tales from Noatak

I'm back! from Noatak that is....

We had teacher inservice there from Thursday - Saturday. On Thursday morning everyone certified from five different schools across the district loaded up on chartered flights and flew over to the great village of Noatak to get their learnin' on. It actually wasn't half bad besides the fact that it was one large slumber party. Fortunately for us the district also flew over lots and lots of air mattresses, so we were slumber partying in style. Jenny and I were friends with one of the new teachers there, so she hooked us up with our room because we found out that two Selawik ladies snore. And they apparently dont' just snore, but they snore loud. So we set up shop right across the hall and kicked it there for a couple nights.

I got to drink milk! Like real milk, not the shelf kind from a carton! It was beyond exciting. Apparently it was flown over at the cheap price of $13 a gallon... so yes, it was a big deal that it was there. I have never appreciated the taste of a brownie and milk until Friday night. It was delightful.

So as you've read, it's been a hard life out here in the classroom for me and I've been struggling a lot. This inservice came at exactly the right time. It was such a great experience for me to be able to meet and talk to other third grade teachers across the district and share idea and hear their stories. It was a little hard for me at first. After hearing about some people's classrooms, I quickly came to the conclusion that no one's was quite like mine when it came to behavior. Everyone only had at the maximum 15 kids.... and they listened! I couldn't fathom a classroom like that. And then we had to pull up an assessment that the district had us give the students, and while most people had one or two students that were well below average, I had nine. NINE! So not only am I teaching a huge class size compared to my fellow teachers, but I'm also teaching an insane amount of kids third grade curriculum that can't even read. It's been a tough go these past few months.

I was pretty upset about this and feeling more and more overwhelmed... and then we had sharing time. I know that sounds pretty funny. We were all sharing our thoughts and things we do in the classroom, and my group just kept telling me how incredible I must be as a teacher. And then the trainer would mention things, and I would tell stories from my room and the people in the room would be impressed with certain strategies I've incorporated to help the kids. I learned so much last year, and finally having the chance to put it into practice is apparently paying off. I had seasoned teachers coming up to me and telling me that I must be doing something right. It was so great to hear. I felt so empowered, and I haven't felt like that in months. I finally realized that I am really good at what I do, and I needed to be reminded of this so I can walk into my classroom again tomorrow.

I'm about to go to bed now, but I'm trying to hang on to my sense of empowerment and positive outlook for as long as possible tomorrow. Just because I'm feeling like I can handle whatever's thrown at me tomorrow, I know that tomorrow will not go as smoothly as I would like. Just because my outlook's positive doesn't mean my kids have changed their discipline at all. But I'm still here and I'm still standing, so that must mean something. So come on tomorrow, I'm ready to put everything from this weekend to practice, get my kids in order and get one day closer to heading towards that little place I like to call home.

Just wait. I hope tomorrow's blog isn't about how I went to school all excited and got everything thrown back in my face....

And I bought my sister's birthday present today. Her birthday's on Wednesday, so it'll be late, but it's a priceless gift so she can wait. I swear she better be thrilled about it or I'm going to reclaim it at Christmas. I'll tell you what is after she gets it in the mail. And you'll laugh. It's that good.

So here's to another day of learning. And being empowered.

Cristina

So here's a few more food for thought pictures from the tundra:

I'm making an 'ice angel' here. My buddy Kevin who teaches 3rd grade in Buckland and I went and played on a frozen pond. It was fun but goodness it sure was cold.

I walked all over like this calling myself the 'Alaskan Southerner.' Look at that argyle with the snow pants. Priceless! It's quite the rage for alaskan southerner's. Bring it on mother nature! You can take a girl out of the south, but you sure can't take the southerner out of the girl :)

Talk about big - umm this is a whale bone and it is huge. I know whales are big... but.... I was definitely impressed by the size of this thing.

Well that's all for right now. More pictures to come.... and some with my kids in them. Woohooo!