Rules rule as a rule

I had a good little chit chat with my principal on Monday. He gave me some good insight into working with kids. I summarized that I had allowed my kids to help suggest the rules we'd be abiding by in our classroom. He wisely explained, "Rules without love only lead to rebellion." How true! I myself am not a stickler for rules but I do think there are some important things that must happen to make a classroom run smoothly like no interrupting the teacher during instruction. Some classes took it seriously while others took it as a joke. It was a great experiment, but I don't think I'll do it any time in the future. My one rule, although rather abstract, is do to others what you would have them do to you, Jesus' golden rule. However, I must make it clear as to how that will apply to our, i.e., student-teacher, relationship.

The week offered altogether nice weather with sunny, albeit breezy days. The running was absolutely tiring with a 10-miler followed by two straight days of hill workouts and a two lap run of the 5k x-country course here. On Friday, the strong high school runners went up and ran in Nome. I heard that they took second place. I took a motley crew of 11 runners varying from upper elementary to high schoolers to our neighbor Hooper Bay.

Friday morning was extraordinarily hectic as I didn't really know how it was going to go down. So I prepared my sub plans for the whole day, yet taught 1st hour and part of 2nd hour. As soon as I arrived, our athletic director and high school x-country coach approached me and notified me that I needed to make sure and get the x-country sign up sheets to everyone. I made some copies and distributed them to a few of the middle school runners before school. Then I had to pick up their uniforms and warm-up suits from a dryer in the home ec room. I was running here, there, everywhere but everything finally fell into place. as we left around 11AM for the airport and the charter soon landed to take 1 load over to Hooper and 20 minutes later the other load.

The flight was absolutely stunning with panaramic views of the area. The smattering of small lakes and meandering rivers gleaned in the sun. All of Hooper Bay was visible including the mouth leading to the Bering Sea and the Bering Sea beyond. I took some pictures and relished to stunning views thinking all along that it may not be that difficult to hike over to Hooper from Chevak after all. It's only 17 miles away. However the distant mountains seem to be blocked my some bigger rivers.

Arriving in Hooper Bay, the vice principal Mike gave us a ride over in a big blue Ford F250. We had lunch in the cafeteria and the kids went over to the store. Hooper Bay is definitely bigger than Chevak and is in the midst of becoming the hub of this area with a clinic and a number of very nice town houses being built fairly close to the airport. I shook hands and met quite a few people I had met last April. The locals were especially cordial as many stopped to chat in Cup'ik with me. It was very nice to see some of my old friends and to visit with some new ones.

The running course ran along the beach around a large sand dune and back to an area they aptly call the dunes. Competitors must then run a loop through the dunes before crossing the start/finish line. They ran two laps. It was supposed to be only a 5k (3.1 mile) course but as some of my runners mentioned, "It looks far." And it was. The boys race was a battle the whole way between a local high schooler and our top middle schooler. They ran neck and neck down to the last sprint where Billy eeked out the victory in 34:18 with Joe crossing one second behind him. Many of our guy runners fell after crossing the finished line. They were all tired and thirsty but they kept a great attitude about it.

On the flight back, my team taught me what "roller coasters" were. Curt was signaling something with his hand and saying "Roller coaster?" I thought at first that he was making fun of the pilot. Finally, I got the message and obliged them. "I guess they wanna do 'roller coasters'." I muttered still wondering what they were talking about. As soon as the pilot went into them, I understood. "Zoom!" we went up steeply. "Vroom!" we went down steeply. A steep right. A steep left. Back down. And up once more. We were all having so much fun. I was laughing so hard I was crying.

There seems to be a lot of discussion of stereotypes and what constitutes culturally responsive teaching. I think that this is definitely a hot bed for such discourse right now, which is incredibly fascinating. It makes me feel like I'm in the right place at the right time. Now I'm not saying anything about this particular village and people but stereotypes and strong racial prejudices still run ramped here in the U.S. and throughout the world. This kind of stuff really hits me hard. It really hurts. I bawled my eyes out when the theme of racism stood out in the movie "The Freedom Writers" last summer. Embarrassed, I had to try to hide my eyes from my fellow students in a class I was taking in Sitka.

