October 1, 2010

Sharing

Written by: Doug Herron, PE Teacher, Bartlett High School

Every fall it is a tradition in our family to go moose hunting. This has been a tradition since I can remember. Fall time for my family was about hunting and gathering and sharing what we found with family and friends.

It was fall time and I was 12 years old. I had been anxiously awaiting the beginning of moose season and getting to go on my first “real” moose hunt where for the first time, I was going to an area where there was a very good chance we would find moose, but more importantly, I was going as a hunter, not a trainee. I had been practicing my hunting skills for years now and worked diligently on my marksmanship and gun safety and was finally ready to put it all to the test.

My father and I traveled many miles up river and made our camp. We glassed for hours each evening and motored up river in the mornings floating back down to camp looking for moose. It was towards the end of our hunt that I was losing hope. I had been counting down this hunt for three years and couldn’t wait to get my first moose. It was a right of passage. We decided to break camp and move downriver. The plan was to break camp before dark and then float a section of river my father knew held moose in the past. I was getting excited again. As we floated, I began to fall asleep.

The only thing I remember after that was getting a tap on my shoulder from my father and him saying to me, “Moose on the river”. I quickly woke up from my deep slumber, rubbed my eyes and couldn’t believe it. Just like my father had told me, “Be patient and quiet and we will find a moose on the river”.

There stood a bull moose, about 100 yards on the other side of the river just standing there trying to figure out what we were. It wasn’t long after that, that I remember standing over my very first moose and thinking to myself that I had finally done it. I will be bringing moose home for my family. I was very proud. We took care of the meat and headed back to the cabin. I couldn’t wait to tell my mom, who was anxiously waiting for the news. My mom had grown accustomed to me bringing home fish and small game just about every time that I went out. I knew that she would be proud. I was equally excited to be eating moose steaks from my very first moose.

Upon returning home, I was welcomed back by my mother who was very excited and proud of me. She was so happy that I had my first moose. We hung the meat and I was sharing my stories with my family. It was soon after that when my mom told me what I was supposed to do. Keep in mind that this was my first moose and I was so excited to be eating meat from my first hunt. And very proud that I was now a hunter. She informed me that she had already called many family members, elders and others who were unable to hunt themselves that I had brought home a moose and that I would be sharing it with them all. Where my mom came from it was a tradition to share ALL of your first animal with family and friends and especially with those who were less fortunate. She also told me that it would bring good luck to me and my family in the future.

In the best way that I could at 12 years old, I reluctantly agreed and it wasn’t long after when my mom shared with me how happy those who enjoyed the fresh meat were that I realized that sharing and providing moose for others had made me very proud. I have been fortunate throughout my years to enjoy many successful hunts and I attribute that to sharing my very first moose and many more after that.

September 30, 2010

Sharing

Written by: Dave Voisine, Reading Teacher, Willow Crest Elementary

The morning started out like any other morning in my 5th grade classroom, except for this pungent odor that stung my nostrils. After clearing my head, I asked the class if they knew where it was coming from. They identified the culprit. Jack, our class “gentle giant” sat in his seat, trying desperately to blend into the classroom and his surroundings.

Life in a western Alaskan Yup’ik Eskimo village in the middle of winter is very dark until 10 or 11 o’clock in the morning. Apparently, while leaving his house, Jack had accidentally stepped into a bucket of seal oil. To my western nose, seal oil odor was like skunk spray on steroids. Jack had proceeded to school without giving it a second thought. Once he was in the closed, contained air space of the classroom, the odor permeated every nook and cranny. I gruffly asked him to put his boots outside on the porch so we could all survive the morning, especially me! Jack politely followed my request.

After completing our morning activities, it was time for lunch. Since my classroom was about a quarter of a mile from the high school where we ate lunch, we had to get dressed for the weather outside in the dead of winter. Upon getting ready for our trek, there was a commotion with the students getting ready. When asked what was going on, all (except Jack!) replied that one of Jack’s boots was missing. I began to investigate the situation. There were paw prints leading away from the classroom, leading me to believe that the missing boot was taken by a dog hoping for a tasty meal.

Feelings of guilt and remorse overwhelmed me and I struggled to find a way to remedy this awkward (but humorous!) situation. I then remembered that I had a brand new set of boots at home. It just so happened that Jack’s boot size was the same as mine – 10 ½. While my aide monitored the class, I rushed next door to my teacher housing to retrieve my new boots. Jack put them on and we finally headed to lunch. I felt so awful about the incident that I told him he could keep the new boots.

Everything was fine again in the land of ice and snow – until the next morning. Jack arrived at school with a well-worn pair of tennis shoes. Disappointed, I asked him what happened to the new set of boots I had just given him. He replied, “Dad liked them so much, I gave them to him!”

