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.
