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
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