This incident, which happened in Emmonak in the early 1980’s demonstrates the Yup’ik value of sharing with one another.

(Author’s note: During the following fall, I noticed a single boot near the boardwalk to my classroom. Eventually, I realized this was Jack’s lost boot, returned after the spring floods!)

September 28, 2010

Sharing

Written by: Michael Jerue, Student Support Advocate, Education Resource Center

Fish camp starts for us the fist week of June. My Uncle Charlie and I take an 18 passenger airplane to Anvik from Anchorage, takes about an hour and ten minutes. We then take a Navajo airplane (which is the mail plane) and fly 20 minutes to Holy Cross. We are met by millions and billions of mosquito’s and a relative that takes us to our Cache in their pick up. The cache is about the size of a one car garage. It has electricity for our freezer and all the supplies for fish camp. We don’t keep anything at fish camp, when we are in Anchorage, because people seem to break-in and take stuff.

We have two boats, one is the fishing boat and the other is the traveling boat. The boats are stored upside down in Holy Cross next to the Cache. They are stored upside down so they won’t float away in case of a flood; also the kids don’t play in them. Our fist job is to get the boats ready to be launched. At the end of the fishing season every year we take out the oil out of our kickers (outboard motors) so they don’t freeze in the 50 below weather, we change the oil and clean the kickers every summer. We pack all of our bedding, kitchen tools, food and everything else we need for the summer into the boats.

We haul the boats to the Yukon River to be launched, and then drive them up river 7 miles to our family fish camp. The first thing Charlie and I do is look for bear tracks. If there are any we check to see if they are fresh. When we know that it is safe we can clean the house so we can unload the boats. We go back to Holy Cross for two more boat loads. Our next job is to cut the grass with a weed eater, the grass can be 4-5 feet high, this is wear the mosquito’s live so it’s very important to cut the grass. Next, we clean the smoke house and out house. Then Charlie and I put the cutting table together.

For the first two days Charlie and I are eating can food, spaghetti (yum) and beef stew. Then we can enjoy some rod and reel fishing or duck/goose hunting for our home cook meals.

It takes about five days for the fish (King Salmon) to reach our fish camp from St. Michaels. When we hear the fish are at St. Michael’s we send for the cutters. The cutters are the girls (Betty, Nancy, grandma and anyone that wants to go from our family) back in Anchorage. They always arrive two days before the fish. Charlie and I pick them up from Holy Cross. Than our fishing season begins.

When we moved to Anchorage in 1958 my grandpa said we will always go back to Holy Cross to get our native food. He did that by opening up a savings account for fishing. The very first year we sold our fish strips to people in Anchorage. The money in the fishing account buys our food, plane tickets and kickers for our family to go back every year.

September 27, 2010

Sharing

Written by: Dustin Madden, Science Teacher, Bartlett High School

(Note: the name has been changed to protect the identity of the person in this story)

Melford. Someone reading an old National Geographic article about Alaska Natives definitely wouldn’t picture this guy in their head: he’s about 6 feet tall, has skin the color of a Saltine, and is often downright boisterous. Yet when you catch him in his quiet moments—between the parties, between the competitive softball games, between the dirty jokes told amongst friends—when you see him outside of the context of the Nome social structure, his Yup’ik heritage and values often shine through.

In October of 2005, I went to Nome to spend time with my family. I walked off the plane a different person than when I had originally left my home five years prior to attend college in California. I had entered the Land of the Midnight Sun at the tail end of its brilliance, and my memories of the many winters I had spent there during my youth had faded as surely as daylight in the fall. Though I wasn’t planning on it, I would end up spending my first winter at home since I was eighteen.

Winter in Nome was hard on me—after living in the year-round sunshine of California, immersing myself in the dynamic intellectual and social life of a university campus, and after having traveled all over the United States and several countries, spending winter at home felt foreign to me. The darkness and the cold that I had barely noticed growing up began to feel stifling, like the heavy blankets I heaped upon myself at night. The lack of stimulation felt as real to me as the icy winds, finding the uncovered portions of me and whisking away my energy.

During one of these blustery Nome days I was walking the streets with Melford. When we passed under the glow cast by the streetlight, I noticed he had on a pair of beautiful sealskin mittens. They were well crafted, down to the wolverine fur trim—a design perfected through hundreds of years of R & D by the First Alaskans. I couldn’t help but to openly admire them. I asked Melford where he had gotten the mittens, and he replied that he had made them. I was shocked; I’ve known Melford since I was in the fifth grade, and I had never seen him make anything before, much less a pair of mittens such as these.

