TGIF (thank goodness I'M female) is what I tell the students :) Today we (middle school) helped students clean out their lockers and practiced for 8th grade promotion. This was the first run through for the promotion ceremony and lets just say its a good thing they still have a few more days to practice :) Many students had not seen the lines they will be reading until today and no one had any idea where to walk and stand. So they practiced many times (I think I have the ceremony songs memorized) and acted like it was the worst form of torture in the world :) Needless to say the decorations and organization is a BIG deal and I am starting to see the prep work that goes into these types of ceremonies.
Students were dismissed to go home after lunch today but many students hung out at school until 2:30 (to take the bus home) and many were still there when we left at 3:30. They don't wan't to leave some days.. Its a sweet (and sad) thing to see. On a positive note, it was great to spend time with the students outside of the classroom. I played cards games (they LOVED spoons) and taught them some card tricks I have learned back home- I had a very fun time to say the least.
I truly feel appreciated here. Though students can be very rude and disrespectful at times I also feel welcomed and can see the HUGE impact I have on these kids- I am sure the other student teachers would agree. These kids are very honest with you- they will tell you about their lives outside of school if you simply just listen. This is something that is becoming very difficult for me. Now that I have gotten to know these students (some pretty well) I hear more about their home loves. Being here for such a short time makes me more aware that I am another instability in their already unstable lives.... Hearing some of their stories makes it difficult for me to separate my emotions from my teaching. I find myself thinking "wow.. and I am suppose to teach you language arts today." This leads me into wondering things like "how late I will accept late work?" Yes I know you have things going on but there comes a point when things MUST be complete (or incomplete) and move on. It is my job to prepare these kids for the next grade the best to my ability and I struggle to decide how firm I am going to be with these types of issues and hope to learn from experience in my future years of teaching. This is a trial and error thing in my book and I am realizing that there are no easy solutions..
Yikes.. so thats my intense 'big question' of the week and now we are gathering in the main room for movie time (still bright as day at 11:15pm). Hope all is well back in the homeland!
Wow! Today was a excellent day. First, Travis, the 4th graders, and I went on a field trip. We took a field trip to the Barrow Utilities & Electric Coop., Inc. While there, we took a main level building tour which consisted of a half a million gallon water tank (smallest on the site), electrical work, and many other important features that are needed to run water throughout the entire community. After the tour of the main building, the class, Travis, and I went below the ground 12 feet to see what the piping was like in the utilidor. A utilidor is an underground corridor used to run the piping. The underground utilidor runs 3 miles in the frozen tundra and supplies water to all of the homes, schools, and local buildings. During the tour Mr. Brower (Tour guide) mentioned that it cost them $1,700 to build every square foot of the utilidor. Multiply that number by the how wide, tall, and long the utilidor is and you can figure out how much it cost to build it. I am too tired to try and figure it out, but if anyone gets an answer please respond back on the blog. The reason that the Barrow community even needs a utilidor to run its pipes is because of the permafrost. Mr. Brower stated that a pipe has never busted in the utilidor and that all of the breaks happen to the pipes that are buried under the ground. Overall, the tunnel tour was a success. Travis and I had a great time exploring the utilidor and observing the kids excitement during the tour.
All in all, I am enjoying my time here in Barrow and I know I will miss it much when I have to leave. I have learned so much about myself while being here. I have had every button pushed, every excuse thrown at me, and have faced many difficult situations. But, none of those things have stopped me from doing what I enjoy doing most, teaching. The kids here have changed my outlook on life and on teaching. I am now beginning to understand what it takes to be a successful role model and teacher. It's a totally different world up here and I am proud to say that I have had this amazing opportunity. Personally, I feel like I have had a more positive impact on these students than I did during my first placement in Minnesota. Some of the kids up here are in dire need of a role model, a friend, or a simple smile and a hug. This experience has been truly blessing and one that I will remember forever.
Wednesday has come and gone, which means the weekend is in sight. The girls are winding down their teaching stints at the middle school, which is a bittersweet thing. They seem to be setting up some good opportunities for them to check out the high school, observe other classrooms and possibly help assist the elementary classrooms if time allows. It will be nice to interact with them and have them see the 8,9,10 year olds are up to in our neck of the woods. Otherwise, we are hoping to get up a time with Geoff this weekend to check off dog-mushing on our to-do list. It would be quite the experience, and we hope that his schedule is clear enough to fit us in. With whaling, other tours and prior obligations going on, it may be hard to pencil us in his already busy life. We will have to keep you posted on those details as the weekend fast approaches.
