9-15-2013

Trying to find the treasure.

One of the refreshing parts of teaching elementary schools is the fact that students have no filters between their brains and their mouths. For example, I have a student who comes up to me every morning, pats my stomach, and says,”You eat too much.” Most people say that behind my back, but not the Dr. Phil of Nunam. I have a daily reminder that I do, in fact, eat too much. I remind her that sometimes telling adults things like that could hurt their feelings. She just smiles and says, “I know”.  She must be made of sugar. 

I hear things that make me laugh. During Social Studies, we were talking about different jobs in different communities. Since there are few jobs here, it didn’t take long to list them. I then started talking about the jobs available in Anchorage. Remember, I teach a multi-grade class: 2nd- 4th grade. Kids brought up the regular jobs, like police, firemen, and Walmart. I told my class that they could even make pizza at a Chuck E. Cheese. One student got real excited and even asked if I was kidding. I assured him I was not. He then asked how much he would have to pay them to work there. I had to reteach my lesson on employment.

Let the competition begin!

And I hear things that make me cringe. We have only one bathroom for our students at the school. This includes all of the high school students. So when I give my kids a break, I am always in the bathroom with them. Bigger kids can sometimes bother the little ones, so I make sure I protect my littles. Plus, left alone, they can make an awful mess. The other day, two boys went into the two stalls. As they did their business, they began talking about who could poop the most. It became a bragging point for one, who seemed quite proud of his earlier accomplishments. I guess if you can deliver the goods, flaunt it.

But when adults have that same missing filter problem, it is neither amusing or cute. We see these adults on Facebook, telling the world how their Irritable Bowel Syndrome has  been affecting them at work lately. Or people shouting to the world about how outraged they were at Miley Cyrus and her twerking. I didn’t care, so I never watched the video and continued with my life as usual. But more and more people complained, so I had to find out what twerking was. So I googled it and found out that twerking meant “to dance in a sexually suggestive manner”. So of course I had to watch it, several times. Miss Cyrus seems to possess some above average athletic abilities, but I was not outraged. My takeaway was that she was going to have some lower back problems when she gets older. Maybe as I get older I will become more outraged at what other people do with their own time. But for now, we should filter out outrage a little, because we are sounding like angry, old men, shaking their fist at the kids and telling them to “Get off my lawn!”

So, I would much rather listen to my kids talk about poop (daily) and remind me that I should cut back on my chili and rice portions. But I don’t think I want to hang out with them all of the time, because they do complain about some silly things. Like, “Why do we have to write so much?” “Why do we have to learn history?” “Why do we have to do your laundry and wash your dishes?” To be fair, they had a point on that one. But, clothes don’t wash themselves, so what are you going to do?

9-1-2013

This weekend was our 10 year anniversary. That means Monica has been hearing me say for the past 10 years, “Well, deal with it, we’re married.” And I have been hearing a boatload of things from her. Mostly instructions. “Don’t eat that.” “Pick up your underwear and socks. The ones in the kitchen.” “Take a shower. With water” “Throw that away, that’s not a suppository!”

With a directive purpose, I have become a better person under her supervision. I have been a much happier person because of Monica. I know the next 40 years of my life will continue to be a happy adventure with my best friend. 

Recess. I'm the one in the tan jacket.

In other news, school started last week. With the first day of school, there were new students in my class. I am teaching a younger demographic this year: 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades. The 2nd and 3rd graders are new to my classroom, so there is still some anxiety with them. They are not sure how to deal with me yet. Their last teacher was a quiet, elderly lady who is much kinder than I am. I’m big, hairy and loud. Not what the kids wanted to see and hear from their new teacher. It was more like a bear encounter for them. It didn’t help that I hid behind the coat rack and jumped out at them and roared when they came into the room for the first time. They’ll get used to it eventually.

Our school has lost several students from last year, so my class has only 10 students as of now. The number will probably change during the year, as families and kids tend to move around a lot. So I expect to add a few more students as the year progresses, but right now I have about half as many as I had last year. That doesn’t always make it easier, but I promise not to complain. I realize there are teachers at other schools who are dealing with 30+ kids in their classroom. A real bear would come in handy for them.

Our school and our new housing.

Learning to manage younger kids will take time. It’s been only four days of school, but I am proud of myself that I haven’t made a student cry yet. Some have looked like they might when I was ‘redirecting their behavior’, but they held strong. Monica says they are still terrified. I think they are just being polite. I am excited about our Big Ten and what we’ll learn this year.