Then suddenly my ogling was interrupted-- Melford offered the mittens to me. At first I didn’t think he was serious, so I declined to take them. Yet he persisted. I think he must have sensed the winter-time funk that I was in, because he was so sincere in wanting me to have them that I finally had no choice other than to accept the mittens. I thought of all of the time and effort he must have put into making them. Scraping the seal hide, sending it in to get tanned, cutting, sewing; it would have taken him weeks to make this first pair. Contrasting this effort with the ease with which Melford gave away the mittens really made an impact on me; this single act of kindness pierced through my funk and reminded me that though Nome has its problems, I can learn a lot from the traditional values practiced by some of its people.

This is a story about the cultural value of sharing as I experienced it in Nome, Alaska in 2005.

September 24, 2010

Patience

Written by: Shannon Keegan, Chemistry Teacher, Bartlett High School

In 1994, I joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Cameroon in West Africa. I was fully prepared to immerse myself in the local culture and thought that all I needed was the will and the desire and everything would come naturally. Not everything did. I quickly discovered that I didn’t have a knack for learning a new language.

I went through 3 months of training and lived with a local family who spoke only French. Learning usually came easy for me but this did not. My progress was so slow that I was told I might be removed from the program and sent home. The pressure to learn French was intense but the harder I tried the more futile my efforts became. It just didn’t happen.

Then several months into this experience, after very little headway, I woke up one morning and realized that I had been dreaming in French. Even better, I understood what was being said in this dream. For the first time I was not translating everything into French, I was actually thinking in it.

On that day the flood gates opened and I became fluent enough to get by. I graduated from training and was honored as most improved language learner. Then I was sent to live in the English-speaking region of the country where I rarely needed French again.

I remind myself of this experience when I am teaching students a new concept. Sometimes things don’t come quickly or as easily as we wish and it may take more than one try to understand. In the case of learning French, my brain took its own time working through this new experience and when it was ready, I got it.

There was a saying in Cameroon that still sticks with me. “Softly, softly, catch monkey. Hurry, hurry, break trouser.” Whether it’s learning a new skill or trying to reach a personal goal, we need to remember to have patience with ourselves.

This is a story about patience as I experienced it in the 1990’s in West Africa.

September 23, 2010

Patience

Written by: Ellen Kennedy, Language Arts Teacher, Bartlett High School

Larry was very suspicious of the CITC program (then called TREE—Together Reaching Educational Excellence) when we first opened at Bartlett in 2001. No one had ever shown him any particular attention at school as he remembered it. Why him? Why Native kids? Why now? The first semester he came late almost every day. Our Family Advocate worked with his mom and we worked with him to show him we were on his side.

The next spring he was a member of a Research Writing class, and he was doing a paper on modifications to stock cars to make them into street racers. One morning he came over with a folder of writing and pictures. “I’d like to show you this,” he said, sitting down beside me.

For the next twenty minutes, he showed me picture after picture as he talked enthusiastically about what he had discovered about changing regular cars into racers. When he was finished, I told him I was really proud that he had found so much and was doing so well. He smiled and walked away.

Then it hit me! He was sharing with me—unasked!

This is how I remember being rewarded for patience with my students at Bartlett in 2002.

September 21, 2010

Patience

Written by: Alice Metz, Teacher/Tutor, Education Resource Center

She was living with her Aunt and Uncle for two years, while her father was hospitalized in Tacoma, Washington. She learned to adapt living with her relatives. The relatives were like a replacement of her missing parent. At a very young age, it seemed hard to remember what was going on. The highlights are: She is well taken care of, learning responsibilities and most of all learn to share, love, and respect.

Then, a few years past and her father remarried and regained a few more siblings from the wife’s side. Having learned to share, love, and respect from a previous foster family, this arena was different. Why was it different? She was treated like an outsider from the rest of the siblings by her stepmother. The living was harder when her father was away.

So, during the fall when her father goes winter camping for fur trapping, she lived with her Uncle on the father’s side. For two and half months while her father was gone, she learned many cultural teachings from her Aunt. In summer months when the cannery opened for fishing, her father would go and she would stay with her other Uncle on her former mother’s side. During the summer months she also learned more cultural teachings from her other Aunt. The father was absent from the family so that they could survive during winter months from the money earned in the fall and summer season.

What has my story taught me toward my students? The first day of school I present myself as a professional teacher, but along the line I make myself known that I practice my Native culture and make them aware that I am their missing parents, grandparents, aunt, or uncle.

Having patience with a student(s) takes an understanding of where the student is coming from. Every student has a different lifestyle at home. Get to know your students and treat each individual equally. The student(s) are waiting for an opportunity for you to open up to them and they will talk to you. From there, respect and trust will form gradually.

