Spring Fever

I'm glad to be spending spring in (comparatively) tropical Alaska instead of Minnesota! I've enjoyed temps in the low 50s the past two weeks while my parents have woken up to -11 in Brimson. Aside from the weather, however, I have been missing my friends and family in the lower 48 recently, and am looking forward to coming home in a little over a month. 

"Yuplish"

Spring in Tuluksak has flown by. Primarily, I feel, because testing has impacted much of our instructional time. About 95% of our students need to take the the Access ELL test. This is a federally mandated test for students who are English Language Learners (ELL). I can understand all of my students when they speak, but they do speak differently than I do. Some people call the way they speak "Yuplish" or "village English." They use English words, but structure their sentences they way they would in Yup'ik. Also, every village on the delta has their own slang, so "village English" means something different everywhere you go. 

The Access exam is comprised of 4 separate tests: reading, writing, speaking and listening. Some students have tested "proficient" on one or two tests and therefore don't need to take them, but most needed to take all four parts.  Using tests like this one, that don't take into account how different life is in this part of the world, frustrates me because I don't think they are able to accurately assess the abilities of students here. Test questions that use examples of things that don't exist in the village like city blocks, garbage trucks or skyscrapers, I think puts kids here at a disadvantage compared to their counterparts in the lower 48 or more developed regions of Alaska. 

Spring Break

My parents were able to visit Alaska over my spring break. They came all the way out to Tuluksak to spend a couple of days with me and then spent the rest of their trip in Anchorage and Seward. It was really nice to see them for the first time since July and I was thankful that the weather cooperated and all of their travel in and out of the village went smoothly. 

Birkie was also very happy they visited.

They brought snow and cold temps with them from MN

Baskets and Harpoons

The week after spring break, we had another culture intensive. Our school brought in two Yup'ik artists from Hooper Bay; Mary Smith and Steven Stone. Mary taught the girls how to weave grass baskets and Steven made harpoons with the boys. Just like our previous culture week, I really enjoyed spending this time with the students and learning alongside them. The grass we used was gathered by Mary and she called it "Bering Sea grass." I have made baskets before using wooden reed, but using the grass was a entirely different, and very meticulous, process. 

Steven talking with the girls while they worked on their baskets.

A piece of art created by Steven and his wife. It features a whale vertebrae, walrus ivory carvings, seal skin and a grass basket woven by his wife. 

Steven explaining his technique to the students. He is truly an awesome artist. This is his website that features more of his creations: http://stevenstoneart.com/

Harpoons made by the boys. (Minus the sharpened tips that they had to pick up from our principal at the end of day) 

Mushing

The weekend following this culture intensive, Birkie and I followed howls and yips to the Tuluksak River to find some impromptu dogsledding races. From what I gathered talking to people, the teams were from downriver villages Kwethluk, Akiachak and Akiak. 

 Birkie and I watched the start of the race from the river bank. She thought it was pretty exciting. I think she has the instinctual spirit required to be a sled dog, but not the focus. 

I think there were 7 or 8 teams racing.  A lot of spectators had driven up on the ice road to watch. 

I'm not sure what the route of the race was, but it took teams a little over 2 hours to finish. Even though it was a much smaller event than the K300, it was more exciting to me because it was visible during the daylight!

More Testing

The Alaska Measures of Progress (AMP) test was scheduled to take up the first 2 weeks of April, but due to technical problems it was cancelled statewide. This is just fine with me, and I think the students were ok with it too. AMP was off to an especially rough start in our district before it was cancelled. The day that we were scheduled to begin testing, a state audit of our district determined that over half of the students in Tuluksak did not have immunization records on file with the school. These records were supposed to have been received by the school at the beginning of the year before students were allowed to attend, but they were not. So, on that morning over half of the students were sent home until they could bring in a copy of their records or have the clinic send them to the school. Interruptions like this, that I would have been very surprised by before, have become the norm this year and while they are at times frustrating, they have taught me to become very flexible in my teaching. 

Preparing for the End

The last day of school in Tuluksak is May 18th. I am leaving the village the following day and spending a few days in Anchorage before returning the Minnesota. I did not sign my contract to return to Tuluksak next year and hope to find a teaching position in Duluth. I have mailed home the bulk of my belongings that I won't be taking with me on the plane. My shipping plans were delayed for a bit last week because someone broke into the post office. Several thousand dollars was stolen resulting in the post office being closed for several days while the incident was investigated.

Out of the 15 certified staff that work in our building, including our principal and counselor, 5 are returning next year. There are no general education high school teachers staying. Even though I know leaving is the right decision for me, I am sad that my students will have so few familiar faces in their school next year. This will be Tuluksak's fourth principal in as many years, and this high rate of turnover really takes a toll on the kids. That being said, I think that turnover like this will continue until there are some serious systemic changes made at the state, district and village levels. There is a cultural crisis happening in many villages on the delta that is fueled by evolving societies and a changing natural world. I am of the opinion that schools here are not adequately equipped to aid in this crisis and that the western model of education more often exacerbates rather than mitigates the societal  problems here. 

