Sunday, December 16, 2007

Quyana Thank You

Quyana to have met very one in my ED 429 class this semester. I have learned alot from this class. I have also learned about other blogs on other sites that are pretty interesting also. I did finish my imovie at the very last days of the due date. It was a fun class and quyana Skip for teaching the technology. I sure plan to use the education in the future. As for everyone else hope your wishes come true and may you have a very joyous Christmas and a very good new year.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Uivik, December 2007 Heading for Christmas

My! December sure showed up fast. The students in the schools are now getting ready for Christmas and the Christmas songs are now being practiced. Do any of the other schools still have Christmas skits? I heard stories from some elders of the first Christmas skit we had here in Chefornak. One of the teachers had a recording of the chipmunks songs and had three boys mimic the songs on stage. The poor elders in the village were so impressed with the boys because they thought they were really singing. The one I remember best was of myself and my classmates playing Raggdy Ann (because I was Raggdy Ann and had to use a mop head for hair) and act like a wabbly rag doll. Some skits use to be really funny. They were held in the old BIA school where everyone from the village crowded together in one room with a stage in the front and when the skits were over a live Santa would burst in hollering HO!HO! HO! and past out candy and small presents. I use to believe in that Santa at that young age. Now itseems Christmas is to materalized and stressful for alot of people. I think they should concentrate on the reason for the season. What do you think?

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Where's the original winter wonder land?

Folks are finally using snow machines to travel around but still have to travel carefully because the frozen ponds and river are not thick enough yet. Where's the original winter wonder land we use to have by this time of the year? This month in yupik is called "cauyarvik" which means month of the drums. It used to be used for having the traditional eskimo dance festivals. One was called kevigyaraq, Messenger feast where one village would send kevaq's, messengers to another village inviting them for a dance festival. I liken it today to a thanksgiving feast, where the villagers get together and hold a dance festival where they pass out their excess resources they had harvested or where they present a young person who had caught their first catch, berries or some animal to the visiting guests. They would then include subsistence catches before the influence of the western cultures. To me it sort of represented thanksgiving where they share with other villages their thankful catches of the season.Now when we have it we include all sorts of modern things that could be of use to families. This village usually hosts to Toksook Bay, Tununak, Nightmute, Newtok and other area villagers that could make it here. We hold our dance festival for three days on a weekend and then on sunday the visiting guests gather at the gym where the elders are seated first on down to the youngest guest, men and women on either side of the gym. The guests then get to pick out from a pile of goods whatever they want one at a time. When that is done, that evening after the evening meal the visiting guests then usually dance for the village in thanksgiving. Then the hosting village does the last dances and everyones gets to go home happy with giving and recieving of gifts. With this late winter the cauyarvik festivals are starting to be held later in the year such as in february or even march when the tundra traveling is better. I hope we get enough snow and cold to freeze up the traveling areas so our villages can hold the eskimo dance festivals. Everyone usually looks forward to the festivals.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Halloween ghosts

Happy late Halloween. Our school had its annual halloween contest where most students dressed up as spooky, funny, most original, members of ghosts. The highschool students had the king and queen halloween skit and the two grades from elementary made up halloween songs that were sung very loudly. It was a fun afternoon. Our local corporation cable company aired it on the village tv channel so most everyone who was not able to come to the school got to watch it also. Speaking of that. every friday afternoon our local student news team has a 15 minute show on that channel also and they usually have news of the school activities. Our NYO team of at least 16 students are competing at Akula. We had a parent teacher conference this past week and we had a good turn out. Our local traditional council tries to suspend local activities so that parents can go to the parent teacher conferences. I believe that shows the village supports students education. Its been a fun week.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Fairbanks

Hi everyone,
Here I am in the intensive math and english intensive with guess who?? Betty Swan, she says a big hello to everyone, boy was it good to see her. She's really working hard on her english classes. I am working hard on my math classes and I have caught up on most of my lessons. Its not as intensive as ED 330 and Ed 429 but if your not a math whiz its still intensive.
I wanted to answer a few question from my last blog about students transferring to different schools sometimes. They might have many different reasons, problems at their old school, new boyfriends, girlfriends, family situations. I have not been aware of what would happen if a principal accepted a student the village council did not want but its been my experience that the principal would usually listens to the council or let them at least know the reasons the student is excepted into the school. Each year we here in Chefornak get at least one to two new students, sometimes some years past without a student from another place. Some students have stayed the whole year and some have gone home. The schools usually communicate between each other to see where the student is in academics and usually trys to place the student in the right classes. Well I have to go and pay attention to Sandra Wilfeuer. Bye for now

