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.