Written by: Joe Wilson, CITC Biology Teacher, Bartlett High School
As I recall the trip was going very well. We had made great progress on the shelter in the first two days. The first day of fishing was fun for the boys but in my mind, it was incomplete. We had gotten a variety of cod and rockfish but not many Halibut. I had tried to get them to a great spot but the weather and tide conspired to keep us away. We decided to make a push to try to get to there for the last day but there was a lot of work to do. There were a lot of logistics to make it there by the 10 am slack tide. There was also the problem of weather. It would probably get rough at that spot right after the tide, too rough to be comfortable or with enough safety margin.
The boys working on the gravel pad and shelter
The next problem was that for a while I was the only one doing the work for getting ready. I could understand, we were all tired and it was already getting late. It wasn’t until I called a fireside chat to explain that our fishing success was connected to perhaps unexpected things. Wind, time, tides and the many chores of preparation the night before would be important. It was also very important that we work together to get this all done, otherwise the whole thing would fall apart.
While I was trying to illustrate connections for the boys I was impressed by the connections and questions that I was seeing as a teacher. Wasn’t this the skill that they needed to keep from being stuck in school and therefore shouldn’t we be doing more of this kind of thing at school? Was Devin’s understanding of time and tide better because of his cultural roots in Kodiak? Was AJ’s understanding of cooperation sharp because of his connections to the Kuskokwim? Would this experience help in school-related goals and objectives? The most immediate question was would the boys pull it together enough to allow for the journey in the morning? Would we then find the Halibut?
Answer:
We did make it to that hot fishing spot and the boys caught the limit in about 6 minutes.
AJ is shown above with his largest fish and right after we got the last fish aboard the weather got bad and we had to leave. On the four hour drive to go home, they related this experience to their experience of life in the village and it seemed that everyone that hears the story could relate to the values of hard work and cooperation. The next year in school both boys reported that the experience helped, in fact Devin took Chemistry the next year and did very well.
Both young men did such a good job and had so much fun, that they proposed to continue by forming a club. The idea would for a group of students to work hard on their schoolwork and to plan a larger trip. This is an idea we are still working on here at Bartlett.
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