little diomede island

other

Six days off the island, 350+ miles on my jeep, good times with some great friends (thanks for the food and hospitality, jason and heidi and carl and janet and dorothy johnson!). It was great and it’s wonderful to be back on the island, albeit two days late. We got to fly direct from nome, which means an absolutely beautiful hourlong low altitude helicopter flight, complete with extremely low mountaintop fly-bys and swooping and banking through arctic valleys.

And not a moment after I step off the chopper one of our super energetic 3rd graders nails me with a flying bear hug. Life is good.

..and tonight? Hours of lesson planning and organizing? Kinda miserable.

but part of the deal, and it’s a good deal.

Life is good.

stories

A lotta years ago I began to wonder if I would find myself in Alaska someday, and now some day is today and hey oh, look, I live in Alaska. Four or five years ago I began to wonder if I’d find myself teaching in a village in Alaska, and in April I signed a contract and on Saturday the wheels of paperwork began to turn..my initial teacher certificate should be here in a few weeks, the certificate that will make good my contract to go teach in an Alaskan village. It’s happening!

Day by day was the tale of the past six weeks. This “Summer Field Experience” bit of the certification program was the most intense thing I’ve done in my life. It was like the most difficult finals week I had during college, cloned and stacked five times over. Worth it? Like gold, baby, worth its weight in gold.

Learning? Well yes of course, all the things we were there to learn we did learn in spades: classroom management, disciplinary literacy (beating kids with books? why yes…in a way..sorta..but not), assessment, standards, GLE’s, strands, philosophy, lesson planning, behavior management, and oh so much more. And then some extra things too. One big extra thing, really. This: no matter how good I am at not judging, I still do. That one I learned the hard way, and I can only hope and pray that from learning it the hard way I’ll do better next time. Yeah, there’s a story behind it, even written up as my last Summer Field Experience journal entry. I wouldn’t feel ok posting it here, at least not for a while.

And now what? Four weeks of reading, organizing, planning, goofing off, and tutoring–the time will sail by–and ka-pow I get on a jet plane for the north. First to Unalakleet for some training, then a plane to Nome, then a helicopter to home sweet home, Diomede.

Day by day, one day at a time, that’s been the tale alright. But when I hit the brakes and look around I’m struck breathless by where I am and the trade I am privileged, honored and humbled to be a part of. It’s surreal, unreal and beautiful.

The best part? In five or so weeks, subtract the unreal part.

:D