If there is an afterlife, I feel confident I will be allowed into the good part of town, the one they call Heaven. I imagine the scenario would go something like this: 

St. Peter:  Wow. (Shaking his head.) This does not look good.

Me: What do you mean? (Drinking a beer.)

St. Peter: (Pointing to a list of several violations against humanity) These!

Me: Oh, those. But what about this? (Pointing to a picture of Monica)

St. Peter: Well, if she put up with you for 50 years, I guess we could put up with you for eternity. Now, throw that away, that’s not a suppository. 

8-25-2013

I think our's will be the door on the left.
If not, somebody's going to be surprised
when I barge in on them.

The first week of being back to work is done and was spent sitting in the library in front of our VTC (video teleconference) monitor. We still haven’t had students in the classrooms yet because of the many changes that are going on in our district this year and the hours of training we need to endure. 

So we sat for six hours a day last week, listening to lectures on new reading curriculum and a new behavior plan to be implemented this year. Best practices states that long, boring lectures are the worst way to transmit knowledge. So of course, that is exactly what our district inflicts on us. When I got caught drinking whiskey and smoking a cigarette at age 5, my mom removed the contraband from my hands, took a long drag from the bottle and then the cigarette, and told me “Do as I say, not as I do.” (Editor’s note: Clay’s mother does not drink nor has she ever smoked!!) (Author’s note: When the hell did I get an editor? And why isn’t she on my side?) So I’m sure that more time was spent district-wide on Pintrest than on paying attention to the training. I will not name names. 

We spent two days receiving training on the new district-wide behavioral plan. The behavioral plan is for correcting student behavior, not staff.  Although, I think it would be in the best interest of any organization to be able to modify or correct a behavior of staff and administration. Except my behavior of course. I was thinking more of how the underlings, us teachers, could work behavior tricks on the administration in order to have some common understanding of the priority levels of needs in a school setting. But that would necessitate the use of magic, not tricks, which doesn’t exist. (Editor’s note: Clay’s school administrators don’t approve of magic or tricks to manipulate students or staff.)(Author’s note:  Noted.)

On the happy side, our new housing is looking like it will be done by Thanksgiving. Our district is building a new four-plex directly behind our school. Our walk to school is now about a half-mile each way. When we move it will be exactly 34 ft. each way. This will be great on those blizzard days, but it will become more difficult to hide from the principal. I don’t mean ‘hide’ in a bad way, but more of a ‘not being able to be found’ way. I work better that way.

Kids will be showing up at the school door on Tuesday. They have already expressed their desire to start already. They have come to our house, reminding us when school starts. Yesterday, we had two of my students come to the window of the classroom where Monica and I were working. They asked for math worksheets to work on outside the window. And they turned them in! We’ll see how long their excitement of receiving school work continues. One of my soon to be former students asked if I would come to his new classroom and holler at him, just for fun. I wonder how many other students will be missing my hollering? Maybe just the fun hollering.

So with our VTC meetings done for a few weeks, I’m looking forward to school starting. I enjoy the routine of the classroom and using my new behavior strategies with the students. Instead of yelling “Sit Down!!”, I will calmly inform them that sitting down will be in everyone’s best interest. (Author’s note: I’ve tried this approach with Monica. So far with little success.) (Editor’s note: Noted.)

8-17-2013

My wife reminded me yesterday that I hadn’t updated my blog in almost 4 months. I think her exact words were,” You smell bad and stop making that sound with your face mouth.” So, I stopped playing Rockband, took a shower, and sat down to write about our summer.

It all started in May with a plane ride from Nunam Iqua to Fayetteville, Arkansas and ended in August with the exact opposite flight. In between we took a trip to Washington, D.C., one to South Dakota, watched 6 baseball games and saw/heard over 25 musical acts. I will not disclose the number of beers I consumed, mainly because I lost count on the second day back. I smoked 12 racks of ribs, grilled about 14 chickens, and grilled more than a dozen pizzas. I was also distracted most of the summer with text messages from someone named Carlos Danger. Very friendly guy. 

In addition to all of that, my mother spent three weeks with us in Oklahoma before we drove her to Washington, D.C., where she will be residing. She wasn’t there to mother me, she stopped that years ago. When I was like two or three. She was there for her own entertainment. For example, after coming back in the house from a walk this summer, I explained how I stepped on a snake. And when that happened, the snake coiled itself around my calf. I reacted like any worldly 46 year old man would have; I screamed like a 5 year old girl and kicked. When I kicked, the snake slipped off my leg and out into the brush. When I explained my near-death experience to my mother a few minutes later, she did what any 71 year old woman would do; she laughed. Very similar to the way she laughed about my pants accident last year.  I let her stay anyway.