September 20, 2010

Patience

Written by: Adam Knight, Language Arts Teacher, West High School

I gently lugged the 72-pound toolbox onto the scale and draped my arm over the 5’x5’ box at my side to steady it. The ticket agent tapped away at her keyboard, four bags, all over weight. I shoved another toolbox, a pack, and a duffel bag toward the scale. This is my carry-on. I rocked the box at my side, a 4-foot satellite dish and mounting arms. The agent looked up from the monitor and over glasses she wasn’t wearing. She was not amused.

Nor was I amused, sweaty and disheveled within an hour of showering, my ball cap not to be straight again for at least a week, first in line before even the first tour bus at 5:00 in the morning. My only semi-reliable traveling partner had not arrived at the airport yet, and I had found the tools he had stowed at the warehouse scattered, unpacked and lacking consumables that had all been used the prior week. It would have been fine by me if Dexter missed the flight. He had a way of offending people with disparaging comments about their community and culture within seconds of stepping off the plane, and I would have been just as happy to not have that as a dynamic of this trip, our fifteenth in a circuit of thirty-plus trips we would take that summer to rural Alaska communities.

The agent handed me my boarding pass, and I wandered to the gate. Dexter arrived as the plane was half boarded, looking lost as his platinum blond mullet flapped twenty years out of date down the concourse behind him. When the plane arrived in Bethel our dish was carried in by the ramp agents, and our toolboxes and duffles carouseled in with other like baggage: toolboxes, coolers, fish totes, and the occasional suitcase.

“Well what are we gonna do now?” Dexter demanded. The day before when it had occurred to everyone at the office that even unpacked we wouldn’t be able to get the dish into the door of a Cessna, we had called an arranged for a local employee in Kwethluk to come ferry us by boat from Bethel. That still left us a cab ride from the town dock, none with adequate roof area for us to go screaming down the Eddie Hoffman Highway without losing the dish to the frost heaves.

I walked down the taxi stand to a light blue Suburban with Kusko Cab stenciled awkwardly on the door. “Say, how wide do those ambulance doors in back open?” The driver stepped out. Not wide enough by a long shot, but we cobbled together a webbing of frayed tow straps and bungee cords and went bounding down the rippled asphalt, driver and each passenger with a hand out the window to steady the load.

I paid the driver, and he left our gear on the boat ramp, an unpaved, dusty slope leading into the Kuskokwim River. Empty soda bottles swirled in the eddy. There was surprisingly little traffic for such a fair, warm summer morning. I opened my duffel bag and produced my life jacket. Dexter’s eyes widened, “Were we supposed to bring life jackets?”

I shrugged and tossed it into the dirt at my feet. I arranged the other gear out of my way and sat down. I folded the panels of the jacket over each other and arranged it behind me. Next I pulled my parka out and draped it over my shoulders and torso. Dexter’s eyes widened more. “What are you doing?”

“Getting comfortable. I was up at 4 to sort the tools you didn’t put away when we got back Friday. I called from the airport. He’ll be an hour or better.” I flopped the hood over my head to keep the sun out of my eyes.

Some time later, I heard shuffling about my head and cracked one eye to see Dexter, life jacket a size too small hiked up into his armpits, loading the last of the gear into a skiff pulled up in the dirt. I rolled over to see Yogi towering over me in all of his four feet and eleven inches. He spoke almost no English, but his face was wide with a grin, and his belly shook a little as he chuckled at the “gussuck” asleep in the dirt. He helped me up and pointed to the boat. I made my way to one of the aluminum benches and sat, leaning forward on my knees and rubbing the longest nap I’d take for a out of my eyes. Yogi handed me a chunk of dry fish and his thermos cup full of coffee, slid the boat back into the river and motored away. As we turned the corner away from Bethel, I watched two swans patrolling back and forth in front of the bank and leaned slightly as Yogi steered to the side of the channel. The day was finally truly under way, more smoothly and a little more rested than I had envisioned when we left Anchorage. I leaned back with another piece of fish and enjoyed breakfast as we motored away up to Kwethluk.

This is a story about patience with circumstances as I experienced it in the YK in the summer of 2001.

September 17, 2010

Respect for Nature

Written by: Richard Larochelle, Math & Science Teacher, Bartlett High School

It was a late autumn Sunday; I went out boating on the Bering Sea with my family about ten miles from the village of Kotlik. A new school year had already started so our hunting days were limited. The weather was sunny and calm, perfect for seal hunting. In the late afternoon we saw a fleet of about 10 boats filled with families hunting a bearded seal. We joined in the hunting. Because we are at the mouth of the Yukon River, the water was fresh, not salty like the ocean. The village people still use spears and harpoons to seal hunt. This method ensures that the seal will not sink. After the seal is speared/harpooned it unravels and is a guide for us to “chase” the seal and capture it.

