Rural Teaching Exchange - Bethel,Alaska

March 20-April 1, 2011

Now that I am leaving Bethel, AK, I can finally sit down and analyze everything that I have observed and taken in. I am so thankful that I got to come to a community that is so rich in family culture. During my two week visit, I have had the opportunity to meet some amazing people and participate in a festival where family and community came together as one. Ashley and I chose a question about the local native culture and how it is represented within the school community.

After visiting other schools and spending time in this community, I have seen how important the Native culture is to this population, but I have also heard differently about the community’s perception on education. We had a chance to sit down with Mikelnguut Elitnaurviat principal, Josh Gill and discuss the education system in Bethel. He helped us learn about the history of the community and understand why education in the Native community is evolving. From his perspective, most families are struggling to understand “WHY” education is important. They recognize the importance of education but they have been taught to have different priorities. The majority of these children will never leave rural Alaska; so families find it more important to teach the Native way of life and put education on the back burner. Children in Bethel have an advantage over other children in surrounding rural villages; In Bethel there are more resources.

Education in this Native village is developing. There are two elementary schools in Bethel, Alaska; the M.E. public school and Kilbuck Yup’ik Immersion School. M.E. follows a standard curriculum and children have four specials: Music, PE, Library, and Yup’ik. Kilbuck is a Yup’ik Immersion School that follows a curriculum but their mission is to help strengthen the Yup’ik language and culture and promote cultural differences. Classrooms at Kilbuck speak Yup’ik as a first language. As an optional school, there are privileges and more freedoms in the classroom. Children at Kilbuck are chosen by a lottery system, and could be kicked out of the school if the student has poor attendance or has made poor choices in the classroom. The majority of our time was spent in the M.E. preschool. The M.E. preschool is funded by a grant catering to low income families. After being in this preschool classroom, I learned how important language development is and why. Most children in this community do not have an English language or Yup’ik language foundation; for that reason, they struggle in the classroom and slowly fall behind. I did see some lessons taught focusing on repetition and fluency development; by doing these types of lessons, children’s overall language development will improve. I also saw lessons that seemed to have no relevance to these children’s lives. I believe this school district needs to budget more money to spend on culturally responsive education pertaining to the rural life in Alaska. Speaking to Angel, the M.E. preschool teacher, I found out that rural teachers like her, make and add to the curriculum with kits that are native to these children. I appreciate that these teachers also see the importance in best teaching practices.

In light of this inquiry project and rural experience I can honestly say it has changed my overall appreciate for the state of Alaska and has helped me realize how blessed I truly am. Culturally responsive education means that everyone is given the same opportunity and the education system should be teaching children what is relevant to their lifestyles. I think if I were to teach in Bethel, I would immerse myself in the community and gain as much knowledge on the Native culture as possible. I think this rural experience combined with my life experiences thus far, has made me an educated teacher who would be an asset to any school district. If I had a chance to come back to Bethel, Alaska, I would choose to spend more time at Kilbuck Immersion School. Now that I have a better understanding for the Native culture, I would like to take that one step further and immerse myself in a school where I would be forced to learn Yup’ik and shape my socio-cultural being to be that much richer.

Thank you AEIN and UAA for this amazing opportunity!!!

Mini Residency

Crazy way to start your mini residency..having no school for 3 days and then a nice long holiday weekend. Due to school closure, my mentor and I decided to meet at Shaw and prepare for my mini-residency. We were at school for about 3 hours prepping the classroom, drawing up lesson plans, and deciding what assessments we wanted to do focus on and plan for our field trip.

Overall my mini residency went very AWESOME! Cheri was in and out of the classroom and she said that I have finally got the flow of the school day down. The only thing that I feel I need to work on is clarifying my math lessons. Math Expression doesn't always connect from one lesson to the next as well as the worksheets that we do in class so I am trying to master that. I feel relaxed and not stressed wondering what I am doing right or wrong.