On a side note, I am going to be assisting Justin's 4th grade classroom tomorrow at the underground tunnel. You may be asking yourself why would a class go see these kinds of things? I asked the same question. It seems that the students get to travel underground and virtually see Barrow's water supply in action. Apparently it's a pretty cool thing, and a usual trip for classes to go on. Justin and I are probably more excited than most of the kids are, but hopefully it will fire them up and keep them engaged. Otherwise, we are really winding down our time here and it is crazy to think how time flies. We only have 7 days left in the schools. It seems like just yesterday we stepped foot off of that airplane and asked each other what in the world did we get ourselves into. We still have things to accomplish and take care of before our time here ends, but the end is definitely in sight. Enjoy the stretch towards the weekend and feel free to ask any questions you may be wondering.
So Molly decided to blog this morning after her massive amount of sleep, thus I don't have much to say besides general comments on the time of year. According to the radio this morning, the sun will set at approximately 11:55 pm today. This brings the total daylight to 18 hours and 63 minutes as the radio announcer so wisely proclaimed. (get it? 63 minutes. alright.) The boys finally decided to take action and blocked the sunlight from coming in their windows using any means necessary. It actually works and they're probably snoozing right now.
Tonight was rather relaxing. Justin, Rachel, and I went to the gym to work out around 7:30 pm. When we left, I luckily had my sunglasses still in my coat pocket, so my eyes were able to enjoy a break from the sun. Yes, at 8:15 pm I was still in need of my sunglasses. When I go to bed soon, the sun will be up, and when I wake up, it'll be up again. I'm beginning to understand why the kids are so tired all the time.
Besides that, as Molly said, the middle school student teachers will be going to the high school tomorrow, which will be the first time we'll be able to see actual classrooms in the high school. So far we've only seen the gym from Prom, the Inupiat Studies Room, and the pool, which apparently acts as a large water reserve in case a fire breaks out in town as the ground is too cold for fire hydrants. It's one of those things you don't have to think about in Mn, but here it's a struggle. Similarly, the high school building is built in four separate wings, each with a longer hallway as a walkway between. In case of a fire, a bulldozer will just plow through the walkways to contain the fire to a single wing. Smart right? Lastly, when we went to the parade a few weeks ago, we noticed how big the fire trucks were. Turns out, they have to act as the fire truck and the water truck, again because fire hydrants don't exist here.
I think that's enough for tonight. Wish us luck looking after all our students at the high school tomorrow! Night!
Another weekend in Barrow has come and gone. I slept from about 4:30 yesterday until school this morning! ha. It felt AMAZING :) Anyways, we are finishing up with our instructional teaching days this week at the middle school. Here is our schedule (for the middle school) for the rest of the week:
Tomorrow: the 8th graders go on a tour of the high school, so that should be fun!
Thursday: Academia Day- we will be talking about writing applications to colleges and private high schools (also Gustavus of course).
Friday: Clean out lockers, and practice for 8th grade promotion ceremony.
So as you can see we are really down to the wire with teaching in the classroom. The college students have all moved out and the dorms feel much more quite.. Hopefully we will be getting some students from Mexico at the college that will be here through an exchange program. But no one seems to know exactly when they are coming, so we might just miss them. The food is still fantastic, as always, and today at lunch we will be having super nachos (my personal favorite), so needless to say it should be a great day at barrow middle school (knock on wood). I am looking forward to warmness and green grass!
Hello and welcome to Monday! We have entered the home stretch! After a no-show van again, our trusty "Barrow Dad" Steve, whizzed in to bring us to school. I guess that's just Barrow, and we're getting used to it. Steve found out he will be going to a last-minute conference this week, so we may have to try dog mushing in to school if the van can't bring us...we're sure thankful for all he does for us!
For the Middle school girls--Alyssa, Molly, and myself--there are only 2 days left of class instruction. We all are placed with 8th graders (though Alyssa also splits between the 6th graders) which means that we end early for "8th grade promotion". It's like graduation, but students are celebrated for coming this far, and being promoted to the high school. Because many students' parents and grandparents only went to school through the 8th grade, going to high school can be new territory. For this reason, we will be taking Wednesday to tour the high school in attempt to make the transition easier. On Friday we'll have locker clean out, and then next Monday and Tuesdays' time will be spent practicing for promotion, trying on their caps and gowns, and practicing standing in alphabetical order, etc. Promotion will happen in the evening, followed by a 8th grade dance. I have never been to a "promotion," so it should be interesting!