The link below is to a video that is really well made, and gives an overview of some of the issues facing Yup'ik people on the delta. If you've been keeping up with my blogs, I highly recommend watching it because it provides imagery to much of what I've written about. 

Mother Kuskokwim

Alaska Close Up

I spent last week in Juneau with four students participating the Alaska Close Up program. Close Up operates at the state and national level providing students the opportunity to see how their government works "close up." This is the second time our district has sent students to the program. There were 16 students in total sent from our district and the social studies teacher from each site was sent along as a chaperone. Overall, this was a great experience for my students and myself, and I tried to take lots of pictures of all the places we went. 

 It was a warm sunny morning when we left Tuluksak. 

 Several students took advantage of our layover in Anchorage to relax before our busy trip.

All of the students and chaperones in our Close Up session (around 50) stayed at Juneau's youth hostel. It was nice for the students because they got to spend time with other students from around the state. It was okay for the adults who had to stay on the bunk beds with the students. 

There were four school districts participating in this session: ours, Lower Yukon, Kuspuk and North Pole. The Lower Yukon district is just north of ours, and the Kuspuk district is just upriver. Both districts are also comprised of remote Yup'ik villages. North Pole is an urban district in the Fairbanks area. 

Juneau reminded me a bit of Duluth because it was a hilly city on the water. Juneau's climate is temperate rainforest. We were lucky to have lots of sun and warm weather during our week. 

Our classroom for the week was inside a church that was a few blocks from the hostel and the capitol building.  In the classroom, students spent time doing activities relating to the three branches of state government and working on their local project presentations.

One of the activities the students did involved trying to create a budget for school district. Alaska is currently in fiscal crisis. Oil revenue is depleted and the state is trying to mitigate a 3.5 billion dollar deficit in next year's budget. While we were in Juneau, it was decided that the legislature would only hear bills relating to the budget for the remainder of their session. 

Meeting with Lt. Governor Byron Mallot was exciting for the students. Mr. Mallot is a Tlingit man who grew up in a very remote region, like many of the students, and he delivered a very uplifting message to them. 

Our tour guide pointed out that Alaska is the only state whose seal features a seal. 

Our State Senator Lyman Hoffman was in the Bethel area while we were in Juneau, but we were able to talk with his staff at his office. The students liked seeing that Senator Hoffman's office was decorated with lots of Yup'ik art from both the coast and upriver.  

The students were not able to meet Governor Walker on our trip, but they did receive a tour of his house. 

A Tlingit totem pole and brown bear inside the state administrative office building. 

The observation deck across from the capitol building. 

I was able to help choose the students from our school who attended this program and I am so proud of these four girls (3 seniors and 1 sophomore). Even as an adult who has been in the village less than a year, it can be very overwhelming leaving the village and spending a whole week in an urban area. They did such a great job being brave, kind and representing our school. 

The cutest photo-bomber! Wearing her qaspeq made during culture week :)

Student from the Yupiit School District with State Representative Bob Herron and his wife. 

The steps of the capitol building at sunset.

 One thing that really surprised me about Juneau was that because of the mountains, their days were over an hour shorter than ours. 

U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski was in Juneau and took time to briefly talk and take pictures with our students. One of my students bravely asked her a question about what she hopes for Alaska's youth in the future. She said that she hopes to see more jobs created in rural areas. This sentiment that was very relatable to the Yupiit and Lower Yukon students whose communities have very few jobs. 

For me, the most memorable part of our trip was visiting Lemon Creek Correctional Center--a maximum security prison that houses inmates from around the state. At the prison, we all had to take off our jackets, sweatshirts and jewelry before entering. We had to walk single file through several sets of fences and doors, being counted by Correctional Officers the entire way. Once inside, we were seated in the gym. The officers talked with us for a while about their jobs and explained the cell layout that was taped on the floor. 

There were three inmates who volunteered to talk with the students. They were escorted into the gym, introduced themselves and told a bit of their story. All of them were in prison for drug or alcohol related offenses and all were repeat offenders. There was one woman who was from the village of Napaskiak which is about 60 miles downriver from Tuluksak. Some of our students knew her family. She told a very emotional story about her lifelong struggle with alcohol abuse and encouraged our students to live a sober life.

Throughout our stay, students wrote thank-you notes to the representatives, teachers, tour guides and others who spent time with us. One of my students chose to write to one of the inmates who spoke with us and I was really impressed with her message. 