Planning our trip back home to Nunam Iqua is always an event. We left Oklahoma on Sunday morning and arrived in Anchorage about 8 that evening. It was a long flight (7.5 hrs) from Houston to Anchorage, but we managed to get there without anyone getting punched in the face. We did not have Drunk Baby sitting in front of us showing off his collection of tantrums. Drunk Baby has traveled on the same plane as us in the past, and his parents have placed him either directly in front or right behind us. Kicking, screaming, crying, and yelling are all part of his repertoire. But, his frequent flyer miles must have expired, allowing the flight to be was a pleasant one. We also ponied up the extra money in order to have an exit seat and more leg room. I wasn’t happy about being extorted by the airlines, but the fact that my knees didn’t block my view of my book made for a pleasurable flight.

We spent Monday morning shopping for food and other items we’ll need up here to survive for the year. Along with ordering our meat for the year and most of our groceries, I bought two pinatas and about 15 lbs of candy. Watching kids use a stick to beat candy out of an donkey made of paper is always a delight. 

We made it back home to the village three days ago and it feels good. Not just because I’ve been forced into better personal hygiene, but to see our Alaskan friends again. The hugs from the kids are always a good welcome home. And now that I’m back in my rickety, uncomfortable chair, I will be updating my blog for my fourth year teaching at Sheldon Point School again. 

4-28-2013

It’s time again for the yearly ritual of high school kids joining together to awkwardly stand around in a darkened gym. Yes, it’s prom time again. And nothing makes me feel older than listening to the music ‘kids these days’ are listening to and trying to decipher what the song is all about. Just when I think I’ve determined what three words of a song are, it changes into a new song. Or maybe it just started over, I can’t tell

 them apart. I’ll probably need a high speed drill to get that Gangnam Style out of my head.

Staff parking lot at 1030pm.

The prom devolved into a basketball game about an hour into it. Which was fine by me because as my wife says of my dancing: “You scare me when you try to dance.” I don’t think I’m actually frightening when I dance, just embarrassing.  I will quote someone from Twitter that defines my dancing: “If you’ve ever seen me waiting impatiently in line, then you’ve seen me dance.”  So I don’t think the prom died because I wasn’t out there busting a move. It died because we had only about a dozen kids there, 7-12th grades. And as with most small towns in the country, most of the kids were related to each other in one way or another. The prom king and queen were first cousins and the prince and princess were brother/sister. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather play basketball with my cousins than dance with them. So they took down the decorations and played basketball for the last hour. The shame of the night was all the hard work that was put in by many of the school’s staff, to only have it become a basketball shoot-around. They put in several hours after school last week to transform the gym to a ballroom. Sorry Essie and Brittnay. 

With the prom finished, that means that school is almost over for the year. We have less than 3 weeks left until we fly to the warmth of Oklahoma. That means that in about 4 weeks I’ll be bitching about the heat. We still have most of our snow here and are barely  getting above freezing during the day, despite it getting light at 7am and setting at 11pm.  Once it does warm up, the snow will go quickly. The Yukon will still be frozen for a few more weeks after we leave, although I don’t think the river stays frozen for our benefit. If it did anything for my benefit I hope it would produce fish that tasted like cheese burgers. Maybe next year.

Not cheese burger fish, but our neighbor's catch from his fishing lines.

After a breakfast of coffee and biscuits and gravy, I’m still trying to get those songs out of my head from last night. I like to think I have good taste in music and don’t fall for the common denominator when it comes to music I listen to. I like my lyrics pretty straight forward, without me straining to understand what the song is about. And I don’t hop around riding an imaginary pony. I suppose I’ll listen to my own iPod today to erase the carnage from last night. RIP George Jones.

4-20-2013

Have you ever made a decision and then found out more information that would make you regret your decision? Like when a ‘friend’ offers you a candy bar and you gladly accept. You devour the candy bar only to find out that your ‘friend’ had ‘found’ the ‘candy bar’ on the side of the road. Thanks ‘jerk’. Well, I had a similar experience, but without nefarious intentions or a bout of violent diarrhea. Nope, I took a job at another school for next year.

I requested a transfer from my school in Nunam Iqua to the school, still in our district, at Hooper Bay. We really didn’t want to leave, but the situation of my classroom caused me to rethink what we wanted to do next year. The number of students in our elementary were climbing but the number of teachers, two, were not. I would have been teaching 1/3 of the school’s population while the other 4 teachers would take care of the rest. For those of you who are not good with numbers, this meant that it would be an over burden for Clay and instead of whining, he was willing to move. This was not anyone’s fault, just the way the numbers fell. So, I felt that I would see what a larger school could offer. My transfer was approved and we thought we were heading to Hooper for next year. 