Today I really had fun with students working with electricity. We were talking about circuits, and students had tried lighting a light bulb using a battery and some wire. I was stressing how the circuit had to be composed of conductors (rather than insulators) in order for the bulb to light, and a girl asked a question about whether the braces in her mouth were conductors, and if they would work as part of a circuit. Of course, I had the whole class gather around and watch our attempt to answer her question. Let me tell you, I had their undivided attention--nobody was asleep then! I'm including a picture to prove that indeed it does work! (Hopefully it was memorable enough to also stick the definition of a circuit and a conductor into their brains, but we'll see on their post-test tomorrow!)
The 4th grade class that I am working with had the opportunity to build small machines this past week. Attached in the blog are pictures of the students building the machines and battling each other. The students really enjoyed building the machines and learning how to work cooperatively with each other.
Today was a difficult day for all of us here in Barrow. The reason why it was so hard is because our advisor, Michele Koomen, left this morning. It was hard to say goodbye to our last visiting member from Gustavus, but all of us were able to hold back our tears and get through this difficult time. I would like to thank all of our advisors for everything they did for us while here in Barrow. No words can explain how grateful we are to have all of them guiding us through this experience. Once Michele left, all of us went back to bed for a couple of hours until it was time for brunch. Like always, brunch was amazing!!
After brunch, the crew parted ways again with one goal in common, finish planning for the week. Everyone knows how much us teachers enjoy doing that. Once everyone was done planning or should I say tired of planning, we came together as a crew and watched a movie. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa was the movie we decided to watch. Personally I thought the movie was great and recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it.
Later on, Tony joined us for dinner and Scattegories. It's always great to have Tony around because we can ask him questions we may have or simply listen to advice on certain issues within the school. He is an excellent teacher and has really helped all of us grow as individuals while in Barrow. Overall, the evening was a low key night. Everyone finished their planning and relaxed in preparation for the week ahead. Travis and I are looking forward to tomorrow because it's PJ day at the Ipalook Elementary.
This upcoming week and weekend, we hope to tour the town a little more and line up some different activities. Dog sledding, polar bear watching, and the museum top our lists on things we want to do or see before we leave. Thanks again for all of our support during this awesome experience!!
Apologies for never finishing my thoughts from Friday night/Saturday morning. Fun Friday, as I wrote earlier, consisted of no classes after lunch and a Staff vs. Students basketball game. Rachel, Molly, and I were recruited to help the Staff side, as groups of kids rotate every two or three minutes, while there aren't nearly as many staff players as student players. I got to the game late, but ended up playing my fair share. As mentioned earlier, the Staff won by 30 points, no big deal. :)
After school, the three of us who had played basketball walked outside in our shorts to catch the van back to Ilisagvik, which seemed warm as the temperature was around 25 degrees. Friday night was Ilisagvik's Commencement at Ipalook Elementary, so our Barrow father drove us back into town after dinner. I was surprised by the number of people in the gym and the number of graduates since we had previously been told only four people were graduating. Anyone who earns a certificate during the year, even if the program was only 3 or 6 months, is given the opportunity to take part in the ceremony, so there were roughly 25 graduates on stage. Dr. Russell Means, an actor from Last of the Mohicans and the voice of Pocahontas' father, was the guest speaker, who apologized for having to speak in English. English, according to Dr. Means, does not do native languages justice, as it is one of the least expressive languages on the planet. Dr. Means was quite thought provoking when we could hear him, as the microphone kept cutting out, a problem which was rumored to be caused by "sun spots" which interfere with electronic currents and waves in the air. Whatever the problem was, we did not hear the entirety of what Dr. Means was saying. The ceremony lasted two hours, half the time our earlier Whaling Service would have taken had we stayed. After eating our fill of cake and appetizers following the ceremony, we returned to Ilisagvik with Lilo, one of the drivers who joins us from Tonga (google it, it's gorgeous).
