New Math, Northern Lights, and Tea Time at Two

So I'm still not blogging consistently, and I still haven't done a picture post. Sorry for the delays everybody, when I have some time to sit down and work at this, I will! What an eventful week!


Monday rolls around like every other Monday. Everyone is groggy and still coming down off the weekend (and wishing for one more day). Needless to say I was among this group. But the fun didn't stop there. I walked into the office and break room to take off my gear and grab my first cup of coffee. Ginger walked in and asked if I was OK with whatever was on the bulletin board at the desk in the office, and I sleepily replied that I was, before saying “Wait, what?”. I came out of the room to find that the high school side's math teacher was out sick for the day, and I was first in line to sub for him. Now, I'm a secondary social studies teacher, and besides being a teaching aide in a bunch of different (and non-social studies) classes, as well as a sub for science classes 2 days, I thought why not? No, I'll never be a math teacher, but I won't pass up this opportunity either. So my Monday changed from a teacher's aide to a math sub, and it was fun. Every teacher here develops a weekly 'sub folder' just in case they're sick or out for whatever reason, so that the kids still get some form of instruction for the day. I spent the day working through the packets with each of the classes, which was fun in some ways because I actually remembered a bit more than I thought I knew from high school. It was quite the adventure of a day.


Tuesday I got to return to my regular schedule during the day, but in that schedule, I got to learn a bit more about Inupiaq culture. In one of my sections of the day, the kids got to sit and see a video made in one of the other villages, Koyuk, about their culture and heritage, interviewing elders from the villages for first hand information about the traditional ways of life, and how their living arrangements have changed. One thing that is really cool is that this culture has survived for more than 1,000 years living off of the land and the sea, migrating around the peninsula, but still surviving year round. A lot of the skills and techniques and even some technologies that they employ in their day to day lives has been honed and perfected over centuries of use. It was also really interesting because the elders that were interviewed for the movie were alive and attending school during some pivotal moments in their history. For example, many of them grew up in a time when whites were still only just coming to Alaska, so they remember the school houses where they learned English and other foreign ideas. A very sad byproduct of this however, is that some do not remember parts of their own language because teachers in that day forbade the use of it. Still, it's a culture that is alive and still thriving, and it's always fun to learn about things that are totally new to me. Another cool thing was that one of the aides, who I know as 'Bid', showed me a short book that is a collection of native stories and legends that was compiled by one of the former teachers here. Basically, this teacher went around and listened to oral interpretations of these stories, and tried to put them to paper, in order to preserve them in some way. It was really cool to read some of the stories, and I'm hoping to finish the book at some point.


Tuesday night was one of the greatest nights so far, because of one event. THE. NORTHERN. LIGHTS. Oh man it was excellent. Tuesday nights are guys game nights, so Steve, John, Greg and I were setting up a game waiting for Andy to get to the house. Andy busted down the door and says “Guys! The northern lights are out tonight!!” I quickly scrambled to my feet, because I've never seen these before, and this was the perfect opportunity. Angie, Steve's wife, grabbed her camera and followed us out. Now, a few things. First, light pollution here is actually worse than I thought it would be. I thought that it would be quite minimal, but the street and house lights are just enough to hinder star gazing. Second, ice covers all walkable ground. It might be this way every year, but because of the polar vortex a lot of snow melted and then froze again, so the ground can be hazardous to walk on. Angie, Andy, and I set out to find an area where the lights wouldn't ruin our eyes for looking at the Auroras. Angie joked that Andy and I had better be careful because neither of us have insurance under the school because we're only interns, to which we laughed. No sooner had she finished her sentence that I heard a “wuuhhhh” *thump*, and Angie was on the ground. Luckily she caught herself with her elbow and wasn't badly hurt, so we continued on. The northern lights is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. What happens is the Sun shoots off Solar flares into space, and those collide with the Earth, and get broken up in the Earth's electromagnetic field. Depending on what gasses are present in the atmosphere at the time, the colors can change, but that night it was a solid green color. I took some great pictures (I think), and it was truly mesmerizing to see the lights shift and move, ebb and flow from one direction to another, the waves and the spires moving around slowly. It's definitely a highlight of my experience here (get it? High-light. Sorry, I'm done).


Wednesday was another special day, because I actually got to be a Social Studies teacher! So Angie's fall while looking at the northern lights left her in worse shape than she thought. She hit her elbow hard, but the morning after, she felt it in her shoulder, back, and neck as well. The pain was pretty bad, so she took the day and handed the reins to me. This was also a good experience because the following Monday through Wednesday I'll be her sub while she goes to Anchorage for a workshop. It was a fun and exciting day, learning each of the different classes I'd soon be teaching, and seeing where they were at in History. The World History classes were watching a video on the Atomic Bomb (which is one of my favorite things ever), so it was fun to watch with them, and interject where I knew some extra information. I will say that it's hard to plan for a day, because it's unlike anything down in the lower 48. The content is about the same here, but the pacing is different, mainly because classes only last an hour, so figuring out which topics and content to group together for each day, can really be challenging. Thursday was similar to Wednesday except that Angie made it back to school, so I got to observe her teaching each class, picking up on her strategies and methods for instruction. The special thing about Thursday was that it was Friday last week. Friday was a day off, and an extra day to relax and enjoy a weekend, which was spectacular.


Saturday I got to go to a tea party. Let me elaborate. Zoey is the daughter of Liz and Nathan, two employees of the school here. She actually made invitations for tea time at two on Saturday, for tea and cookies. Have you ever seen the poster on the internet that says “No matter how tough you are, when a 3 year old hands you a toy phone, you answer it”? Yeah, same scenario. It doesn't matter who you are, when a little girl invites you to tea, you'd best plan to be there 5 minutes early. It was actually really fun because Zoey also invited a couple of the other teachers, and Angie and Steve's daughter Kaitlyn, and we all got to drink tea, eat cookies, and just hang out and have fun. It was definitely nice to just relax that way on Saturday. That and I'm always up for tea and cookies. But mostly cookies.


Sunday was yet another day of taking it easy and enjoying the relaxation of the weekend. One fun thing that we did was Breakfast for Dinner. Nathan and Liz invited a handful of us over for dinner, and we had waffles, pancakes, homemade maple syrup, skillet potatoes, and of course, Tang. It was delicious, and a nice mix up from my oatmeal and granola bar breakfasts. Again, I can't stress enough how great the teaching staff comradery is here. It's great that people want to get together after school and hang out, or do things like group dinners, or board games, or whatever. It definitely makes it a fun time. I'd have to say that if I was offered a job in the district this upcoming year, it'd need to be in Brevig, because I've be spoiled here. I'm sure the other schools also have warm and inviting teachers, but I've come to know this group, which has been a very fun experience.