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Teaching in rural Alaska

This week our village traditional council had a village meeting. One thing they discussed was interesting because I wanted to see how other communities in rural Alaska would handle the situation. They were discussing transfer students from surrounding villages that may have decided to attend from another village besides the village where they were born and raised. The traditional council of this village wanted any students coming into the village to register as becoming members of this community. They were not sure how long the student would have had to stay before registering. They had different times as to how long the student was to have stayed before registering. But one thing they were clear on was that the principal of the school had to notify the traditional council before excepting the student. Since a lot of communities have a lot of turnovers of principals, whenever the new principal would change they would come in not knowing the wishes of the traditional council towards transferring students. An elder at the meeting thought it was not a good idea for excepting students from other communities for several reasons. One reason was that the student may bring in bad influences, or the student may pick up bad influences from the community they chose to move into. Another reason she stated was that the parents of any student should be the first teachers of such a student and made a point that parents should be involved in the students education. If a student chose to attend in another village, that village was sort of like a host, becoming responsible for the students welfare as well as the students education. She stated that if the student went home and became a bad influence, the host village would naturally be the blame. I guess different communities would have different views on the situation but I was curious to what the majority thoughts would be. I, myself have been to boarding school, two of my children have been to boarding school, three of my children have stayed home and attended school here and when I think about it, I would rather be involved in my children's education. What would you have said if your son or daughter wanted to attend a school in another rural village?

Sunday, September 30, 2007

First blog of October 2007

I thought I'd post a short blog because I've been posting on fridays and wanted to get one done early this week in case I forget. The Autumn barge is here and this is what the administrator wrote. It must have been a typing error but it sure sounds funny. He wrote" Now we await the Autumn Barge to bring janitorial and fool service supplies, paper rolls and more. Hummm! I know he must have meant food service.
Our school had a fun friday where many teachers K-12 had fun activities for their students at the final friday of the month. The highschool side even had a High school art show because they have a new aide helping out with art classes this semester. Here is a picture of my classrooms fun friday.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11197724@N03/1464332715/

Friday, September 28, 2007

End of September, 2007

The month flew by so fast, it's already October. This last week, Noel, the kindergarten teacher I work with, and I took a stroll around the village with the students to take pictures of the students with their pets. We were to use the pictures for writing projects. It was a fun adventure and its amazing what names the students come up with for their dogs names. It seemed to make the students write more when a picture was included for the writing. The junior high and highschool are getting ready for NYO, and the Chefornak school eskimo dance team is already practicing each friday for an hour and a half. Our school is sort of running out of supplies because our school supply barge that usually comes during the summer dropped off our school supply's at a neighboring village Kipnuk for some reason and some of the supplies had to be brought over here by plane.
Our scenery is starting to get fall colors and with the rain finally slowly going away we are having great rainbows appear in the sky. It was fun to watch them during a recent boat ride. Hope all is well with everyone. Take care now! Bye!

Friday, September 21, 2007

The photo


http://www.flickr.com/photos/11197724@N03/1419681994/

Subsistence issues and school

In the Chefornak Schools I have learned that the students are given one day per week to hunt if they bring a note from home and clear the note through the pricipal. He calls up the parent who wrote the note to make sure that the trip is necessary for the family. The schools main interest is that the young men (usually its the young men in the school) highschool and junior high accompany their dads or relatives on hunting to learn the skills. When they need to make up the missed school day. it is the students responsibility to make up the work, the school does provide supervised after-school study halls three evenings per week.
The school schedules are not adjusted for subsistence activites. During this time the subsistence activites include seal hunting for migrating seals heading south, hunting for mostly cacklers, canadian geese and ducks, fishing for certain fish, clamming, berry picking. mouse food gathering before the snow falls, and then their are some certain plants right after freeze up, you can pick off from the ponds. So spring and fall are very active times here especially when the birds are migrating north or south. Towards fall it's mostly to pick berries. Once the freeze up begans the young mens subsistence activities taper off.
Our school has seemed to have worked out the issue of subsistence activities by addressing the issue to the parents. It seems most parents are supportive of the school attendance policy. As for the teachers and aides that need to pursue subsistence activities, they take annual/personal leave as provided in policy. My husband who is a secondary teacher tries to save his leaves for the spring time especially because of the seal hunting season. I have also asked another certified male teacher here and he said the same thing about saving leaves for the spring seal hunt. I guess the leaves would depend on the regions where people live as to when they can take them. I know in our area, the subsistence activities we do are usually late in the season during the fall time, while the areas up river from the Kuskokwim do early subsistence activities in the fall, then the subsistence activites reverses itself in the spring, where the coastal activites occur earlier in the spring and later in the upriver areas of Alaska. I think this subsistence activites "time span" would be a vital issue to be considered if a state or school district were going to issue a manditory law or requirement. I think they should even consider why the students are coming to school so sleepy in the mornigs during the fall and during the spring. (I think sleepy kids has something to do with the subsistence activities at home).