One of the reasons we did not look forward to moving was because of how we had to move. Moving a household is not an easy task, but try doing it through the US Postal Service. This would need to be done by hand. We had already sent our snowmobile to it’s new home, so our local pack-mule (me) would be loaded down with boxes and shipped to our new home. Luckily, we don’t have any appliances or furniture to move but still, it’s not like I enjoy manual labor. Or even automated labor. Labor Day is something I enjoy. So the thought of having to move this way was making me rethink my decision. And since Monica is all about not procrastinating, I had to avoid her in our house. I spent a lot of time hiding in the shower and bedroom closet. It was probably more effort hiding than it would have been than to just pack the damn stuff. Or so I’ve been told. Whatever, Mussolini. Maybe I enjoy crouching behind the dryer.

But on Friday, our principal ask me if I would reconsider staying if they added another elementary teacher. I lowered my voice to a shout and asked him why he didn’t ask me this two months ago. Before the superintendent approved my transfer. Apparently that wasn’t considered at that time. Which, by my recollection, coincided with the time I asked them if they were going to add another elementary teacher and I was told no. But now, here it is. I knew that if I requested another transfer I may look like a waffling turd. Which is not to be confused with the band of the same name. But I took the chance and filled out the proper paperwork and submitted it again. And it was approved again.

So the blog that I had written about our big move had to be aborted and instead I wrote 600 words explaining how I have troubles making up my mind.  I guess I could have just written 3 words: We’re not moving. But since I don’t have to hide from Monica anymore, I have more time on my hands. 

3-24-2013

Being the only adult in a world of 3-5th graders can sometimes be daunting. Even though we think alike. I mean, who doesn’t love a good fart joke? But sometimes they aren’t old enough for some of my references in history or pop culture. They haven’t lived in a world where people went to record stores to see if Springsteen’s new record came out yet. Or they have not had to live through the time-consuming efforts of filling out their NCAA bracket by hand. Or having to painfully wonder what their BFF is “doing” at any particular moment in a day because texting had not being invented yet.

Sometimes I feel like the guy in a current TV commercial. The commercial has a male adult sitting at a small table surrounded by four kids, asking them if faster is better. I think the commercial is for ATT, but it could be for a laxative. A fast laxative seems like it would be better. If it is a commercial for a laxative, I’m not sure why kids are there, because I’ve never heard a kid complain about being constipated. To be fair, I’ve never heard an adult complain about being constipated either. That is something I’d remember because I’d probably get punched for laughing at them. So I guess we’re all in agreement that it’s for ATT.

The commercial is like my real life. It starts innocently enough; me asking a simple question. Like, “Who has ever found a box of fireworks and a lighter?” Then one child goes off on a tangent, telling me a story that is not related whatsoever to the question I initially asked. This will then remind another child of a totally unrelated story, usually having to do with eating candy, that we have to listen to. It usually ends with “ ...and I forget the rest”. Then just silence. The kids look exhausted from their efforts in storytelling. I feel exhausted from my efforts of listening to their storytelling. It is true, kids do say the darnedest things. They also say the strangest, disturbing, and most unintelligible things. But Art Linkletter didn’t think that title would sell any books.

Last weekend we were in a world of over 70 elementary students. Our school hosted a tournament for elementary basketball teams for 7 teams from our district schools. Our entire school population, K-12, is under 70 so we had to close our school for a day and a half in order to have room for the extra players. Not only do we need to use the gym for the games, we had to use all of our classrooms. All six of them. When teams travel in our district for games, the hosting school puts them up in the school for food and lodging.

Monica and I were at the school by 7:30am to help set up breakfast and headed home at 11pm after helping cleaning up after the late night snack. We played 12 basketball games in one and a half days. On the third day I made 13 trips from the school to the airstrip hauling basketball teams and their luggage to meet their planes. This was not all at once, but from about 10am-4pm. The tourney was a success in many ways and the reason was because of all of our staff working long hours to ensure it went smoothly. I am lucky to work with a staff that is willing to volunteer their time to make sure events like this are fun for the students.

We finished our third quarter last week also. We have already bought our plane tickets for our trip home in May, which is about 50 days away. I can assure you that I will not be sitting at a table surrounded by youngsters, listening to them drone on and on about one time they kicked a ball. That is if I get to move up to the adult’s table at family gatherings. I was promised that when I turned 40 I would be allowed. Maybe this will be my lucky year.