I had my wife Cami drive the boat, and our 8 year old son Kevin at the bow of the boat with a harpoon. I gave directions to Cami as we followed the wake of the seal. Each time the seal surfaced for air, the hunters yelled, “hey-heeey!” to scare the seal and take shorter breathes. It also let others know where the seal was. We were into the hunt for about a half an hour as we followed its wake. I encouraged Kevin to prepare to harpoon the seal. It surfaced and Kevin harpooned the seal!

Because it was Kevin’s first seal catch, the whole fleet cheered and congratulated him. Cami screamed in celebration and did some Eskimo dance motions. We brought the seal to the riverbank, gutted and cleaned it. My brother-in law advised me to cut off the head, give it a drink of water then throw it back into the sea. This age old Yup’ik ritual demonstrates respect and thankfulness for the seal giving itself to us. It is also believed that more seals will return in the next hunting season.

When we arrived in Kotlik, we stored the seal in my mother in-law’s smoke house. We explained that we would butcher it on Monday after school. Monday, Cami and I went to the smoke house to work on the seal, but found that mom butchered it earlier in the day. She explained that Kevin would have to do his first Eskimo dance in the spring and the seal needed to be distributed to our sister village of Stebbins during the potlatch.

Doing the dance was an “induction” for Kevin as a provider for relatives. This tradition reinforces the Yup’ik cultural values of respect for nature and celebration of a boy providing for a village.

September 16, 2010

Respect for Nature

Written by: Karen Zaukar, Student Media Mentor, Education Resource Center-MEDIAK

Respecting Nature is one very important Native Value. Most people believe that if you respect and appreciate nature and your surroundings, that you will be able to keep seeing such things. For example: Subsistence hunting/living, you kill animals such as Moose, Fish, Caribou, Ptarmigan and so on. If you kill the animal for food to survive, you would thank the animal for giving it's life to save yours. Since you thanked the animal, and appreciate what the animal has done to you and your family, then by the next hunt or even the next year, there will be more animals to come and give their life.

For me I am a little different, I do not hunt animals, I only go fishing once in a while. I am also a semi-vegetarian, so I only eat poultry, sea food, eggs, and dairy products. I don't like the idea of killing animals to consume when there are alternate ways to get all the nutrients. I think that it's killing an innocent animal for only your benefit, but I can’t stop eating meat all at once. As of right now, I have taken out the big animals from my diet, and it is almost much healthier. Since I buy food from the store, I get whatever I feel like eating, and when I want it, I cook it. But once I'm done and getting ready to eat, I always think poor, what ever I ate, I'm thankful for you taking your life so I can keep breathing. Thanks for your sacrifice I highly appreciate it. The way I am, I think that that's me respecting nature and the animals, even though I am taking a life of an animal, I am thankful that I do have it to eat.

With all of this, I think it is a great idea to respect nature in its truest form, so we may continue to live off the land. I think it is also important to share these values, or ideas to other people including youth. This is because youth can share what we teach them when they get older to other youth in the future, so no one will ever disrespect any type of nature in this world, from now on.

September 15, 2010

Respect for Nature

Written by: Tara Chamberlain, Language Arts Teacher, Romig Middle School

When I think about respecting nature the first thing that comes to my mind is my brother and I as kids gathering empty aluminum cans from the store parking lots around Anchorage. We would gather the necessary amount and then Mom would take us to the recycling center to collect our small cash incentive. At the time, I didn’t make the connection that what we were doing was good for our environment; all I knew was that I was going to be able to by a few blow pops from the store.

The other image that appears in my mind is also from my childhood, but this time I am a little older and I find myself living on Finger Lake in the Matanuska Valley. In the middle of the lake, there is a steep island with many lovely trees. Often, I would paddle to that island in order to escape the chaos that life can sometimes bring, and I would find contentment in watching the loons on the water or the trees swaying in the wind.

There are many ways in which we can respect nature; we can do it actively or we can do it thoughtfully. We can honor nature and give thanks when we share with others the lessons we have learned; how it has helped us heal and grow as spiritual beings. We can give thanks when we take time to be still and be a part of our environment.

“Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth, I believe. He ought to give himself up to a particular landscape in his experience, to look at it from as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell upon it.” – N. Scott Momaday

September 14, 2010

Respect for Nature

Written by: J.J. Iverson, Social Studies Teacher, West High School

As a youngster growing up, one of the hardest transitions I had to make was moving from Mississippi to Pierre, South Dakota the summer before fifth grade. Although I was excited to move to where my father was from and be closer to relatives, I was still a little scared as to what this new place had to offer. In order to make the transition smoother my parents signed me up for numerous activities to get me interacting with other kids and get me comfortable with my new environment.