Cooking a qucillgaq "sandhill crane", I walked over to the post office to see what I had. I had recieved 3 boxes from my dad and his girlfriend Gere. It came as such a delight to receive them. I was smiling ear to ear as I ripped the boxes open to find some plates, bowls, trail mix, and oohie gooie peanut butter among other things. I've been scrounging on next to nothing since arriving and so it was nice to get a bit more.

Yesterday was one of my favorite days 8-28: "We know that God causes all things to work together for the good of those that love God and are called according to his purpose for them." Nallunritarput tamaitni Agayutem calilaucia assilrianek kenkesteminun, kelgumalrianun pillerkiullermitun.

Piurci

Nunaurluq

This last week was filled with fun and challenge. We took 60 high schoolers out to the tundra, nunapik, to camp before school was to begin in earnest. Monday, the kids got all their stuff together so we could leave early on Tuesday. Planning to leave at about 9AM, we left Chevak, Cev'aq, at a little after 1PM, which put us just at high tide. Good!

As a platoon of boats, we went down the Ningliqvak from Chevak out into Hooper Bay. All the rivers in this area are meandering rivers, meaning that travel by boat might make a 5 mile distance as the crow flies 15 miles or longer by boat. As we went down the river, I got myself comfortable in the bow of the little boat 5 of us were in. Joining me in the front was another student, Mik. Mik turned to me and said, "Eight more bends until the bay." Then, after I had lost count, he renewed the count at "Three." It truly amazes me how many locals have all these lands all mapped out in their minds.

Mik also shared some stories about hunting seals in this area. They'll spot a seal, chase it, shoot it, and then spear it (which is especially important in fresh water because otherwise the seal may sink only to be lost). Hunters must give their catch away for the first 5 seals to elders. Then, they are considered a "nukalpiaq", an expert hunter, and can keep the catch for themselves and their family. I wonder if they would give any of it away.

After vrooming along the shores of the bay for a while, we went up another river and eventually a small slough, kuigaar, which served as a short cut to another river. There, we got out of our boats and the drivers discussed options for camping. I don't know why they chose the spot they did but we got back in the boats and went up river a mere 2 minutes before setting up camp.

That evening I had one of the best runs of my life. I took the xcountry runners for an hour long run. Since the tide was going out, many of us took off our shoes and socks and ran barefoot along the muddy shores. We'd often run across tiny sloughs that were about 5 feet deep but empty of water. I loved striding one foot into the slough, having my foot sink deep in the mud, and splashing the mud all over. We continued along until we reached a big slough about 30 feet across. We really enjoyed hanging out there. We jumped into the water, swam across, and played in the mud. The mud offered an extraordinarily fun slip and slid into the water. When I crossed back over, I noticed some red droplets on the ground. I asked, "Is someone bleeding." Sam, I believe, promptly answered, "Oh, that's the bird I caught." Evidently he had chanced upon a bird and caught it by hand. Wow! So he carried it all the way back to camp. Yummy, fresh bird stew.

Although we were going to camp there for 3 nights and return to Chevak on Friday, the weather turned and that added with the stress of managing 60+ students we decided to go back. Whatever you do in this region depends on nature's time table. We took down camp and waited. Waited for what? For high tide to come, silly. So, we left camp around 10PM. Entering the slough, we often had to turn off the motor and row, row, row the boat gently down the stream. Finally it became very intense finding our way into the Ningliqvak to get back to Chevak. If the boat goes to the wrong spots out in the bay, it could easily get stuck in the mud. And by this time, it was midnight and was quite dark. But we made it thanks to some people who went up quickly and coached us in by their lights and CB.

We returned to Chevak at about 2AM and many kids with their 4-wheelers met us there to help run load and people to their homes. High school was cancelled for the next day, but we had a normal day on Friday.