When we got back, we played BananaGrams with Scrabble pieces for an hour or so, before trying a game or two of Catchphrase. Some of us wanted to watch t.v., but apparently since it's the end of the school year, no one thought to pay the t.v. bill and thus we no longer have cable. By 12:30 am, Liz, a college student visiting from Fairbanks, offered to drive Tony back to town, so John and I accompanied her. On the way back, we decided to explore Barrow as it never gets completely dark here anymore. We were to the arches at Brower's Cafe, took a picture in front of the Eskimo cut-outs, and even visited the Northernmost Totem Pole in the World. We went to see the Distant Early Warning system (DEW Line) and up to the point before returning to the college around 1:45 am. Due to this little excursion, I failed to blog before Friday was over and thus am writing now.
On Saturday, most of us slept in until noon and rushed to get ready for Steve to pick us up around 1:15. Dr. Russell Means had agreed to speaking for the Saturday Schoolyard talk, but this time we were at the Tuzzy Library and the lecture ended with a book signing. Molly, Rachel, Michele, and I went with Steve to meet Tony at the Library, where we sat front and center, a rather intimidating location. From earlier discussions of Dr. Means, I was expecting his lecture to be aggressively persuasive, controversial, and possibly even offensive. Dr. Means started his Saturday talk as he had his speech at commencement, but branched off to talk about his people's history and his past, going further in depth with his activism and struggle for natives' rights. As a Lakota native, Dr. Means mentioned some familiar subjects such as NDSU's Fighting Sioux controversy, South Dakota's Black Hills, and native activist groups located in Minneapolis, all things that hit home for us Gusties. Dr. Means adamantly argued that natives needed self-determination, to be free from the dictates of the U.S. Government and to recover from the era of Boarding Schools that continues to haunt numerous generations.
Even though Dr. Means had never attended a boarding school, his parents had not been as fortunate. One of the mandates of this era was that siblings could not go to the same school for fear they would continue speaking their native language to one another and would keep remnants of their culture, things the U.S. Government wanted to eliminate. Older students at the boarding schools would be expected to beat younger students for their use of native languages, literally beating the language out of them. Without parents throughout their education, in addition to the corporal punishment found at most schools, the boarding school graduates did not grow up to be nurturing, supportive parents. This trend has plagued a number of generations that never went to boarding school, but still receive the effects of the anger and violence that occurred at these institutions.
As a future Social Studies Teacher, Dr. Means put U.S. History into perspective as well, labeling our Founding Fathers as "Indian Killers" and rightfully crediting the Iroquois for representative government being included in the U.S. Constitution. He was quite thought provoking, thanking teachers for what they do and giving a few examples as to how teachers positively or negatively affected his life. At the end of the lecture, Dr. Means agreed to take a picture with us girls, but the picture happens to be on Michele's camera so you're going to have to pester her for it. :)
The rest of the afternoon was spent in town going to the Dry Cleaners/Fur Shop where Molly and Rachel did some damage, while I only purchased a Barrow shirt and a few other things. We met up with Michele and Tony at the AC Store before heading back to Ilisagvik for dinner and a relaxing evening of movies and reading. I've done enough damage of my own with this post, so happy reading and enjoy the remainder of your Sunday evening.
Yesterday, the third grade team at Ipalook Elementary got to take a class field trip to the North Slope Search and Rescue headquarters. It was a great experience for everybody, and a nice change of pace from the daily classroom routine. The kids knew a bit about the Search and Rescue program, for various reasons. Some of the students have family members who work directly at the headquarters, while others know somebody that has had to be rescued in the past. It was nice for them to see the process behind it all, which ensures the safety and well being of the citizens in the North Slope Borough.
The students got a chance to experience being strapped into a gurney, have their heart rate monitored, and even get to check out night vision goggles! What a great thing for them to see. I really liked how the men and women of the Search and Rescue department emphasized the importance of schooling to follow your dreams. They really conveyed the message that you need to work hard, study hard and keep striving to achieve your dreams. The kids seemed to really connect with the Search and Rescue team today, just because they know how important these men and women are in their town and the borough. A lot of them became so intrigued that they were talking about becoming pilots when they are older, and wanting to save lives. I really liked being on the other side of the field trip and help chaperoning the class. You really want the kids to take away something positive from the whole experience, and I feel the third graders really enjoyed what they saw and heard.
http://www.co.north-slope.ak.us/departments/sar/
Enjoy the weekend, and soak up the warm weather for all 5 of us
As it is currently 2:07 am Barrow time, later than I have ever managed to stay up while here, all I have to say is:
Staff 71 Students 41
We totally dominated in basketball today. Props go out to Ms. Anderson and Ms. Koppel for their mad skills and I even managed to score 10 points (although some will argue that number is lower, but they're wrong). I will update in the morning and as a personal reminder, I will elaborate on our experiences at Ilisagvik's Graduation, playing BananaGrams, and other late night escapades which can happen when the sun does not set until nearly midnight.
