Not in Barrow Anymore

Well, it's been 2 years since I posted anything so I figured I move back up the list on the less than 5 people that that knew this blog ever existed. I'm teaching in Granville, NY now. Barrow was a fun and crazy place. It was an experience that we'll never forget.

Mixed Cultures

I had a profound realization the other day.
I had multiple students who were doing Keynote (like Powerpoint for Macs) presentations about the spring whale hunt where they make hand-sewn seal skins and attach it to a wooden frame. They then carry/paddle their boat across the ice and open water to where the whales come by. I was struck by the archaic nature of this tradition. I was then more profoundly struck by the fact that these same young people, that are very much a part of that ancient tradition as part of their way of life, are also asked to come to school and document their traditions on their own personal MacBook with wireless internet, DVD burner, and built-in camera. What a stark difference. A large majority of the native residents of Barrow are no more that 2 (and a lot of them 1) generation(s) away from being nomadic reindeer herdsmen or other completely subsistence hunter/fisher/gatherer.

Barrow Weather

Size of the North Slope Bourough School District

Here's another factoid for you:
The school district that I teach in is about 4,ooo sq. miles larger than the state of Minnesota.
It includes about 1/4th of the state of Alaska or about 88,000 sq. miles. Minnesota, the 12th largest state is about 84,000 sq. miles.
Crazy, huh?

In other news ... I got off work today for the last time until January 7th. So, we are off to Kodiak where it's about 30 degrees warmer (highs in the 30's) and the sun comes up everyday (not in another month and a half). It's amazing what you can be thankful for.

And, here's a picture of when my Dad came to Barrow at the end of Octoober.

Vacation for a Teacher

I never appreciated how much teachers look forward to the school break just as much, if not more than the students do.

Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed having a few days off. With as long a summer break as they have here (almost 3 1/2 months) they don't have many break in between. I have done a lot of sitting and thus a lot of nothing. I'll probably regret not going to school at least one day and getting ahead of my class a little bit.

Wouldn't you guess though, my one thing that I had to do during the break was right in the middle of the BYU-Utah football game. I chose to not watch the beginning and try to catch up on the rest but rather to pay $15 to watch it the next day on the internet. Well, I made it almost 24 hours without checking any sports scores so I wouldn't see the score. I paid the money to watch it and just as the game was going to start it flashed the score on the computer screen. Then, the video stream was VERY choppy to the point that it was almost unwatchable. I scrapped the whole thing, wrote a note to the internet company, checked the highlights in ESPN and felt OK about life. Anyways, GO COUGARS!!!! and I hope you had a great Thanksgiving.

1st Post

OK. Here we go. No promises on how often this is updated but it's Thanksgiving and I have more than 10 minutes at a computer to do something other than school work so I thought I might give an update on the crazy teaching adventure here in Barrow. You get a lot from Krystal on our family in general. This is what I have to say about teaching.

I hope that what they say is true. " Your first year is the toughest!" It's been tough. I know that it is a combination of difficult kids (other teachers with more experience say that they are tough kids) and my inexperience but regardless, it's been challenging.

One of the interesting thigs that i didn't expect was for the extreme lack of your average white student. I knew that the area was 60% Native Alaskan (Inupiaq) but I didn't expect that of the other 40% that most of them are Thai, Polynesian, and Asian. I usually have about 0-5 white kids in each of my classes. I have six computer classes with a total of about 80 kids in them. I get all new kids starting in Jaunary and it sounds like I might have more like 100-120 kids for the second half of the year.

I decided that I wanted to try some coaching so I signed up to coach an intermural basketball team. I had 15 kids on my team officially but 7 of them never showed up to any games or practices. I had 6 of them that showed up fairly regularly. We practiced Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:30-7:30 and had 1 or 2 games on Saturdays for about 5 weeks. We went 7-0. I had some great kids that really worked hard and played well together. One of the fun kids was a 7th grader that was about 4'8", could only dribble left, never picked up his head when he dribbled, but hustled his tail off and made about 9 of 10 open looks that he got from wherever he was on the floor. (One practice he hit 3 consecutive, no-look, backwards shots ... from half court)

Here are a couple of pictures of my classroom and some of my kids: