Blog Entry #3 - Technology Musings. - March 31, 2011

I awoke feeling very comfortable, now in a sleeping bag as opposed to wrapping myself in my coat. After quickly wolfing down the delicious scones that the Foods teacher had given us with the chili (which we could not thank her enough for), I headed to the school. I settled into my usual pattern of staying for the first few minutes of Max’s classes, then wandering the school the rest of the time. During my walk, I had been speaking with Herman, when we walked past the elementary school bathrooms to find a boy standing there, looking bored. We asked him what he was doing, to which the boy cracked an impish grin, and said “I’m a guard!”. We talked with him about his “guard duties”, and all through it, I couldn’t help but smile. It was a rather fun interaction.

A bit later, I walked into a second and third grade classroom to observe. The teacher pulled me into the lesson, and I was more than happy to help. The students were writing stories on what would happen if they would be in space. I read out some of the stories students had written, and got to guess which students were which based on the names and writing on their paper. I told the students a little bit about myself, including where I lived, where I grew up, where I was born, and where I had traveled in December. I used a nearby globe to point out the locations to the students. Luckily, the city I was born in, Magadan, was marked on the globe. Afterward, the students settled in to a vocabulary lesson using a Smartboard. I made a mental note of how second and third graders here view the Smartboard as just another part of their daily life, while my middle school students back in Fairbanks don’t have very much access to Smartboards. Regardless, I watched as Mr. Donough, the teacher, used the Smartboard to teach vocabulary. I even jumped in and taught some of the words myself. After this, the students used the Smartboard as a sort of quiz review tool, with definitions being projected on screen. Student had to go up and type on the word on the board. Every way the Smartboard was used impressed me. It was one of the few times I had seen very effective use of Smartboards applied in a real classroom setting. Most of the time, I just see pointless slideshows or PowerPoints on Smartboards. This was a great change, and I have made several reminders to remember some of these lessons. I could very easily tweak and change them, and make them apply to the secondary school setting. Overall, I seemed to be a hit with the students in the class. They asked me how to say a few words in Russian, asked me to participate in their review games (which I gladly did), and so on. One student actually wanted me to each lunch with them. I regretfully told her that I had to wait for the older students. Regardless, the experience in this classroom was very fun. It did, however, provoke some thoughts.

School districts such as this one and the North Slope Borough are usually well-funded, and therefore have very solid technology. For example, there is permanent laptop cart in Max’s room, with each computer assigned to a student. I see Smartboards in almost every single classroom, as well as projectors and plenty of other technology. One cannot say, however, that they have too much technology. Every piece of technology I’ve seen has been made use of beautifully. It isn’t just boring PowerPoints project onto the Smartboards. There are engaging review sessions, great interactive activities, and more. Every piece of technology is applied to the classroom incredibly well. Then I think of the technology back in the Fairbanks North Star Borough. First, there is significantly less of it in the schools, as funding is lower, and understandably so. I’ve heard of, perhaps, one Smartboard in Tanana Middle School, for example. We have a computer lab, but what school in Alaska that educates more than one hundred students doesn’t have at least one? This is not what bothers me, though. What I simply cannot get out of my head, is the way this technology is used, or rather unused. With things like Smartboards being a bit more scarce, one would think technology would be made use of in much more effective ways. Not so. I see either the previously mentioned PowerPoints, or simply pictures that someone shows and talks about, then moves on. It would be different if this PowerPoint was only a supplement for a lecture, along with movies and music. Instead, most PowerPoints attempt to teach for the teacher, which quickly leads to student burnout. I remember taking a secondary education college class where the instructor warned us: “Now, don’t teach using PowerPoints.” Immediately after this was said, she brought up a PowerPoint presentation onto the screen, with literally 90% of the slides being a complete wall of text. After seeing the first slide, my eyes immediately glazed over, and almost independently of my will, my cursor scrolled over to Firefox and my keyboard typed in “collegehumor.com”.

