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Of Mice and Snowmen

As I’m writing my next blog, it is currently -2 degrees outside. It’s definitely getting colder. I jokingly remind myself that out of all the states and all the schools I could have gone to, I decided on the polar wasteland. However, it has been a beautiful two weeks. The snow comes and melts and then falls again. Last night, as I was leaving the school and walking back home, I ran into two red foxes playing in the snow, chasing each other. They soon noticed me, stopped, and took a few inquisitive steps closer before dashing off into the darkness. I suppose it’s true that up here there’s no telling what’s waiting for you outside.

Inside, however, has been a different story. As the weather becomes colder, the school becomes warmer and people aren’t the only ones looking for a comfortable place to stay. The school has been inhabited by critters. Specifically, mice that scurry and skip across my classroom at all times of the day. One mouse in particular, who made a hole behind my file cabinet his home, was given the name Alfonse. Whenever Alfonse appeared my students sought to step on him or catch him in a box. I feel this reaction is completely opposite of how kids from the lower 48 would respond. I picture girls screaming and standing on top of desks. Alfonse was eventually cornered, captured, and exterminated by my middle school boys.

The past two weeks has felt like a roller-coaster. As a special education teacher, it has been frustrating that my schedule is constantly changing. More kids are in need of services but can only be seen at certain times of the day. I’ve literally made up and gone through 6 or 7 different schedules. Due to these changes, I’ve had to combine students in groups in order to provide them all with appropriate service time. One group of 2 students now has 4 which doesn’t seem like a problem, but now the structure and routine of the instruction time is thrown off by the addition of two students. These new students were not exposed to the pattern and rhythm of my teaching so it’s going to take time before they catch on to my routine.

The past two weeks have also been tough in regards to student behavior. All new teachers struggle with behavior management and I am no exception. However, the behavior among the Alaskan bush students and students in the lower 48 are like night and day. Teaching in the lower 48, high school kids will curse, yell, and talk back with remarks dripping in sarcasm.

The Inupiaq people have a word for their style of misbehavior. It is called kivet (I may have totally butchered that spelling). To kivet is essentially to pout. Students will ball themselves up, put their hands over their heads and make no attempt to respond to any prompts or questions until they get their way or you leave them alone. I have never had a student raise their voice to me or storm out in rage. They kivet. They refuse to talk and completely ignore the world until the “danger” has passed. The past two weeks have been an adventure for me as I seek to maintain control of my classroom, remain firm in my expectations, and make best use of my instructional time. Now that the “honeymoon” period of school is over, there have been many cases of kids entering my classroom and instantly kivet-ing. Often times they are upset because they come to me knowing that I expect them to work. They don’t want to work and seek to escape by being completely unresponsive which irritates the living daylights out of me. However, I will never resort to begging or giving in to my students when they are like this.

My solution? Well, it’s honestly been a trial and error experience. Each kid is different and having a relationship is the first step. One student is eager for attention and enjoys answering questions. If I ignore his behavior and continue teaching, his desire to look smart in front of his peers wins out and he eventually will get back to work. Another student, who was incredibly stubborn required, me to dismiss his peers and have a tough love conversation. Emphasis on the tough. The next day he came to me smiling and eager to learn and we’ve had no problems since. (That’s what I love about a lot of special education kids. We can have a terrible day of misbehavior and the next day they’re your best friend again and it’s like nothing ever happened).

Another time, a different student came to my classroom and instantly went into kivet position bawling his eyes out. My strategy so far has been to ignore the behavior for 2-3 minutes. Once they see that their pity party has no takers, they usually uncurl themselves and get to work. However, this time was different. Now keep in mind that my students are not very skilled at expressing their emotions through words. The idea of talking when they are upset is not as instinctive as it is for the kids in the lower 48 who will usually tell you what’s wrong (usually accompanied by insults and sarcastic remarks). My new strategy for these behaviors is to play a “20 questions”-like game in which students reply to my questions with thumbs up and thumbs down. This allows them to keep their heads down and maintain their kivet position while still communicating with me. “Give me a thumbs up if this is a big problem. Give me a thumbs down if this a little problem” etc.……Come to find out the problem my student was facing wasn’t even related to my class, but an entirely different issue.

I’ve been trying to reach out to the Inupiaq community more by attending the local Quaker church. The nightly service consisted of four little, old ladies (the oldest was 95). We sang acapella hymns, read a chapter of Corinthians, and sang some more. They’ve been without a pastor for a few months and yet this small group of ladies continue to meet. They even sang a special number for me in their native language.

Today at the grocery store I heard a rumor that there was a Baptist missionary family moving to the village in the coming months. I’m excited and I’ll keep you posted. The only other avenue of reaching the community has been through open gym basketball nights. My basketball skills are getting better, but these kids are still whooping me. I also try to attend and help with the High School volleyball team after school.

Last blog, I wanted to answer some of your questions about my experiences and village life. Many questions were about food. My village has a small grocery store. It has a surprisingly good selection but it very inconsistent. We could have eggs galore and then go 3 weeks dry. Same with meat and pizza. It’s tough to shop because price tags are not posted. Today I tried to buy a bag of cuties oranges only to put them back when the register screen showed they were $20 per bag. I left spending $60 on a bag of frozen chicken breasts, a pizza, and three cutie oranges (yes it blows my mind). Please don’t judge me for buying a $20 oven-baked pizza. When you eat soup every day, you have to splurge sometimes.

Milk is readily available in box and canned forms. Boxed milk is actually not half bad when it’s cold. You just shake it up a lot and it tastes pretty good, especially with chocolate cereal which I ran out of last week.

Another question was how my Inupiaq was coming and it’s coming pretty poorly. I’ve gotten better at the pledge, but I’m still struggling with the guttural and throat noises, haha. I definitely need more practice.

My Battle of the Books meetings have been fun. If you don’t know, Battle of the Books is a trivia tournament for students who participate after reading 15 different books. I love the concept of this but the approach baffles me. Firstly, it’s hard enough to convince kids to read. Secondly, these books are chosen to be read by on grade level rich, lower 48 kids. The number of books and content is overwhelming. Lastly, I received some sample questions asked during the tournament and they don’t even relate to the plot of the stories. They ask questions like “what was the character’s show color?” So far, we’ve been studying plot summaries of the books, but it looks like there may be little point if those are the questions. Like many requirements for bush schools, it’s a good thought, but simply inappropriate to the point of bemusement.

Lastly, some of you wanted to see more pictures of the village so I trudged through the snow, slush, and ice to give you some more exposure to my new home.

Small pond next to the church. This will freeze over and you can walk on top of it.

Returning from fishing, people will leave the salmon to dry out and become more or less salmon jerky.

The village grocery store.

The old, original school house from the 60's.

Caribou skeletons and bones are laying around everywhere.

The only two-story building in the village.

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