Each school group was asked to put together a local project that identified a problem in their community and how they could ask their representatives to help with that problem. These students from Alakanuk and Numan Iqua focused their project on jobs they would like to see created in their villages. Other problems students addressed in their projects were water quality, lack of after school activities and the need for Village Police Officers in their communities. My student's project was about the need of running water in our village's clinic.

On the day before our students left, we took a trip to see the impressive Mendenhall Glacier. 

This was my first time seeing a glacier and I thought it was pretty cool! (get it?)

 Our district arranged a special trip for our students to visit the University of Alaska Southeast. The campus was on a lake surrounded by mountains and was absolutely beautiful. This campus is the smallest of University of Alaska's sites and has a sizable Alaskan Native population. For these reasons, it could be a good fit for our students who want to go to college. I know that after our tour and hearing about scholarship opportunities, several students were inspired to apply. 

After a few "exciting" experiences navigating the bus system during the week, I splurged the last day and we took a cab back to hostel. 

The skies were so clear on our flight from Bethel back to Tuluksak we could see the mountains in the distant. 

Returning to the village has been a bit challenging. Tax returns have created a serious influx of alcohol resulting in distressed students, shots being fired at all hours, and some pretty unpleasant encounters with drunk people at the store and post office. I am looking forward to the extra money running out and things quieting down. 

The weather has been strangely warm the last week--in the high 30s/40s with lots of sun. I've enjoyed spending lots of time outside with Birkie after being away for a week. We have one more week of school before spring break. I'm look forward to break and especially to seeing my parents who will be visiting Alaska for the first time and spending a few days with me in the village. 

The Kuskokwim 300

Last weekend was eventful in Tuluksak. The Kuskokwim 300 dog sled race is one of the more competitive and well-funded races in Alaska, and Tuluksak is a mandatory checkpoint for mushers. The race starts in Bethel and travels on and along the Kuskokwim River to Aniak and back. The race is a qualifying race for the Iditarod so there were many famous mushers passing through the village. Between Tuluksak and Kalsgag (50 miles upriver) there is a mandatory 6 hours of rest. Our school was the base where vets and race officials stayed over the weekend. Many mushers spent their rest time sleeping on the floor of our gym. 

Teachers volunteered to bring food and help people coming in and out of the school over the weekend. Even though many mushers came and went in the middle of the night, it was still pretty neat seeing the dogs and meeting race officials. I even got to chat with Iditarod legend Martin Buser for a while :)

The dog teams stayed on the river behind the school while the mushers rested. 

There were 30 dog teams in the race so lots of dog food and straw had to be flown into the village the week before the race. 

Race officials traveled along the course keeping the dogs and mushers safe. The ice road is currently open, but the conditions are very rough for both sled and vehicle travel. 

Dogs that mushers had to drop from their team stayed next to the school until they could be flown back to Bethel. I think these dogs were probably more cozy than the ones that had to stay on the river. 

This area of the school is visible from my house so Birkie had a very difficult weekend being able see, but not play with, all these dogs. 

The Alaska National Guard was also here over the weekend helping with the race, completing "arctic training" and driving around in these crazy beasts.  The guardsmen were supposed to sleep outside and only eat their rations packets, but many of them spent a lot of time in the school enjoying the heat and snacks. 

The race conditions this year were very challenging. It has been cold here recently, but we don't have much snow.  The mushers often had to travel across glare ice as shown in this video of the race winner Pete Kaiser crossing the finish line in Bethel. 

It is unfortunate that mushing has become a spectacle rather than a way of life in Western Alaska, but this was still a really cool event to be a small part of. 

Changes

January has been month of changes and hardship in Tuluksak. After returning from break, we learned that the Regional School Board had fired our current Superintendent. She had been planning to resign at the end of the school year but a series of questionable actions resulted in her immediate termination. We now have an interim Superintendent, our previous Yupik Curriculum Director, who has been in the district for several years. It is possible she will be offered the position permanently. Many staff in the district are feeling anxious about the uncertain future. 

We also learned that our principal will not be returning next year. This means that next year will be Tuluksak's fourth principal in four years. Administrator turnover like this makes school improvements extra difficult. Every new person has their own ideas about what the school's goals should be and how to achieve them. Regardless of how capable and innovative the new principal might be, the students and teachers suffer from a lack of consistency.

Two weeks ago there was a death in the village. A young man committed suicide. In a community like this, where everyone is related to and reliant on each other, this death has had a devastating effect. The young man was a former student, and the brother or cousin of many current students. At school it has been difficult to find a balance between allowing teachers and students grieve, while still maintaining structure and adhering to the legal limitations teachers have when addressing this tragedy in the classroom. Funerals here combine several Russian Orthodox, Moravian and traditional Shamanism practices. After the funeral, Yupik tradition requires 40 days of feasting to allow the spirit to move on. Unfortunately because of the overwhelming shock and despair people are feeling, heavy drinking is happening during the feast. 