The photo is of one activity some people do as they are out on their subsistence activities.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/upload/done/

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Fall comes blowing

Fall comings blowing wind from the south all week. I bet after this we will get a frost. It's time!! I have started my classes and I am taking Alaska Native Education/ED420 (as some of you are). The assigned book that caught my attention was by Deloria, J. Vine & Wildcat. It caught my attention because some native educators, not just from Alaska, are finally realizing the idea the book is talking about. That is why it has been so strongly reccommended that native history be recorded, not especially from a western view, but from a native view. I really like the book and it is very easy to read. I have already reccomended it to several of the native teachers in the school I work at.
I attended a school board meeting this week at our school and it was good to hear good things happening to the highschool graduates from our school. It was also interesting to hear what was going on in other areas of the school, not just where I usually work at. I might attend another meeting just to hear what's going on besides the kindergarten room I usually work in. Tua-i-ki -tak that means thats it for me. Have to get back to my life. God Bless! take care!

Sunday, September 2, 2007

flickr slideshow

I did a project on my family and community. I didn't get a chance to put in a picture of my husband and oldest son. This flickrslidr is kind of tricky to use. As a teacher I think I would mostly use it with the highschool students or older because they would just be more patient with the program. I couldn't tell if the comments I wrote down for the pictures showed up with the slideshow.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

The address for Panraven Album

http://www.panraven.com/mylife/ViewStory.epage?sp=102547

First week of September

Fall colors are appearing fast on the tundra. My oldest son is off with his uncle to hunt moose on the Yukon. Its at least a three to four day trip. I have been busy picking blackberries and feel my body is sore from the activity. Anyway my family and I engoy the results once we've eaten!!
We're going into our third week of school and sort of getting into a shedule of daily activities. Our first school board meeting is sheduled for the week of Sept 11th. We've already had a school assembly, parent assembly where suprisingly the bleachers got full of parents. Our school is a bustle of activities and even visitors from two prism companies. I feel that our school is overcrowded though and really needs an addition or even a new building for the highschool. One of the teachers was asking for parent help because they are expecting to graduate at least a dozen highschool this year. Three new teachers were added to our school, one is a science teacher, a social studies teacher and a special ed teacher from Florida, shes complaning it is too cold here already and states Florida is a good retirement place because its nice and warm. I feel sorry for the new science teacher because his room is so small and people are always passing his class on their way to other classes. I hope we get something done soon.
On to my panraven project again. Appearently I forgot to hit "share" when I finished the project so I went back to the program and hit "share" and put down everybody's email addresses. Live and learn!! That's what I like about panraven, you can go back to it anytime and edit it. Not like this blogspot where once you hit enter, its done. So I hope my panraven worked "this time" and this is my blog for this week. I enjoying reading everyone elses blogspots, its like getting letters in the mail.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

My Album on Panraven

Here is the album I made of Chefornak

http://www.panraven.com/mylife/ViewStory.epage?sp=102547

It sure was hard to pick the pictures that might represent Chefornak with only ten pictures to choose from. Okey enjoy anyway!

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Using Panraven

Using Panraven to create an album was fun. The only problem I had with it was that it took my pictures forever to load on to the program. I would wait for it to load and almost forget what I was doing. On my first page I had an arial shot first than decieded to change the picture than forgot to change the text. I think I will try Panraven again just for fun and practice Here is the address

http://www.panraven.com/mylife/MyStories.html

One good thing about this program is that you can go back to it and make changes anytime. The program having a guide format make Panraven easy to work with.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Looks like I need more practice

I was trying to send in a slideshow I guess I forgot how. Will try again next time. Its hard to get rid of a blog once its posted.
http://flickr.com/photos/11197724@N03/show/

trying to put in my flicker slideshow

these are the first pictures I took
http://www.google.com/accounts/RP?c=CNftgM6z3t6XFxDT-LKS-K_R0rQB&hl=en
I hope this worked

Friday, August 10, 2007

A few reflections on Ed 429

The class has been fun! Learning how to use the software programs, discovery how we can put most of the programs together to create or learn. Once students learn this stuff they can work on the computer from anywhere in the world. The way I look at it, this knowledge makes the whole world smaller but still expands it through the internet.
Another issue that I would have liked to get into would have been with the personal and professional issues that arise when you are confronted with a major change in the instructional environment in which you teach especially on how to deal with students on what limits we should place on them, or respecting other students rights on the use of computers. We also have to let the students know how thier postings might affect the villages in where they live. Anyway I really enjoyed the class and look forward to reading others blogs and watching those pictures.
Happy kids in Chefornak


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Contagious computing

Working with computer is always contagious! Just watching everyone working on a computer makes me think "I wonder what they are working on?" I bet it's what students think when they see someone else using a computer. Learning how to use software programs gets a little getting use to, especially if it is the first time using them, but with practice, practice and more practice the software becomes a great teaching tool source, especially if you want to personalize your teaching material.
One thing I was thinking about these past two days, coming from a small remote village, was that we might have learned all these new software tools but might not be able to use them without a good tech person in our schools. Some schools might have to wait a long time waiting for someone to fix the problems so please make it aware to your village schools boards the importance of tech help. Helping students with the use of the computer seems to make them competent with other students from all over the world. Its exiting to watch a student from a small native village conversing with a student from half way around the world.