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

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?

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/

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!

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/

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!