Today was a fun day for me—my students and I were able to play with fire! We did several labs dealing with thermal conductivity that included testing which metals could conduct thermal energy better than others…hence the fire…as well as watching the rate of ice cubes melting while placed on different surfaces. It’s always exciting to teach about something I’m passionate about (science and especially physics), but it’s absolutely exhilarating to teach about something I know the students are excited about as well—who cares if just the word “fire” hooked them, as long as they engaged with the lesson and stayed with it!
We student teachers (and Michele) were able to have a group pow-wow this evening. We talked about critical incidents that we’ve been wrestling with this week, and there are definitely some tough situations and points of growth for us all. We struggle with: honing our teaching strategies, how to deal with controversial issues within a classroom—as non-tenured teachers, building relationships with cooperating teachers and students, cultural barriers and differing past experiences, and trying to reach out to students whose lives are heart-wrenchingly difficult (without losing sight of the rest of the class and our own lives).
Week 3 is almost at a close, the sun is staying up late with me, and we’re soaking it all in (as is the roof—as evidenced by my sight out the window). Tomorrow, we hope to witness the Ilisagvik College graduation ceremony and some more bonding time—and sleeping time!
Hi All- Well I am not sure if I will not be able to live up to the last post. So if you would like to stop reading now I understand :) However, on a selfish note, today was a very fun day for me! I had my first gym class experience :) Last night, I volunteered to be a softball pitcher for the morning gym class session. Rach, Aylssa and I all have prep first hour so I figured it would be a fun way to awake the day. Once I got to gym class today, there were not enough students to play softball so we decided to play ultimate frisbee. For those of you that do not know what this game is, it involves a lot of running back and forth across the gym. You are not allowed to run with the frisbee so you must pass it back and fourth with your team mates from one end of the gym to the other. There are two teams, so you can also intercept passes from the other team. Long story short, I was sweating profusely by the end of class! Teaching 5 minutes after this experience was quite the transition. I looked GREAT to say the least :) It was fun for me because a lot of those kids (in gym) tend to sleep in my class and I was able to keep them awake by simply stating lines like "I know you are able to stay awake for a class, I have seen and experienced it with you!" It was greeaaat- I always enjoy seeing the kids outside of the Language Arts classroom.
The Big Question: Every couple days I tend to reflect on some 'big picture' education questions. The one I have been pondering yesterday and today is about ability grouping. Is it beneficial for the students and teachers to put kids with equal intelligence and academic ability in the same groups? At Hopson Middle School the grades are divided into four sections (A,B,C,D) based on the Math class they tested into. I understand why it is beneficial for Math classes to break students in this way (no one wants to teach 4 different levels of Math at one time), but I am unsure if it is beneficial for the rest of us... In my English class, for example, the lowest Math placement group (B group) clams they are unable to complete some of my assignments because they are the 'stupid group' or 'dumb kids,' and this truly bothers me. I am constantly telling them that there placements are strictly for Math, and that Math is a very hard subject. As the common saying goes- the group will only be as strong as their weakest member- this can also apply in classrooms with students. I constantly find that B group refuses to challenge themselves at times (most times) because of this mindset. Most of the disruptive students are also in this class, and they all are able to play off each other because they are all sitting in the same classrooms at the same times. If I could pull one of those disruptive students out into a different class, I believe they would work much harder and feel the need to complete their worksheets, etc. because those around them are. Perhaps this is just me, I don't know.. and I am not educated enough on the background of these placements to make a concrete decision about my beliefs. However, I do constantly wonder what the atmosphere of the classes would be like if students did not have ALL their classes together as a group, and no class felt like they were at the top or bottom..
I am not sure about my beliefs on ability grouping but there is something that I completely sure about... I want to teach. Though we are teaching in a very extreme environment, I still find myself smiling at the end of the day and loving what I do. This experience has further confirmed my passions about teaching. I can't help but smile thinking that next year (hopefully) we will all be doing this on our own! We will have our own classrooms and students, and I personally cant wait! Though we are in the middle of no where, and some classes may feel like we have not taught a single thing that day, I still can't wait! Corny, I know, but very true! I am so excited for all of us to finally test what we have learned and practiced for so many years. Everyone in this group will be a better teacher because of this experience- so let the fun begin!