One of these activities was the local Boy Scouts. At first, I didn’t like the idea of having to wear a uniform, show up at a church on Tuesdays for meetings, pay dues, and volunteer. However, when my parents showed me the brochure of Troop 27 camping, whitewater rafting, hiking, shooting rifles, and mountain climbing, I thought being a boy scout wouldn’t be too bad.

I remember our first camping trip I was so excited! We were headed to Ft. Robinson in Wyoming to plant trees after a fire had ravaged the area a couple years earlier. Upon arriving and checking in, our scout master told us that before we could set up camp we would first patrol the campsite and pick up any trash. I thought this was silly, especially after he told us we would be doing it again before we left. This was my first lesson in having a respect for nature. We would all line up side-by-side with our arms extended outward on one edge of the campsite. Imagine a long police lineup of teenage boys positioned like human crosses. On the command of the scout master we would begin walking – picking up any trash in our paths. We would do this both lengthwise and width wise to ensure every bit of trash was picked up.

Even though I disliked the idea of having to do this before every camping trip I soon realized that this short, simple task was important for several reasons. It taught us about cleanliness, neatness, organization, and teamwork. Above all, it helped us develop a respect for nature.

To this day every time I go camping I include this pre and post cleanup as part of my routine. Some people ask me why I do it and I tell them that I’m just trying to do my part to keep the land beautiful. I also do it because I know my scout master would put me on dish duty if I didn’t.

This is my experience dealing with Respect for Nature as I was growing up in South Dakota in the early 1990’s.

September 13, 2010

Respect for Nature:

Written by: Eileen Jordan, Math Teacher, Romig Middle School

Several years ago, we moved to Sitka with our two small children. While we were living there I had the opportunity to do my student teaching at one of the local schools. One of the lessons I was required to teach during my stint was a 3-week course on learning about the marine life on the Sitka shore. We would walk the students to the shore each day to observe and learn about the tiny marine life. The tide pools and shores were full of fish, crab, and barnacles. It was all so fascinating, but the true lesson came through for me as well as the students….we were to look, learn, appreciate, and respect the natural habitat of all the marine life we could see up close.

Many of the students had lived in Southeast Alaska their whole life and had an understanding about the marine life that depended on people leaving them alone. I learned, along with many of the new students, how just observing and not disturbing allowed the life in the small tide pools to continue to exist for years to come so the next several generations of people can see and enjoy them.

I had an opportunity to visit Sitka about 10 years after we had moved to Anchorage. I knew one of the first things I was going to do was walk through Totem Park and stroll along the shore to look at the tide pools once again. Respecting even the tiniest natural habitats is a gift we can teach our children and hopefully can be passed down to future generations.

September 10, 2010

Humor:

Written by: Pauline O’Brien, Primary Literacy Teacher, Susitna Elementary School

I grew up in a family of six and, being the middle child, I had to be the one helping my three younger siblings. I remember having to get up in the morning to make toast for food in the morning, and my parents we so amazed with me doing this. So, I became the toast maker for everyone; mind you I was only 4 years old at the time. My brother was just 11 months younger and a younger sister came later. I started really well at becoming a great helper around the house, and actually started fishing with my grandpa at the age of seven. Talking about growing up fast! Living in the village of Akhiok during the summers and wintering in Kodiak, I realized at a very young age about work and having a good work ethic. This was going to be the key to my success.

All along, I was good at working but I lacked something in the education department. Because of fishing, we had always left school one month early and went back to school one month late. I don’t blame my parents for doing what they needed to do to put food on the table, but I didn’t read until the 4^th grade. By the time I got to 6^th grade, I was in a special reading class, with my other friends, probably in the same situation. I became bound and determined to get out of that class and join the rest of my friends, and by the 7^th grade I was out. I bet you are wondering where the humor is; well I will tell you.

Fishing with my grandpa and actually living with him during the summer, I learned that he was very old fashioned. Laughing and having a good time meant you were being silly. Well I must have always had this sense of humor because my friends would always be laughing which then made my grandpa mad. That was the end of our giggling and they went home. He would say, “That Sandy is not good, don’t hang out with her; she is too silly.” If he only knew who really was the silly one.

At many times during this cooking, cleaning, taking care of my sibling’s time, I was never laughing. I would cry about all the work I had to do to help out and wondered WHY ME? But, when I was around my friends, they were probably doing the same things in their homes. I would make light of our days. I guess my silliness was a way of escaping such a real and grounded world that no child should really be responsible for all the time. I believe that children should be children, and only for some of the chores that are not like labor, but are helpful around the house. I want my children to see what good work ethic is, not put them through it at an early age. To this day, I hold this sense of humor and I always try to make others feel not so serious but to let go and sometimes have a good laugh.