On Wednesday we had a VERY full day. We had the Alaska Children's Choir perform at our school at 9:25a.m., then boarding a bus and leaving school at 10:30a.m.. We arrived at the PAC at 12:00 and enjoyed Click Clack Moo! Such a cute performance and the students really got into the play. Then we were back on buses and at the school at 2:30.

We also had AIMS web testing throughout the week so we had a few interruptions throughout the school day but we managed.

We also started doing some fun holiday craft and the students worked on their fine motor skills.

Thanksgiving celebrations

I realized that having that week off from school I hadn't posted. The week of November 15-19 we had some great Thanksgiving projects. I had the opportunity to make a trash can turkey which was DELICIOUS! You get some tin foil find put it on the hard ground, put a metal post in the center. Open up four cans of chicken broth around the fork, put the turkey through the fork and then place a metal trash can over it. (I forgot you have to dig a little hold under the foil to put coals.) You let the turkey cook for about 2-3 hours and you have the best turkey!

The kids had such a blast observing and watching the process for one of the centers that day. We accidentally set off the fire alarm so we were able to get November's fire drill out of the way! hehe Having us go in and out of the custodial doors to observe and check on it with the cold air coming in set off the sensor even though we were over a 100 yards away.

We made a very sweet turkey and the kids were very HAPPY thankful!

We also made little Indians and pilgrims. They turned out so cute!

We had them take a feather home and decorate it with things that their families enjoy and what they are thankful and we made a big family turkey on a bulletin board!

I am so very THANKFUL for my students and great staff to work with!

Call Backs

This week we have been busy doing call backs. Our students get out of school at 2:00pm and we started an afternoon intervention on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday where we focus two days on letter recognition, rhyming, and letter sounds and one day on math. It's been going very well and it's really exciting to see the light bulbs go off for these students. The students that are staying later to catch up have adjusted well and have enjoyed learning with our FUN center rotation.

I enjoyed watching myself do two video lessons. I got some ideas on how I can better communicate to students and clarify what I am asking of them. I subbed once this week and got the feel of taking over before my mini residency. On Tuesday the Kindergarten team had an hour meeting with our Literacy coach, where we talked about our students that have not made benchmark, who we need to keep and eye on and how we plan on transitioning to full day Kindergarten after winter break! We also went and observed one 1st grade teacher, one 3rd grade teacher, one 4th/5th split teacher, and one 5th grade teacher teach for 5 minutes. We observed other staff members and reflected on their teaching style, got ideas from them and got to see how other teachers at Shaw teach. While I was subbing I got observed by five staff members during my calendar corner/literacy lesson. When I saw them walk into the classroom and begin observing I got really nervous but the five minutes that they spend observing went fast and I got all of their observation notes back with GREAT reviews and words of encouragement on my teaching style!

I am excited for tomorrow because we are having a mini feast where we are baking a "trash can

turkey" and all of the fixings with the entire Kindergarten staff. I have never heard of it nor seen it so pictures will come next week...we are literally cooking a turkey in a trash can outside under some coal.

Here are some pictures of my students during choice time:

These boys were able to use all of our blocks to make a HUGE tower!!! Young engineers!!!

Colton was using the Promethean board to draw a picture. I love how the kids are learning and using our amazing technology!

Hardest Week...

Last Wednesday I went to school anticipating a great day with my class but was blindsided with the worst news. A early morning house fire took the life of a sweet young Kindergartner at our school, Hayden Martin. He was in the classroom next to ours and I have had the pleasure of getting to know him. The one thing that I love about Shaw is that all three Kindergarten classes collaborate together all week long with many activities, allowing us to get to know all 55 Kindergarten students at our school. Hayden was a bright young boy who loved every part of school. The story has been all over the news, ADN.com and the frontiersman but the house fire is still under investigation. I hope that the truth of it all will come to rest and people realize the true loss of this 6 year old boy.
I am starting to come to peace with it all, but have many emotions of anger, sadness, and happiness knowing that he is in a better place. Our school is dealing with it very well and only making us a stronger community. Hayden is now an angel watching over all of us with his big smile and a twinkle in his eye. I am so happy and at peace knowing that school is the one thing that brought him happiness everyday and that is because of his AMAZING teacher and school.
R.I.P Hayden