Today, was a very eventful day at the elementary school. Of course during full-time the elementary conveniently had a fire drill. This drill put Travis and I to the test right way in the morning. The interesting thing about this drill is I had no idea where to take the kids.... Oops forgot to cover that area with my cooperating teacher. Luckily my students knew what to do and lead the way to the exit. Another thing that made this fire drill very interesting is that many of the students were wearing shorts and t-shirts outside. Meanwhile, Travis and I were bundled up in our winter jackets, gloves, and hats.
After school, the crew met up with former GAC student Tony Bissen, and middle school gym teacher Steve Gillespie (Tony's roommate). We ate at a local diner called Northern Lights. The food there was amazing and a nice change of pace from the college cafeteria. While eating, we were able to listen to some of their stories and talk about something else besides teaching. This was a great time to connect with the supervisors on a more personal level.
Once dinner was completed, a group of us decided to try out our curling skills at the local ice arena. Let me tell you it's not as easy as the Canadians made it look during the Olympics. Our curling team consisted of Eric, The Shoe, Rachel, and myself. All of us had a blast learning the game from Scott (can't remember his last name), Barrow's local curling ambassador. Before leaving our, Barrow father decided to give curling a try. Let's just say he also discovered that curling is not as easy as it looks (The bigger they are the harder they fall). The picture attached to the blog will allow you to see and predict what happened during Steve's curling experience.
As an education student, we are constantly told to make connections from the content to real-life experiences. This helps the student relate with the lesson and helps them retain the information for future recall. It is a lot easier to remember something you can tie into your own life, rather than something completely new and foreign to you. Speaking from personal experience, I have never had much of an issue making real-life connections while I was teaching in Minnesota. The same cannot be said for here in Barrow, though. I find myself continuously trying to think of a way to relate the lesson of the day to something they have had experience with and see or do on a daily basis. I find it more and more difficult to make connections with something I know they have prior knowledge of. They do not have exposure to an array of things that seem so familiar to us in Minnesota. For example, Justin was working with geometric shapes and was talking about a shoebox. Numerous hands shot up in the air all with the same question, "what is a shoebox?" I also worked with 2nd graders that were learning about clocks and time. I asked them the simple question "what time of day is it when it is dark out?" This seems like an obvious answer, but you have to remember that these kids do not have sunlight on a regular basis like we do in Minnesota. The students all began to ask what time of year I was talking about, because they know if we are talking winter that it is dark almost all day. It is something as little as these instances that make you take a step back and realize that you cannot assume just because a student where you are from understands something, means that these children will.
I bring this topic up because as a pre-service teacher, we are only allowed 6 weeks to get to know and work with these students. That is not an ample amount of time, and there is not much room to gain a background knowledge on your students or the culture. We are really put on the spot here diving into the culture, as well as the teaching profession. It is really testing us on a daily basis, but I feel we are all becoming stronger teachers because of it. It makes you reflect on the individual student, rather than the lesson itself. It is a good time to practice these skills for future reference when we are working with our classrooms. If we can tie real-life experiences to students in a culture that we have only been involved with for 2.5 weeks, I feel we can come back to Minnesota and tie in the content to things we experience daily with ease.
Hey all! I don't even know how to begin this blog, as I'm completely wiped out from the weekend and we go back to school tomorrow! We started the morning off late, sleeping in and going to lunch around noon. Steve and Vanni joined us, as did a snow scientist who, with his gang of fellow scientists, had traveled 300 miles or so by snow machine from Fairbanks to Barrow studying snow along the way. The scientists are scheduled to talk to a few middle school classes tomorrow, so we'll see how the presentation goes. We ended our lunch with a contest to see who could guess just how many pictures Eric had taken in thirty minute period in his attempt to capture the "Green Flash" as the sun set. The number, if I remember correctly, was 473? Vanni came out victorious and thus won the Patrick sticker. (Yes, Patrick the starfish from Spongebob Squarepants)
After lunch, Eric, Shoe, and Michele went on a tour with Steve and Vanni, while the student teachers settled down to plan lessons, grade papers, and get ready for Monday. Each Monday, teachers in Barrow and possibly across the entire North Slope Borough are required to turn in their weekly plan to their respective principals. Although this practice requires us to stress on Sundays, at least we have that portion of our lesson planning out of the way for the rest of the week. Our supervisors returned in time for dinner and an after dinner meeting before Steve and Vanni arrived for the Meet and Greet.