My Grandpa passed away when I was 15 years old, and my oldest brother a year later. I am grateful for his wisdom, and so thankful for the niece I have with me today. I still joke around and always have a smile on my face because life is too short to not enjoy those around you.

Thank you for allowing me to share my story, I have many more to share in the future.

September 9, 2010

Humor

Written by: Mary Moran, Math Teacher, Bartlett High School

My students know from the very first day that I have a HUGE aversion to nasal mucous—that is, I HATE SNOT!  So, students know that when they have a cold, I know they will grab a tissue, go FAR away from my classroom door, blow their noses, drop the tissue in the nearby trash can, and come back into class quietly.

So, this one afternoon after the lesson, I was circulating around the class when I passed two of my jokesters. All of a sudden behind me, I heard a loud “ACHOOO!” and then I felt a light, cold spray all over the back of my bare arm.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” one student says.

“OOOHHH! That’s so NASTY!” I shrieked. Then I heard the snicker and turned around.  The student had ducked his head and was covering his mouth with his hand while his seatmate, held a water bottle with a hole in the top!

Humor goes a long way—both ways—in my classes.

This is how I remember it at Bartlett High School in 2007 as told to and written by Ellen Kennedy.

Thank you, Ellen. You are terrific!

September 8, 2010

Humor

Written by: Lee Bullington, Media Instructor, Education Resource Center

Like everyone on this planet life can be lots of things… fun, challenging, horrifying and stressful. But one thing that’s universal, is Humor.

By the time I graduated from high school I had gone to 18 schools. Eighteen different schools across rural Alaska. For whatever reason, my parents decided to always relocate in the middle of the school year, sometimes twice a year. Was this a big joke?

I never found the benefits of always moving and found it challenging most of the time. I spent the first 18 years of my life always making new friends, saying good-bye to old friends, packing, unpacking and constantly trying to catch up with the class curriculum. Ugh.

Early on, I discovered many people were like me, they also didn’t like change. Students were always fighting with me because I was the “new” kid, the “white” kid, the “cops” kid or the “big city” kid from Kodiak.

I graduated from my class (all nine of us) and headed to college. I decided to attend the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in the Fall because, why not, I was used to moving across state and it was my big chance to start off the school year at the beginning of the semester and not the middle.

Those first couple of days were amazing. The new faces, buildings and all the options. It was something. I was used to it after all but the great thing is that everyone else was experiencing it at the same time. I began to worry what I was doing moving again though… was I continuing the “loop” of always moving and it would never end? Would I want to pick up and move in the middle of the school year?

I was still in the process of moving into my dorm room when I stepped into the elevator. It was crowded with other students doing the same. I was last on and the elevator was full, I couldn’t see anyone behind me. The doors closed. All of a sudden a tiny voice from behind said, “Are you Lee Bullington?” I couldn’t turn around because the elevator was packed. So, staring straight ahead, I replied, “Yep”. The voice then said, “I thought so, I used to sit behind you in second grade!”

People in the elevator chuckled. I smiled.

That’s my experience with humor as I lived it in an elevator at UAF.

September 7, 2010

Humor

Written by: Crystal Brown, Intermediate Literacy/Math Teacher, Lake Hood Elementary

I never knew anyone who didn’t enjoy a good joke or a funny story until I met a first grader named Kyle during my year of student teaching in North Pole. Kyle was a very serious and sensitive child. He hated to be the center of attention and hated it even more when he thought anyone was laughing at him.

Brody, on the other hand, loved being the center of attention and loved making the other kids laugh. He didn’t care if he was laughing with you or at you, laughing was what he did best and he did lots of it. Brody didn’t care that it made Kyle extremely upset whenever he laughed at him.

Brody was reprimanded every time we caught him making fun of or laughing at Kyle (or any other student), but we did not see a noticeable change in his behavior until one day, as the students were lined up to go to PE, Brody puked. Right there in the middle of the line, with absolutely no warning, he emptied his stomach onto the carpet and he got laughed at and looked at with repulsion by the other first graders. After that day, Brody did not seem so quick to laugh at others.

Humor is fun and can be a great connector, but it also can hurt and become a great divider. No matter how you use humor, it should always be respectful.

This is a story about respectful humor as I observed it in North Pole, Alaska in 2005.

September 6, 2010

Humor

Written by: Cami Larochelle, Intermediate Literacy/Math Teacher, Scenic Park Elementary

It was at the end of the school year in Kotlik, Alaska. I just completed another year of teaching 5^th and 6^th grades. Students were dismissed from school, but three girls from my class enthusiastically volunteered their time to help me clean the classroom. I made sure that they had permission from their parents to do so.

