WHAT'S IT REALLY LIKE?

        

       A question I get all the time is, "What was it like to be a teacher in Alaska?".  I can't answer that question because it would be like trying to illustrate a whole shopping center by describing one store.  Alaska is bigger than half of the 48 contiguous United States and the people and schools  differ from one end of the state to the other just as much as the terrain does.  All I can do is relate what it was like teaching in one small village in one small corner of the largest state in the union.

                When someone asks me that question  the short I answer I give is this; "In my experience, teaching in the village of Kotlik, Alaska was like being a street-corner evangelist."  I go on to paint the picture of a zealous preacher thumping his Bible and shouting The Word as if he has the rapt attention of the entire population of a city while the mass of humanity is surging around him paying little attention at all.  My attempt to teach was kind of like that.  By the half-way point of the year I resigned myself to performing the motions of my job regardless of what the students around me were doing. 

               Consider the first day of class on the first day of school.  The electronic tone chimes at exactly 9 o'clock.  I'm standing outside the door of my classroom with a smile, ready to greet my new students.  Inside,  the room is neatly arranged.  Clean desks are lined up in rows facing the white-board at the front.  Taped on each student's  assigned desk is an artfully done up name tag bordered in gold and maroon construction paper to match school colors of the mighty Kotlik Falcons.  The kid's schedule is posted at the front of the room and each bulletin board has a colorful, informative list of procedures for each activity students do regularly such as walking in the hall, sharpening pencils, entering the classroom and preparing for class.  All of the standard preparations for the first day as prescribed by the famous behavior specialist Harry Wong. 

               While cheerfully greeting children at the door I glanced into the room to find the first-comers rearranging furniture to suit them and peeling name tags off desks.  And so the war was on! 

               One of the things we new teachers were told at the orientation week in Anchorage is that the Superintendent believed that an office referral was a sign that the teacher did not have a grasp of classroom management.  The impression we got was that if we wrote referrals we shouldn't expect to keep our job.  Suspensions and referrals were trending up in the last few years and this new Super' was going to reverse that.  In his opening message he did just that.  By March the referral rate was down in every school by at least 50% from the year before.  Not that behavior had changed it's just that no teacher documented it.  Suspensions were also down a staggering amount this year.  If Kotlik was any indication of why this was true it's because students were "sent home" unofficially for several days after grievous infractions.  They were not suspended per se just told not to come back for a while. 

               It became obvious during our orientation that school behavior was a district-wide problem.  Not to worry though because our district had recently adopted CHAMPS and PBIS, patented discipline improvement programs that "worked wonders" all over the USA.  In a nutshell PBIS is a tangible prize based system that rewards kids for displaying expected behavior: "You have a pencil!  Here's a reward., You didn't smack John in  the hall, here's a reward!, You have your book open to the correct page, here's a reward!".  CHAMPS on the other hand is mnemonic device intended to remind kids about every facet of normal school behavior.  Examples include: how to ask a question, how to approach a pencil sharpener, how to move in the hallway, how to enter a classroom, how to exit a classroom...  Very simple procedures that we think of as 'common sense' but that now must be taught and re-enforced daily. 

               During our orientation we had CHAMPS and PBIS drilled into us over and over.  If we weren't doing CHAMPS and PBIS then there were going to be problems.  If we were doing them then all of our teaching days would be happy. 

               So it's day 1 and period 1 and I am facing the first challenge of my authority and we go to battle over seating assignments.  During a lengthy CHAMPS lesson on how to enter a classroom on the first day of school one of the darling girls stands up and begins roaming around the room.  An obvious grab for my attention I choose to deny her the satisfaction and so I ignore her wandering until she decides a nap is in order and  lays across the threshold. 

               The words of my new Principal echoed in my mind "If one of my kids wants to sleep in class let him sleep.  That's one less problem you have to deal with.  You don't know how drunk his parents were last night and if you wake him up he's just going to be angry"  As luck would have it this was the time when David, the Principal, (we were all on first name basis at the Kotlik school, teachers, administrators, and students) walked into the room or rather stepped over a prostrate student to enter.  At any other school I taught at this would be a death warrant to my career but here it was SOP.  I was doing fine. 

