders in rural Alaska, but to describe it would be to describe my day, or any teacher's day, in any classroom.  Many of you can imagine that quite well without my help.

Halloween was a high point, with all the kids in the village coming to each teacher's house to get their share of candy (which I suspect, but can't prove, some of them are still hiding in their backpacks and munching on surreptitiously during class), as was the volleyball tournament we hosted for a couple of schools from St. Lawrence Island, even more remote than we are.

I got to go to a math workshop in Palmer (a suburb of Anchorage, about 45 min north of town and just east of Sarah Palin's famous Wasilla) right before Thanksgiving; the workshop was good, but the most exciting parts were shopping and eating at restaurants (it was good to see my friends, too, but when you've been eating only your own cooking for months, and that almost exclusively what you can order from amazon.com...Safeway was a beautiful sight!)

Thanksgiving itself consisted of a colleague's wedding; she and her new husband hosted Thanksgiving dinner the evening after the wedding.  All of the normal Thanksgiving classics were there, except, I think, for pumpkin pie--I did make my pecan pie, though, and it turned out as good as i ever has--but including the Yup'ik delicacy of agoudak (sp?), known as "Eskimo ice cream," but made from shortening and fish of some kind.  I wasn't (no surprise) brave enough to try it, but that's probably just as well, since it was gone before anything else.  The day before Thanksgiving was festive, too, with the school cook preparing a Thanksgiving dinner for anyone who wanted to come.  It was quite well attended.

Our Christmas program (which we can actually call a Christmas program) comes up on the 18th.  My class is working on singing "Silent Night" in English and Yup'ik.  The bicultural teacher wanted a class to do that, and I volunteered mine.  Considering they're seventh-graders, there's been remarkably little complaining about the notion of getting up and singing in front of the community.  They don't sound bad, either, especially for a school with no music program.

The weather has finally gotten cold.  Until about a week ago, it was fairly mild, getting no lower than 0 at night and up into the teens most days.  Over the past week, though, it hasn't gotten above zero, and lows have been down near -20 (though I don't think we've actually gotten quite that cold).  Surprisingly, it hasn't been that hard to handle, with two exceptions:  being raised in the South, I don't know enough to keep all my faucets running in this weather, and the drain to my shower froze Wednesday night.  Since then, I've been showering at a neighbor's while they've been working on it.  They (the school custodial staff, that is) worked on it a bit on Thursday and a bit more on Friday, but it wasn't until about 8 a.m. this morning that the drain cleared.  No clue why it cleared almost 24 hours after they finished working on it, but I appear to have a shower again.  The other time the weather has been challenging was today, when the wind came up (30 mph, maybe).  Walking to school in subzero weather with a stiff breeze isn't particularly comfortable.  My Catholic friends will understand me when I say that it was a great opportunity to "offer it up!"

I'm going to close now after I post a few pictures that may or may not be really informative--I'm not a great photographer.  We're having a Communion service tonight for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception,  I haven't utilized my newly thawed shower yet (though you can be sure I left some water running in the bathtub this time!), and I still have some papers to grade.  No promises about when I'll write again, but I'm sure Mom will bug me about it if I eave it for too long--which is what got this post finally up.  Thanks, Mom.

Norton Sound from Unalakleet on my way to Anchorage.  This was three weeks ago, so sunset was probably 5 or 5:30.  Now the sun looks like it's setting all day--rises in the south about 10:00, sets in the south about 4:30.  That's Alaska for you.

I took this because of the mountains in the background.  Doesn't look as impressive as it did from the plane.  I'll spare you the other pictures of the same "phenomenon."  By the way: if you can avoid it, don't fly when you have a cold.  My ears are still unclogging, I think.

Looking down on snow-covered mountains.  Probably halfway between ANC and UNK.  Here in SMK, we have no such mountains, nor as much snow--about 2 in., I'd guess, not enough to cover all the prairie grass.

Termination Dust

It's definitely fall in St. Michael, Alaska.  Yesterday, from the windows of the church, we noticed what we would have called "termination dust"--the earliest snowfall--on the low mountains just south of us.  Yesterday evening, it snowed in an almost blizzard-like fashion for about half an hour, though it melted very quickly, and this morning, there was snow on the ground!  It was a very sunny day today, so that, too, is all gone, except for near buildings where the sun never reached.

The tundra does have fall colors, and I got a couple of pictures yesterday of the tail-end of them:

Of course, the pictures aren't the best, but you can see the red in with the yellow and brown, I think--the colors were more vivid a week ago, but I was sick and not thinking about pictures for my blog.  I didn't get pictures of the snow, as it wasn't light enough when I left for school for them to turn out.  We are so far west of our time zone that although the evenings are still long (light until close to 9), the mornings have already closed in, with sunrise not until after 8 and full light not until closer to 9.

Fortunately, I wasn't seriously ill at all--just a cold--but laryngitis with it, so Wednesday and Thursday I couldn't really talk at all.  There really aren't subs readily available here, but I was able to take Wednesday off to go to the clinic and rest my throat.  Thursday (and Friday, even though my voice was returning by then) I connected my computer to the projector and typed anything I needed to tell the kids.  They were very cooperative with the circumstances, I think.  I had recovered enough by Sunday to lead the Liturgy of the Word, and today, my voice is fully functional, even if raspy.

I promised some information on the curriculum here at St. Michael: I'll wait one more post for that, as I hope to grade some papers (which, you can imagine, I'm significantly behind on) before I need to leave to get to the store before it closes.  Some of you reading this will remember a time--as I just barely do-- when the store closing at 7 wasn't unusual; but coming from a culture of 24/7 big box stores, it does take some getting used to.

Hope all is well in your imagined corner of the Earth!

AMDG

Tim

Anthony A. Andrews School

I haven't yet gotten around to showing off my new school!  It's a beautiful facility, built just a couple of years ago.  The front of the school you've already seen.  Here's the inside:

Looking back at the school's entrance

The mural in the main hallway.  Haven't seen any of these in real life yet.

The school cafeteria

The gym.  It gets a LOT of use.

Some of the students' work, made in Cultural Awareness classes

The seventh-grade lockers, with the welcome sign only a little the worse for wear

The door of my classroom

My classroom, as seen from the entrance

My classroom, as seen from the back (notice the laptop provided for teacher use :) !)

In my next post, I'll give some details about what happens in a typical school day here and how it compares to other places I've been.

I'm off to lead the Rosary at church--the other Catholic teacher and I proposed beginning that as a Friday evening devotion.  Attendance has been limited so far, but we'll see how things progress.

But before I leave, a couple of shots of a very important building--the village post office:

The view as you approach the post office from the road.  The sign says "Alaska Army National Guard."  The flag is up when the post office is open--6 days a week.

Another view.  The gray skies have been typical of my time here, as have the puddles on the roads.