I was busy finalizing grades, attendance and end of the year paper work. I was so determined I didn’t take a few minutes to visit with them. The girls dusted and wiped down the chalkboards and walls. When they were done one of the girls asked, “What you want us to do next, Cami?”

I scanned the room and noticed that one of the bulletin boards still had butcher paper and material stapled on it. I replied, “How about taking down that bulletin board.” They agreed.

I continued working on my grades, engrossed and preoccupied to meet deadlines. About 20 minutes passed when one of the girls asked, “Where do you want us to put this?” Two of the girls were holding the bulletin board completely off the wall! Amazed, I asked “How did you get that down?!” They replied, “We used a butter knife from the kitchen like screw driver.”

I laughed; they looked at me with confused eyes. I explained I didn’t literally mean take the bulletin board down off the wall, but to take the material off from the bulletin board. “Ooohh…” then their laughter began. After all our laughter, I apologized for not being specific and not paying close attention to what they were doing. We screwed the bulletin board back on the wall then took the material off the bulletin board.

I thought they were pretty clever, working quietly and modifying the butter knife as a screw driver.

Lesson learned: Slow down and smell the roses, be grateful for the families involved, for parents allowing their children to help me, and the students volunteering their time. Take time to visit with them, after all they took time to help me. Be specific, regardless of the age of the students. Remember that not everyone may understand figures of speech, idioms, terms, slang, acronyms etc.

Be able to laugh at yourself for silly mistakes and laugh with others. Laughter exercises your internal organs. Stay healthy!

September 3, 2010

Cooperation

Written by: Juliana Crandall, Academic Advocate, Begich Middle School

I grew up in Anchorage and graduated from the Anchorage School District. I am a “City Girl”. I spent some time in my home village of Tyonek, AK when I was young and visited a few times as a teen and now more frequently as an adult. I always knew there was something different about “Village Life”. A few summers back, I learned that community cooperation was a huge part of that difference. Cooperation is what made a difference in learning about my culture.

My dad was teaching my brother and I how to set our nets and all that we would need to know about subsistence living. When it came time to pull the nets in, a cousin on one end and a family friend on the other, came together and pulled net after net in. Then we all picked the nets together. This was something completely new to my brother and me. Barking King Salmon tangled in nets was scary. We watched everyone just pick fish after fish. Slowly, we understood and were able to help.

This continued for each part of the process. Everyone cooperated, worked together and usually without words. Everyone knew their part, did it without complaint, and knew to teach my brother and me.

This is a story about cooperation as I experienced it in 2008 in Tyonek, AK. We know that we need to work together to continue to survive as people and as a culture as it is built into us all.

September 2, 2010

Cooperation

Written by: Georgianna Starr, Math Teacher, Begich Middle School

When I visited my grandma, there was always a lot of housework. Someone had to cook for the adults and usually cook something different for the kids, wash, dry, and put dishes away, sweep and mop the floor, take out the trash, wash and hang the clothes outside, get the clothes to fold and put away, make the beds, and generally put things away. We were told as kids either clean up or go out. When we reached a certain age, we had to clean. With so many kids and adults there, it had to get done. I don’t really remember how things got delegated, but everyone helped out. I never thought of it as being work though. Why? I’m not sure. Maybe I was having too much fun.

My mother comes from a large extended family. As a child, I knew my mom was from Scammon Bay, had a lot of sisters, and is the eldest daughter out of 10 children. I never thought of my mother being a mother figure or an authority figure to her sisters as she was growing up.

As the eldest, she delegated weekly chores to her sisters and was very strict in her standards. My aunt told me this story about what happened if you didn’t do your chores properly. It was one of the sister’s turn to make the beds (knowing that my mom checked the work.) This time, the bed making didn’t pass. My aunt said that my mom pulled off ALL the covers off the beds and made the sister redo them. I always smile when I think about this.

I don’t hear a lot of stories about my mother, but this one sticks in my head because my mom’s house always bugs me when I visit. I end up vacuuming, sweeping, mopping the floor, cleaning the bathroom, and dusting. “Why don’t you dust?” is my line. My mom’s response, “I don’t like to dust.” My usual reply, “Gee Whiz, no one LIKES to dust.” I can’t imagine my mother being the CLEAN boss back in the day. I texted my mom to see what she thought about this story. She texted me back and said that “it needed to be done right.” Then she asked, “when did I see Theresa?” Which made me smile harder because my mom is the oldest and Theresa is the next oldest, so it was Theresa who had to remake the beds.

This is my story of cooperation. Large families need to cooperate in lots of different ways. Being part of a family doesn’t always mean blood relative. Think of your classroom and your school as family. Sometimes you spend more time with them anyway, so you might as well enjoy it!