It was great to get out on the tundra-nunapik-and go to some old sites. In particular, we went to Nunaurluq "Poor land", which as the story goes was home to the Cuut until a Japanese box fell and got many, esp. children, sick in the mid 1940s ca. WWII. John, my coworker and a highly respected figure in the village, shared a story of a Catholic missionary who lived there. I forget his name but it started with Father...The story was of him out hunting with a local guy by motor boat, with perhaps a 7HP engine. The driver, a local, had troubles driving him into shore as the Father was preparing to shoot a bird, a moose, or something.

Piurci

Quite a week!

It was quite a week! We had two days of PEAK training at inservices followed by a day of smartboard. Finally on Thursday we had a workday to work on decorations in our rooms and prepare for the first day of classes on Friday. They were good days and the inservices were very helpful but it will make the teaching this year very challenging. It's hard for me to know that I could do better if I just had more time. But I'll just do the best I can. After all, that's all I can do.

Classes began on Friday the 14th. Whew! I was exhausted by the end thinking to myself, "Wow and I am going to be doing this everyday for how long?" My throat hurt too a little bit from speaking a lot of Cup'ik. Actually I was speaking something in between Yup'ik and the divergent dialect spoken here called Cup'ik. But who's counting? I had my students come in and on an index card write some info about themselves, and on the back either draw a picture or tell a story about something they did this last summer. Then I introduced myself in Cup'ik first then in English as most could only understand a little. Before finishing the day with lateral thinking puzzles, I shared with them my commitments to them as their teacher.

I'm working hard at writing lessons and mapping my year long curriculum. Therefore, I will know where I am going. I've found it very difficult since I don't really have any structure, i.e., I can do pretty much whatever I want. With 5 preps-I teach 1 geometry class, 1 Cup'ik language class, 2 Algebra I classes, 1 Precalc/trig class, and 1 HSGQE (High School Graduation Qualifying Exam) prep class-I imagine that I'll be more than busy this winter, especially considering I'm really learning Cup'ik, too.

The X-country team did some good hard runs last week. We started off with a 7-mile run basically going all over town: school to dump to airport back to dump passed the school to the old airport and back to the school. It was a be-A-U-tiful day. On Tuesday, after a 1.5 mile warm up, we ran 1/2 milers as fast as we could along the old airport. A couple of times the thoughts of giving up and/or puking came to mind, but I hung in there with the guys and even got stronger by number 5 almost being able to keep up with the speedster of the team, Harald. Wednesday, we ran the figure 8 X-country 5k course twice. I didn't run with the team unfortunately but had fun anyways and the breeze was stiff and cool. I figured I'd run barefoot the last two miles so I took off my shoes and socks and ran up the hill past a family out for a walk. They must have been thinking, "What a crazy dude!" Finally on Thursday we went out to the pit to run fartleks: 1 minute all out followed by 1 minute easy, 2 minutes all out followed by 2 minutes easy, 3 minutes all out followed by 2 minutes easy and so on and so forth to 5 minutes and back down the ladder to 1 minute again. Whew, what a run!

This weekend Chevak had a dance group from Nome over for Tundra Fest. So from 8:30-11:30 PM there was dancing, yuraq, at the tribal hall. The King Island dancers from Nome were great and very fun to watch. They often put on masks and made animal noises as they danced. It was a kick for everyone. The Chevak dancers were also very good and people from Niugtaq came over to join in the celebration and dance as well.

I still haven't left town since arriving, which is rather unfortunate. However, I haven't really had the time to anyways. I am thinking that eventually-maybe next spring-I'll make a wooden qayaq then I could really get around out here and that'd be a blast. Next week we will be leaving the whole high school for a week out on the Bering Sea at a site called Nunaurluq "poor land". I really look forward to getting out there and getting to know the students more and the land of course. And it will be nice not to have to be "on" and write out all my lessons for one more week.