Alaskan Native males from 15-24 have the highest rate of suicide of any demographic in the United States. This study http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4035879/ attempted to identify some of the reasons why this rate is so disproportionate to all other groups. The author believes that some of the contributors to suicide risk factors in rural Alaska are alcohol abuse and loss of traditional ways after statehood. Even though I have only been in the village a short time, I have witnessed how the loss of cultural traditions leads to feelings of hopelessness. I think the next several weeks will be very difficult for many people in Tuluksak and I hope the community here will be able to turn to each other rather than alcohol for support and find some peace. 

A New Year on the Delta

After a wonderful, relaxing break, the second semester is underway in Tuluksak! The weeks before break were very busy with MAP testing and Christmas program preparations. My students were also busy allocating and wrapping gifts for members of the community that were in need of something warm this season. The counselor at our school received several boxes of new, child-sized winter coats  from a church in Anchorage for kids in the village who were without one. I reached out to my parent's church, United Methodist in Two Harbors, and the congregation there donated a whole bin full of winter boots and socks. The high schoolers decided who in the school and community could use the donated gear, and then wrapped them up and delivered them. 

They did a great job figuring out who would fit the boots and coats we had. 

I had been hoarding boxes and paper scraps in my room during the weeks leading up to break so we lots of wrapping material.

By the time we were finished, they were all expert wrappers!

Traveling in and out of the villages during winter is very challenging. You can plan all you want, but sometimes the weather just doesn't cooperate. 

I was lucky it was a relatively clear morning when two of my coworkers and I chartered out of the village. It was my first time flying in a bush plane during the winter, and before sunrise. The view was very different than when I flew into the village in August. 

Unfortunately, my luck ran out when I attempted to leave Bethel. My first flight was cancelled, and my rescheduled flight was delayed resulting in ten hours in the Bethel terminal!

The Bethel terminal is not your typical airport; its basically just a room with chairs, a couple vending machines, and no wifi. It was thankfully relatively empty during our wait so Birkie and I were able to take over a bench and nap together. We eventually made it to Anchorage around 11:30pm.

Birkie and I spent a couple days in Anchorage shopping, exploring dog parks and restaurants, and paying a visit to the vet, and then headed 120 miles south to Seward. 

Seward might be the most beautiful place I've ever been. I kind of chose it at random as a place to spend Christmas, but I'm really thankful I did. 

 This was the view from right in front of my B&B. Any direction you looked was just more mountains, ocean and beauty. 

The Front Row B&B is the nicest place I've stayed in Alaska. 

The fanciest dog bed.

Walking from the B&B to the harbor.

There is restaurant in Seward called Chinooks that is right on the water. While I was eating my delicious Halibut BLT there, this little sea otter was putting on a show for everyone in the restaurant! He was rolling around and splashing; it was pretty adorable. 

It was kind of strange being away from my family at Christmas so I was thankful for my friend Karisa putting me in touch with her friend Lara who lives in Seward. Lara was an awesome host who allowed me to tag along with her and her friend's Christmas celebrations that included a wonderful free Christmas dinner at a local restaurant. (Thanks Karisa and Lara!!)

The Seward Highway that connects Seward and Anchorage is an absolutely breathtaking route that snakes around mountains, ocean and marshes the whole way. It was very scenic, but also potentially treacherous. I was thankful to be traveling on clear day during the tourist off-season. 

When Birkie and I returned to Anchorage we spent the rest of our time playing outside in the bizarrely warm weather as much as possible. 

Chugach State Park right outside of town provide some great hiking trails. 

Our first attempt to leave Anchorage was unsuccessful. After our plane made it to Bethel, we circled around for about a half hour waiting for the weather to allow us to land, and eventually had to turn back to Anchorage. No one on our flight was really phased by this. After looking at the forecast I decided to spend two more nights in Anchorage and then try again. Our second attempt was successful!

Birkie was perfectly fine with extending our vacation.

I was so relieved to return to the village and find that the water and the generator were both running! My first week back at school in Tuluksak was the best week I've had here in terms of student behavior and engagement. We have a shop teacher in the high school this semester which is wonderful for the students because it gives them an opportunity to learn skills applicable to life in the village, and is wonderful for the teachers because it makes our class sizes smaller :) 

I shared with my mentor how great my students were this past week and she told me their behavior is typical for students in many schools out in the bush. Many teachers simply don't return after winter break because of the challenges of living in a village. My mentor informed me that in her experience, students spend the first semester testing new teachers because they fear they won't be around the whole year. While I can understand the reasons why a teacher might leave, it breaks my heart that the students here have developed these kinds of defense mechanisms. While I'm unsure what the future holds for me, the break renewed my commitment to my students and I'm looking forward to spending the rest of the semester with them.