I guess what I’m trying to say through this mini-rant, is that at Manokotak, most teachers make very effective use of the many technologies they have, while many of the bigger schools use them ineffectively. This is kind of a strange situation, as one would think a school with an abundance, or over-abundance of technology would be the school that used it in boring or ineffective ways.

After my mental bird walk, I continued my observation of the school and teachers. I stepped into a first grade classroom, talking with some of the students and the teacher there. My visit was rather brief, as an idea came to me. I quickly went back to Max and asked him if I could possibly teach a lesson tomorrow during his Government class period. I told him my idea of teaching a lesson based on the Bill of Rights, how they apply to everyone's lives, and famous court cases involving them. I had taught this lesson at Tanana Middle School previously, and so had most of the material saved in my gmail, which Max allowed me to access via his laptop, which had it unblocked. I printed out packets with several notable court cases on them. Max was genuinely interested, and asked if he could keep one of the packets, to which I obviously said “of course”. The rest of the day was spent preparing for the Government lesson tomorrow. I'm not quite sure how it will go, as this is a different classroom environment then Tanana, but I'm somewhat optimistic.

Once school got out, I decided to go for a short walk along the road that had brought us to the school. One end went to the airport, while heading the other direction, one would find himself in the town of Manokotak after a 4 mile walk. I ran into Casey on the road. As we walked the road, we kept glancing up at the mountain that the teachers here have told us to hike up. We have made tentative plans to hike it on Saturday, depending on the amount of work we will have to do in preparation for our lessons back at Tanana.

So far, this has been an interesting trip. I've observed many different classes and teaching styles, and hope my lesson tomorrow will go well. Now I think I'll head to the gym and shoot a few hoops before heading back to the apartment for the night.

Blog Entry #2 - Observation and Arrival. - March 30, 2011

I woke up at around 6:30 a.m. today. I quickly got dressed and threw on my shirt. After quickly downing a cup of coffee for breakfast, I donned and zipped up the light jacket that I had been using as a blanket and headed to the school. Herman greeted Casey and I as we came into his office, and showed us a room where we could temporarily leave our belongings (we had taken our laptops with us in our backpacks).

After being introduced to several teachers, including Whitney (Language Arts) and Max (Social Studies), I spent the beginning of the day in Max’s room, observing the students. For his first hour class, U.S. History, I was introduced, and Max had the students introduce themselves. Some students told me about themselves, while most whispered something to Max, and he introduced them that way. Second hour was much more social, though there still were a number of students that were extremely quiet. I set into a pattern of observing the class for a good chunk of the class period, then wandering the rest of the school for the remainder of the time, stopping in to other teachers’ classrooms, specifically those that I had met the day before.

One situation that sticks out in my mind is when I stepped into the classroom of Brian, the fifth and sixth grade teacher. One girl, even before I came in, was covering her eyes. The supposed reason was that she did not get enough sleep, and didn’t want anyone to see. Brian let the girl wear his sunglasses. Sensing that there had to be more to the girl not wanting to show her face, I asked Brian about the situation. He quitely stated that “sometimes students get black eyes and they don’t want anyone to know”. He left the source of these black eyes open, but it wasn’t hard to guess.

Several minutes before lunch, I stopped into the room we had our computers in to quickly put some notes into my computer. On my way out, the secretary informed me that the basg had arrived. A huge grin appeared on my face as I stepped out of the office and gazed upon our three bags, focusing specifically on the small red suitcase that was packed with our food. I quickly went and found Casey. After I had informed him of the good news, he did a small, haphazard jig before going into a speed walk in the direction of our luggage.

After we had dragged the luggage back into our apartment, and I put on a change of clothes, we came back to the school to eat lunch. Afterwards, I ran back to the apartment and returned with fresh fruit for the lunchroom workers. They were very happy, and thanked me several times. Throughout the day, Casey and I handed the gifts out to people. Everyone was very appreciative.