Piurci
(I'll be using this Yup'ik/Cup'ik word for good bye. It comes from the stem pi- which doesn't have any meaning; it's empty. The closest thing would be "do". Then -ur(ar)- means to keep on V-ing. Last, the suffix -ci means "you plural 3 or more". So piurci means "keep on keeping on, keep doing what your doing, or carry on, etc.")

Cool Runnings

Although it's been a rather cool, wet summer here in Chevak, recently the clouds have parted leaving a light blue sky and the sun. When the sun is shining, it's bright and I need my shades to keep from squinting. The terrain is a beautiful brown and green, full of tundra, or nunapik "lit. real land". The land rolls over hills and down to ponds, lakes, and rivers. I thoroughly enjoy looking down little hills down on translucent meandering rivers glistening in the sun. It really gives the land a holographic look. And no trees! There are no trees to block your view or the wind to anything, quite the opposite of the Panhandle.

As a side note, what is your idea of tundra? You probably think of a large portion of land that goes on and on. You might consider it as continuous and you could continue travelling over the land by foot pretty much as far as you may want. The Yup'ik/Cup'ik word for tundra nunapik, however, refers to an isolated island-often rather small, e.g., football field size-surrounded by water. Often you need boots to walk in as well. Basically, nobody gets far in this terrain without a boat.

After an excruciating day of paperwork on Friday for my first inservice, I joined the Xcountry team for a 5k time trial. As I hadn't been running much this summer, 4 runners demolished me. I finished in 22:45. I think that I'll be able to give them a run for their money by the end of the season. I might get to join the team as an assistant and travel to Anchorage, Seward and the like for their races. Maybe. I also enjoyed an eight miler yesterday running over the same course a few times, the cool breeze blowing over the tundra.

I've met most of my colleagues. A few have invited my roomie, Ken, and me over for supper or dinner. There's only 3 new teachers so it should be a good year. The past 3 years have seen huge turnovers of 12-13 teachers each year. So, it's a good sign. I'm working on envisioning how my classroom should look like, my classroom procedures, rules, and just the general structure of my classes' lessons. As far as I know, I'll be teaching 2 Algebra I, 1 geometry, 1 Cup'ik language, 1 Precalc/Trig, and 1 remedial/HSGQE (high school graduation qualifying exam) classes. As my grandpa says, "I'll be working to beat the band this year." Most of my texts aren't very helpful for the structure, so I need to do something about that...SOON.

I went to a Catholic church this morning. The Jesuit missionaries brought the Roman Catholic church into this area and along the Yukon. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the Scriptures in both English and Cup'ik and greeting the other people. We prayed and sang in both languages, too. However, out of a village of about 1000, we had a dismal turnout of about 25 or so. That's not to say the people are at all dismal, they aren't. In fact, as Tony the Tiger says, "They're great!" And it was really nice meeting some elders and people of all ages at the church. They have an evening one as well but I didn't go.

Piurci

Beginnings

The Bible reminds us of beginnings. In John's gospel, he writes, "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning." (John 1:1-2) Also, in the first book Genesis, it says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light." (Genesis 1:1,3) Wow, amazing!

So here's the beginning of my blog in Chevak. I chose the name "ghoti" for a good reason. English playwright George Bernard Shaw was quite a cynic. He absolutely despised the English writing system pointing out its inadequacies and especially its lack of logic. He arued that the word "fish" might as well be spelled "ghoti" instead. Notice the sounds in the word "gh-o-ti", where gh=the gh sound in tough, o=the o sound in women, and ti=the ti in nation. Hence, ghoti=fish. Fishy, eh?

The Eskimos are known to be big fish eaters and especially the Yup'ik/Cup'ik Eskimos. In fact, folklore suggests that the very word "Eskimo" comes from an Algonkian language meaning "eaters of raw meat/fish." The generic word for fish in Yup'ik (I believe in Cup'ik as well) is neqa, which also by the way is a generic word for food.

Piurci