Ok I'm sorry I know I've been lacking in posts. So much that I'm hearing people are asking about them... so having "kind of" a down spell I'm going to do my best to update you on what has been going on.
First I should take you through an "average" school day here in Aupaluk:
On monday mornings I am on breakfast duty. We give the kids cereal every morning because while some of them have breakfast at home some do not for various reasons. Mondays are particularly strange days at school and breakfast is no exception! Sometimes they come bright and early and are for the most part happy to be there, while other times they come in no earlier than quarter to nine silent and still half asleep. Those days are the hardest and a good indicator that I won't get a lot of teaching in that day. They are still half asleep because they have had no sleep at home, they have been out all night avoiding the drinking and people who are at home or they spent the night with furniture up against their door to keep people out. With so many people living in one house my students don't have their own room, their own space or even their own bed sometimes. Mondays after a shipment of alcohol has come into the village are the worst!
Every morning and afternoon we brush our teeth, not a routine I ever expected to be doing. After that we go through the calendar naming all the months and days of the week. We talk about what day it is, what month it is, how they know what day it is... some days this goes more smoothly than others but they forget easily.... we're working on it. After the calendar we do journals, usually we do a whole class journal because they get frustrated when they don't get something perfect.
My students have no autonomy at all which makes teaching 4 grade levels a lot more difficult. When I want to work with the grade 3's for example, I cannot just give the others independent work to complete and expect they will work quietly, even if it is something they have done before. I am right now working on training them to do work plans and learning centres. I hope by the end of the year if I teach them anything it is to think independently.
As a rule I have 2 students who attend regularly and the others come occasionally. One of my grade 3's almost never comes to school, she just doesn't feel like it and there is nobody around to make her go. It is frustrating to see her fall so far behind. I have another student from another community who lives with a foster family. He has a lot of anger and gets very angry very quickly. If he decides he does not want to do something he won't and has on more than one occasion destroyed my classroom. Just last week he got angry enough to hit me twice. In the moment it is easy to be angry about his behavior but often I feel terrible because knowing he has been through so much and he has learnt it from watching those around him.
Some days I plan to accomplish a lot and have to throw it all out when I see the mood of my students. Some days I use math games and letter games and colouring to get little bits of work out of them. Other days go smoothly and I feel I have accomplished something but they are rare. It is difficult because the community just wants us to come here and teach but you cannot teach children who have so many other things on their minds like food, alcohol in the village, things they saw the night before, if they will sleep tonight. So my classroom has to be a safe place for them where no matter how I'm feeling I greet them with a smile.
I have been in the North 2 months now and I think the honeymoon stage is over. I came to build my resume, cut my debt, see a bit of Canada and teach some children. After all the stresses of the past 2 months I realize I cannot change the world for them so I will do what I can and remember I am not here to stay forever.
Thanksgiving weekend was a bit of craziness. Holidays make me homesick and as it can be pretty lonely here I was feeling a bit of that already. When you add the turkey being consumed by my loved ones without me it only gets worse. We teachers spend time together but you can only do that so much since we also work together every day. Not being able to go for coffee or to the mall or the park is getting to drve me a bit crazy.
Over the weekend a woman in our community was out on the bay digging for mussels with her daughters. The weather was rough this weekend, the tide was strong and the wind was blowing with it and as it came in fast she was caught in the water and drowned. We spent the weekend waiting to hear about funeral arrangements and did not hear until 8:30 monday night that the funeral would be tuesday afternoon. However, the weather has been foggy and the planes could not land yesterday so the people coming for the funeral could not get here, so it was postponed to today. The community has taken it pretty hard, I think the rest of the week will be very quiet ones in school. This means that I have not had school for 5 days now because we had to close the school yesterday and today as well. It is hard to adjust to the way things work here, I'm not sure if I ever will.
I have not had a lot of contact with the community here. I know the Inuit women I work with but not many others. I don't often go to the co-op and people keep to themselves a lot. Yesterday however was a whole new story. About 2 weeks ago a guy showed up on my doorstep asking if he could "visit" and of course my response was to slam the door in his face. He had been calling my neighbour and after he knocked on my door he called her to apologize. Then Monday night someone broke into another teacher's house. So, I spent my tuesday making statements to the police. I found out yesterday people have been asking about me though I have no idea who any of them are. It is a bit unnerving and I was definitly not expecting to deal with any of this though I guess it adds some excitement to life... right!
Anyway, I think that brings you all up to date for the most part. If I don't get my groceries tonight maybe I'll write you a rant about that, and with this fog you may be in luck there! Sorry this was so late coming and I will try to make an honest effort to write more!
K.
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