I spent the rest of the evening working on lesson plans for my school back in Fairbanks, checking up on the news, and playing some basketball. After going home, I ate some of the home-made chili that the foods teacher was so gracious to provide us. Going to bed was much nicer this time, with a sleeping bag and makeshift pillow.

Blog Entry #1 – Time, Continuity, and Change... Indeed. - March 29, 2011

I apologize for how late this entry is going up. I have had trouble getting the internet set up. For some reason, I seem to be blocked from both of my g-mail accounts (personal and UAF).

I sometimes wonder how this trip would've turned out had I not been sent to Manokotak. It definitely would have cost less if I had been late. The thing is, I usually pride myself on trying my best to be on time for most everything. It would make sense that one of the very few times I am not fully focused on it, it comes back to haunt me. Due to our slightly dismissive nature of the time and unforeseen car troubles, Casey and I were late to check in at the airport. After several hours and a painful sum of money had been spent, we packed up our things, resolving to wake up and be at the airport extremely early, so as not to repeat the same mistake. I even crashed in a spare bedroom in his house so I wouldn’t have to drive from my home in North Pole the next morning.

On Tuesday, we made sure to wake up early and have everything prepared in advance, so as to avoid another situation of the kind that we experienced Monday. Everything seemed to go well. We went through the usual rigmarole of checking our bags, going through security, and boarding the plane.

Upon arriving in Dillingham, however, we found our luggage missing. The only things that arrived were our backpacks, which we were forced to check on the runway. Thankfully, we have the two bags of oranges to give to the village when we land. They were part of our carry on. The bad news, however, is that the rest of the gifts (apples and honey), all of our clothes, and all of our food are all in the bags that did not arrive. We tried speaking with the gate agent to see if we could get the luggage before we left, but to no avail. The next flight in to Dillingham was at 6:00 p.m., while our flight to Manokotak left at 3:00 p.m. They told us that they should be able to get the bags delivered to the Manokotak school tomorrow morning.

On another note, we witnessed a particularly interesting incident. We saw someone attempting to check luggage, along with a very large salmon in a box. Upon being told that he could not check the fish if it wasn’t in a cooler, the man promptly took the bag with the fish and nonchalantly dropped it in a nearby trashcan to Casey’s abject horror and my amusement. Casey’s pained twitch at the actions of the man made me snicker. Less funny was the realization that the fish in the trashcan would have fed us for the week, especially since we very well could be without food for a few days. Casey kept glancing back at the fish, voicing his idea to take it and cut it up. He finally came to a decision, and headed for the trashcan. Before he had taken three steps, a nearby airline worker grabbed the fish by its tail and walked out the door. Casey stood rooted to the spot, very reminiscent of a small child who had kicked his football over a fence. I laughed again.

We sat back down, killing time by working on blog entries. Casey mentioned how this might be one of the hungriest nights he’ll experience (neither of us had eaten all that much today). Resisting the urge to make a joke involving my Russian heritage and a lack of food, and sensing that such a comment would probably get me an annoyed stare from my companion, I simply hid my face behind the huge screen of my oversized laptop.

We spent the rest of our time in Dillingham writing and napping. As I was searching through some files on one of my external hard drives, Casey appeared, holding a bag full of food. My jaw dropped in both amazement and excitement, as that meant we wouldn’t go hungry the first night. The owner of the store upstairs had apparently noticed that we were missing our luggage, and gave us a bag of food. Casey gave her three of our oranges as a thank you. Before our flight, I eagerly scarfed down one of the beef jerky strips that came in the bag. There might be a chance that I will regret this later, and now that I think about it, I did notice Casey glance at me with slightly guilty expression. I will elaborate on this in a bit.

