urban sprawl?! hmph.

Hi Lower 48,

Life out here is still challenging, but I survived Monday with only crayons being thrown across the room - and not at me, so that was nice. Everyday I flip through the curriculum wondering how on earth I'm going to cover all of this... and how I'm going to make it relate to their world so I can teach it to them. We have a super strict curriculum guide - it's my school's fifth year of being a 'failing' school under the No Child Left Behind Act, so I decided to show up at the right time (ugh). Right before I started, I was handed workbook after workbook and teacher's guide and textbooks. I seriously had no idea what to do with all that stuff! In Vermont, there were no textbooks... they got rid of them even before California - and not because they couldn't afford them (like CA was talking about, I'm not sure if they really did go wtih the no textbook thing), but because they realized they did NOT meet the kids needs. Anyways, my district somehow managed to pick the most unculturally competent curriculum for these kids, so I spend half of everyday explaining things - ie - cars, horses, cows - everything else we don't have here in Selawik but does exist everywhere else... and half the day trying to teach. I had to explain urban sprawl to third graders. URBAN SPRAWL! We live in the tundra for crying out loud... my kids think Kotzebue is a city and Anchorage is the center of the world! So you can only imagine how much time it took to explain this simple concept so the children could understand a tiny piece of what the story was about.

Enough of that... so it hasn't snowed since Saturday, and for that I'm a little grateful. I am looking forward to the snow though. It's amazing (and I might have already talked about this before - I'm still fascinated by this) how in the lower 48 so many places shut down in the cold - but because the cold is so much apart of life out here, this place thrives on it. Apparently when the snow falls and freezes, it is time to play here in the tundra. Everyone has snowgoes and all of the villages are connected. Keep your fingers crossed - I hope to take lots of trips to other villages via snowgo this year and check everything. I do love how it's the cold and snow that connects everyone out here.

Oh and get this - my roundtrip plane ticket to ride half an hour on a 9 seater place to Kotzebue is $252. I was complaining about this to Alice, a local friend of mine who's daughter is in my class (she's 31), and she was like - just have Uhkpik (her boyfriend - Inupiaq name) take you on snowgo - it'll definitely be cheaper than that. It is tempting, but one can only imagine how I would look after 90 minutes on a snowgo and then catching a flight for 24 hours. I would be a hot mess. But oh how Alaskan that would make me feel - why yes friends, I rode a snowgo for 90 minutes and then flew 24 hours just to see each and every one of you. It makes me laugh. Oh and by the way - the snowgo is definitely a snow machine or snowmobile in case you're wondering.

I joined a CSA!! How cool is that?! It's a community supported agriculture program and it ships here to Selawik. Of course my food was boxed today and won't arrive until Thursday, but I'm stoked to have fresh fruits and vegetables here in the bush on a bi-weekly basis. Lettuce, green beans, carrots, pluots, apples and peaches here I come! You don't know how hard it is to eat decent out here.... and I've never craved chain restaurant food until now. Oh how badly I want just a burrito sometimes! Seriously! I come home exhausted and want to run over to my local grab and go place only to be reminded that I can have soup out of the can, velveeta macaroni and cheese or something else processed and not delicious if I want something quick. So lots of times if I'm to tired to cook - it's yogurt and granola... my staple.

I really should take more pictures of my kids on a regular basis. They really are incredible, but as a group they are exhausting. We just started a new unit though, and I've done a lot of reflecting on who I am as a teacher and where my ethics and values are... and I'm making a much more mental effort to stop the yelling. It's how so many of my kids respond because it's the only thing they know - it's how most adults talk to them - but I don't need to reiterate the norm. It's just so hard to be positive sometimes when you want to scream your head off. I'm learning that third grades takes more patience than fifth/sixth and I'm just not sure I'm that patient.

One more thing - the fifth grade teacher here could lose their job for simply lifting a child's hoodie when he couldn't see him to see if he was responding (one form of saying yes here is to raise your eyebrows). A few minutes later he sent the student to the office and later the student went home and told his Ahna (grandma - the caretaker for most kids in the village), who placed a call to Kotzebue (our district office is there) and now he could potentially lose his job. This makes me incredibly nervous because he was like.. don't touch your students, it's not worth it. My kids need so much attention and love that I'm a little nervous. I'm joining the union here which will apparently step in if something like this occurs. I'm not to scared about it because I have a pretty good relationship with my students, but it something for me to consider and be more aware of. It is sad though what our society has become...

The big vote here in Selawik is tomorrow - the natives are voting on if the village goes wet or not. If it does go wet, we will be able to buy alcohol here. That makes me so nervous. Selawik has a huge drunk problem - the natives make 'home brew.' Someone was telling me how they saw homebrew the other day and it had a potato, corn on the cob and raisins in it. ummm gross. Oh and it has the consistency of puke. yumm. I would love to sip a glass of red wine... umm.. every night at this rate - but with the huge drunk and alcohol problem (I have learned to despise the 2nd and 16th of every month because my kids come to school cranky because most of their parents have been out drinking all night), I'm really hoping the vote is no. Keep your fingers crossed.

Off to dream. First I'll leave you with a few pictures though.

B

Berry picking with the newbies in Kotzebue. Good times and really good berries (even though we only picked like six a piece).

Lots and lots of caribou heads. Makes me think of antlers - so out here when you sing the 'hokey pokey,' you put your antlers in, you put your antlers out... it's seriously the cutest thing ever.

And that is one large fish. dried. yum yum and yum. this is at culture camp obviously.. and sorry.. i don't know what's up with my eyes, but that fish sure is delish.