It's been a while since I've written and so much has happened (hard to believe in Aupaluk) I don't know where to begin!
Halloween came and went and we teachers survived for the most part by working together! I find that since the beginning of the year we are becoming more and more (for the most part) a close and supportive team. I always find it interesting to be in situations like these, where you are away from home and family and all that is familiar and you come to depend on and love people who you may not necessarily be bonded to in a normal life situation. In England I developed a close group of people who I call my "foreign family" and who I still love and miss today. Here in Aupaluk we don't have a lot of choice in who we spend our time with, but despite that I love my "Aupaluk Family" because without them I would feel so much more isolated.
As for Halloween, the morning was a bit mad but could have been worse (I think). We showed a movie in the gym but the kids were pretty uninterested in it. We switched to Halloween games which went a lot better. After lunch we had the haunted house which we were all pretty excited about and had worked very hard on. Three of us were hiding in the "haunted hallway" to reach out in the dark and scare the kids. The first group through were little kids and they were great. The second group were secondary students, even though we had said we only wanted little kids at first to make sure they got the full scary experience. Unfortunately, as the 3 secondary kids went through they ruined the fun when they started reaching through and tearing down the black garbage bag walls we had worked so hard to put up. My entire covering was gone in a matter of seconds and I was livid! We tried to replace everything but it was not the same after, and no matter what we said they kept sending more "big kids" who ruined it again and again.
Skip to following week... this was the week all the stress that has been building grew tenfold! We are all getting to the point that we are tired, frustrated, getting a bit burnt out and it is a long time until Christmas holidays. Now, to top it all off our principal has resigned and we know very little about what has brought it on and how and when things will be "fixed" and I hate that. There are few things I hate more in life than the unknown, I like an organised plan and I like to know exactly how things will be happening at all times. There have been a lot of rumours, a lot of talk, and a lot of tension but now I just have to wait. More updates to come... I think. I have really really learnt the old saying "never judge a book by its cover" is true. I knew you should never avoid the book that's ugly and torn on the outside but now I know the pretty shiny one can be just as deceiving.
My students! They are wonderful and demanding, adorable and aggravating all at the same time! There is one in particular who has become quite dear to me. At the beginning of the year this student came to school and I thought I would lose my mind with him. He would tear books, spit on the floor, destroy his work, refuse to listen, and was "unmanageable." After a lot of documentation we were given funding for a shadow for him (I've had 2 and each lasted less than a week) and he has been able to get some help from social services that has really turned things around for him in the past few weeks. This little boy has had a life that you could not even imagine in your worst nightmares, and he is living with people who are not his family and who don't take care of him or love him as he should be cared for and loved. I've been working very hard to build up his self-worth and show him he can trust me and I think he has shown such change over the past week it is hard to believe that he was the kid who tried to spit in my face in September. Yesterday however this student came back to class from recess and did not look happy at all. When you work with these kids you learn to read their facial expressions and body language to predict their moods and how close they are to exploding and I could see the beginning of an explosion on his face. I decided to give him some time to see if he would calm himself down but when he started colouring his poppy with a red pencil crayon like he was going to make a hole in the desk I knew it was only getting worse and when he began to tear his artwork (and he loves art) into tiny little pieces I thought I should get someone to help because I was worried about him. I asked the principal to send up Maggie or Jeannie because I thought that he would respond better to someone who spoke Innutitut with him because I tried to talk to him but he only ripped his paper smaller. Maggie came and spoke to him but even with her he was not responding much. My principal asked if he was violent and I said no, I was just worried about him because he was acting so strange and wanted to make sure he was OK. So they decided he should go downstairs which is when things got really bad. He did not want to go so they carried him out and I could hear him screaming all the way down the stairs. After school was let out I went downstairs to find him crawling on the floor in the hallway refusing to put on his coat and it just about ripped my heart out. I feel like this little boy has a hard enough life and all I want is for him to feel safe and happy at school and that is not what he was feeling yesterday at all!
26 teaching days until a nice holiday with my friends and family... can't wait!
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