On a brighter note....we had a Math-a-thon Assembly where the entire school came together to celebrate our highest earning year ever. Instead of selling wrapping paper, candy, and gits our school does a Math-a-thon where children ask for pledges to improve their math learning and better themselves. The money earned from each student and class will go half to their class and half to their school to cover costs of field trips, assembly performers, game nights, pizza parties...the list gos on. Our school as a whole collected almost $11,000!!! Our class was the top Kindergarten classroom collecting $425 in pledges!!! The children that collected $30 or more were put in a raffle where over 150 prizes were bought to give to the highest earners and all other students. The BIG surprise for the assembly was that we rented SUMO costumes and our staff had some friendly competitions. The kids LOVED cheering on teachers and watching them fall, run each other over and having difficult getting up. It was a really nice way to end our hard week.

Field Trip and Conference

Last week was so busy but so much fun. We took the entire Kindergarten to a local Fire Station for our first field trip of the year. They gave us a tour of the station, allowed students to go inside the fire engines and ambulance. It was really cool to see how excited the students were to see their hometown hero's. I feel that seeing a firefighter and medic show techniques to fire safety and the how to keep yourself and others safe from fire. They also got to watch an Elmo safety video so they loved that.


Thursday we had conference from 8am-7pm, and Friday we were at school from 8:12:30 where we got ready for Quarter 2 and our Kindergarten team got together to plan for the quarter as well. It was a super long day but we had 17 wonderful conference. I was so happy to see every students family participate and understand how important their children's education is. I had my list of things that I came up for each student and I really felt a part of the conference and that my input was important. About three conferences in my mentor teacher said how about you run this conference as the parents walked it...I jumped right in and ended up doing the majority of the conference with Cheri's input at times as well. I really enjoyed the entire process and feel that I am ready for my own at one point. We had some difficult conferences with some parents not addressing their students struggles but it was all handled wonderfully. Today we began call backs where we have students stay later from 2-3:30 Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays to get children to meet benchmarks and improve their math and literacy skills. I am going to do the math assessments on Wednesday afternoons so I am excited to see what that in tells.

I am excited to see what Quarter 2 will bring!!!

Homework???

I think that homework can be positive and negative. I have seen a lot of teachers assign homework on material they have never covered in class and expect students to know how. Then I have also seen wonderful homework packets sent home that give children a choice to expand their knowledge on material they have learned in the classroom. I think that homework should not be busy work. That's a waste of time and is only going to give the children and parents a negative outlook on homework. The Kindergarten staff at Shaw send a homework pack home every Monday with four sheets of reading/writing and four sheets of math. We ask parents to not make the students sit and do it all at once but work on it through out the week. Some kids might get frustrated after a page or two and we always say STOP and work on it the next day. We allow feedback every week on the packets letting us know if its too easy, just right or needs more instruction. It helps us get a good look at what children are comprehending and not during the week. We collect them on Friday and give them a new packet on Monday.

At the end of last week we did some fun centers making rip art candy corn and pumpkins. The class had a blast and loved eating their candy corn's after.


Today in class one of our high readers sat in front of the class and read to us. Cheri and I were so impressed with him. He is such a SMART SMART boy.


Tomorrow we have a field trip to the FIRE STATION. The kids are super excited. Once we get back to school we will have lunch, calendar, and then have a FALL HARVEST! I am super excited for our FUN day.

I am also looking forward to TEACHER CONFERENCE. I think it will be a wonderful eye opener and learning experience. Today we reviewed what we are presenting to them in regards to benchmarks, AIMS assessment and material we have collected during the first quarter to present to them. I am also excited because this will be a perfect opportunity for me to get a lot of my School Community Project materials collected!

HAPPY CONFERENCE AND HALLOWEEN!!!