We boarded a large Cessna, Casey being particularly excited. I must admit, I was rather happy as well. It had been years since I had flown on a legitimate Alaska “bush” plane, the last time being when I worked as an interpreter for the North Slope Borough School District and translated for a Russian ivory carver who came over to teach the students. We flew first to Togiak, then to Twin Hills, then finally to Manokotak. We were picked up in a large, red van by a friendly, older gentleman named Quimok. With excitement brewing in us, we happily climbed into the van and started our drive to the village… Then abruptly stopped. The van made a jolting halt to very courteously allow an airplane in the process of taking off to go by. Because the van had no seatbelts, the sudden stop sent me out of my seat and headfirst into the back of the front passenger seat where Casey was sitting. My head impacted with the hard leather, and I threw my hands out against the walls of the van to stop myself from falling over completely as Casey glanced back at me with a confused expression.

Though there were no more surprises during the drive, several things stood out. One thing I noticed almost immediately was the holes in the windows of the doors of the van. I tried to shake my suspicion that these holes looked very much like they were left by bullets of the 9 millimeter caliber, but the thought persisted. It wasn’t as disconcerting as it was extremely curious. The second realization that I had was that stop signs in Manokotak seemed like more of a suggestion than a law, as we didn’t even come close to what could be considered a “California stop” during our drive. Yet another thing that Casey pointed out was that the van was badly in need of shocks. Looking in retrospect, it makes sense, with how shaky some parts of the road were.

We met the principal, who introduced himself by giving his first name, Herman. After we got acquainted and talked with him about the village, he showed us the very nice apartment that we would be staying in. To quote Casey: “This is nicer than my house back in Fairbanks!” Herman also graciously gave us some food from the school store. After Casey and I started getting everything in order, he made a slightly disturbing “discovery” about the bag of food we had received back in Dillingham:

Casey: “So that’s why it was free.”

Anton: “Huh? Why?”

Casey: “It’s all expired.”

Anton: “ *expletive*. You’ve got to be kidding.”

Casey: “No, really. This one expired five years ago! Check it out!”

He tosses me the jerky.

Anton: “Great…”

Casey: “Well, I was going to have some, but I’ll wait and see if it gets you sick first.”

Anton (sarcastically): “Yeah, thanks…”

Casey: “Um… I might as well tell you now… I saw those dates back at Dillingham.”

Anton: “…”

Casey: “I would’ve said something, but you already had scarfed it.”

Anton: “You still could’ve told me. I would've went and purged my stomach right then and there, or something.”

Casey: “It’s just jerky, you should be fine. Besides, if it was bad, you would’ve been feeling it way before now.”

Anton: “I swear. If some Aliens-like monster comes bursting out of my stomach, I’m gonna be so mad…”

After the rather unpleasant surprise of the expired food had passed, Casey set about examining our temporary lodging for the week while I sat on the couch, adding to my blog entry. I had been typing for several minutes when I noticed Casey standing in front of me, holding a blue bed sheet, wearing an expression that could only described as “concerned into numbness”. After I asked him, he held up a corner to reveal a decent-size, dried circle of blood crusted into the sheet. I simply laughed, taking this as a sign of karma for the expired beef jerky. Casey then shifted the bed sheet to show an unintelligible, yet extremely cleanly written scrawl of unfamiliar letters. My laughter died in my throat, as in the first few seconds of looking at the letters, I could’ve sworn I saw the word “kills”. Upon closer inspection, I recognized the words as “life skills”, and then continued laughing.

Two other teachers stopped by, Lucas and Nicole, and we chatted with them about village life and their students. We asked them about getting connected to the wireless network, and though they gave us the password, it still did not work for us. They told us to go see one of the other teachers named Peter, and that he might be able to help us (Peter was also the owner of the other wireless network my laptop was picking up: “Big Bad Wolf”).

We went to the school, and after a number of attempts, Peter helped us find the problem. Though we had the correct password entered, our ip addresses would have to be allowed. As we were dealing with our networking issues, another teacher, Brian, stopped into the classroom to say hello. We chatted with them about the students and the teaching methods for a few minutes before retiring to our apartment. After taking the spare toothbrushes that Peter handed us (we gave him oranges in return), we both headed back to the apartment. I curled up under my coat, which would function as a makeshift blanket for the night.