Cheryl, the Director of Student Services, decided with the help of another college employee, to have a "Meet the Minnesotans" event at the college. So at seven we all gathered around the refreshments to talk about Gustavus and why we were here at Ilisagvik. We got to know a few residents, too bad the school year ends for college students in a matter of five days. Following the Meet and Greet, we all settled down to plan out our weeks and get some rest. I was so distracted that I nearly forgot to blog! Luckily, Rachel reminded me, this post is now complete, and I can go to bed! It's almost midnight here and it's not completely dark, but I'm going to try to get some sleep anyway. Goodnight.
Today we got a lovely chance to sleep in to make up for all of the late nights and early mornings we have been putting in to student teaching.And sleep is getting to be a difficult thing…especially if you don’t have an eye mask like I have.Mr. Koser and Shoe (Gustavus supervisors that are local high school teachers) tried to wake up to see the Northern Lights early this morning, but even at 2:30 am, it was too light out.The sun goes down for a few hours yet, but the time when it is down seems more like dusk or twilight.Apparently, we’re losing 10 minutes of darkness every day now.
This evening Michele (another Gustavus supervisor) arrived, so we met her at the airport before heading off to prom.The gym had been transformed from the last time we had seen it—they used tulle, shiny plastic, balloons, a fake chandelier, a DJ and loads of glitter to create the mood.They served chips, pop, sandwiches, fruit, and later cake and pizza—all very tasty.Compared to MN proms, students here did no grand march, and many came late and without obvious dates. As with any prom, there were questionable outfits…especially some short skirts and low tops…which inspired a discussion about what we all would (and wouldn’t) allow our children to wear out of the house or to prom someday.Wow, that makes us sound old!
Our chaperoning role turned out to be checking in students at the door and handing out gift bags, as well as monitoring the dancing and PDA inside the gym.I think Justin had to try really hard to keep from running out onto the dance floor full of strangers, because he and Molly both were really working dance moves near the side of the gym.Travis and Justin had the big role of duct taping the coolers full of punch so that students wouldn’t be able to spike the punch—which has been a big issue in past years.Chances are the other chaperones will have to call them back later tonight when they realize how well and in how many directions the boys wrapped those coolers.Otherwise, Alyssa, Molly and I had a nice time chatting and collecting tickets.By the end of the night, we were able to see a spectacular arctic sunset over the ocean and all went home with water bottles from the Barrow Prom.
Unnusatkun from Barrow, Alaska. Justin (the fun guy on the trip) here with the latest and greatest news. Today was a great day in Barrow. We woke up with the sun shining brightly in the velvet sky. With a good bowl of cereal for breakfast we were on our way into town for another eventful day. However, some of us did have some issues with getting to school on time. Instead of getting dropped off at school, we went on the bus route with our driver. Travis, Eric, and I were not sure if she forgot us in the back or what the deal was. Therefore, instead of getting their at 7:30 we got there a little after 8:00. ...oops. Other then that, today was just another day at school. Eric observed the elementary, while Shoe observed the middle school. When talking to the rest of the student teachers all of them agreed that the students were a little crazy today. But, what do you expect from students on a Friday. It's very evident that the students are ready for the school year to be over. After schoool, Eric and Shoe (Big Bob) had the opportunity to go sledding with Geoff Carrol. The rest of us were really jealous of them and were wishing we were along for the ride. To make matters even worse they mushed right by the college... haha. Both of them said they had a wonderful time mushing and learning the tricks and the trades of dog sledding. Eric took a lot of great pictures that we were able to see once they returned from their adventure. While listening to their amazing stories and pictures we dinned over pizza from East Coast Pizza. The pizza was really good and I think Travis would agree. I think he ate at least five pieces of pizza.
Tomorrow's Agenda: 1. Wake up around 11:00 (At least Travis and I will) 2. Group Lunch 3. Racquetball (Travis will lose) 4. Science speaker at NARL 5. Get ready to cut a rug at the high school prom (Whalers here Gustavus comes)
More news and updates from the prom to come tomorrow! Better get my beauty sleep because tomorrow is going to be a great day. PROM HERE WE COME!!!!
Peace, Love, and Whaling: Justin (Our whaling team captain)
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