WINDS OF CHANGE

 

              I've decided to get out of teaching and enter a different field.  People have asked me how the whole wind turbine technician thing got started, and I'm talking about very important people.  So here's what happened.  Last July, Hobart, my mom and dad, and I were road tripping from North Carolina to Anchorage in order for me to eventually get to Kotlik, Alaska and start my new teaching career.  Once we got into the mid-west we started seeing these huge, gigantic wind turbines.  Three hundred foot tall towers with blades the size of 747 wings.  I said "Whoa".  We also saw other interesting things that are outside the scope of this blog entry. 

           image: Wikimedia.org

    So anyway, when I got settled in Kotlik I started doing some research on these electricity generating behemoths with the thought of possibly getting a smaller one for the school and using it for science and math projects.  At the end of the second week in my new school my enthusiasm for teaching village children sharply waned and at the same time my interest in wind turbines markedly waxed. 

               Through the convenience of the World Wide Web I discovered a school that specializes in online instruction for wind turbine technicians.  The school is named Pinnacle Career Institute (PCI) out of Kansas City, Missouri.  PCI has an eleven month online training course culminating in a 9 day 'boot camp'.  At boot camp we get hands-on experience working with various tools, climbing towers, rescuing injured workers and troubleshooting electrical and hydraulic systems.  We also get a whole bunch of OSHA certifications that are applicable in many fields.  I will be going to boot camp at the end of July, 2015.

               What started as applied curiosity in wind energy has turned into a career change for me.  The deeper I got into the course with PCI the more I began to think that I would rather climb 300' ladders than get cursed at by prepubescents and their parents.  The question now is where will I be working?  If you look at the USGS map (  http://eerscmap.usgs.gov/windfarm/ )  showing the location of wind farms in the USA you will see my choices, none of which are in the southeast.  I will miss teaching and coaching and the great people I have worked with in education. 

     A girl in one of my classes told me that her father had joined the Army years ago.  She said he was sent to Georgia for his training.  One thing she remembered him telling her was that he found it very difficult to sleep at night.  The noise of the frogs and crickets were too much for him. 

It didn’t occur to me until she told me that story that the nights here are deathly silent.  There is the occasional dog bark and the ten O’clock curfew siren but other than those there is no noise at all at once darkness falls. 

Kotlik Power and Light

     Kotlik get’s all of its’ power from this building, owned by Alaska Village Electric Cooperative.  Four Cummings diesel generators are run by automation.  John the technician who gave me a tour of the facility, was taught by his father who worked here for over twenty years.  Surprisingly, he has had no formal schooling in the trade.  The crew who works here keeps the place spotless.  Periodically, maintenance crews from the utility company spend a week at a time on site and live in a milvan next to the generator plant.  

     On the sleepy Sunday morning when I visited, the town was running on just one generator putting out 198 kiloWatts.  John said that he has seen the load get as high as 400 kW at peak usage.  When the school powers up on weekdays they turn on two generators to meet the electricity demand. 

     Electricity is expensive here (58 cents per kWh) due to the small scale and the high price of diesel in remote locations.  In order to reduce the cost the utility company is toying with the idea of stretching high voltage wires hundreds of miles out to these small villages.  That proposal has met criticism from environmentalists and Alaskan Natives.   Another idea, and something they have done in several villages is erecting wind turbines to supplement the generators.  The town of Nome has four large wind turbines that reduced the town’s fuel consumption by almost 20% last year. 

     The challenge of  building wind turbines here is the same as building anything on a delta.  Constructing a foundation on sediment is an engineering nightmare.  It’s been done though in villages such as Emmonak, Chevak, Hooper Bay, and Nunam Iqua. 

 Just Like Capastrano

Song birds have returned to the Yukon Delta.  For the first time since October I heard twittering, chirping and singing while Hobart and I were walking this morning.  People around the village are hunting geese, ptarmigans, and ducks now. 

What Winter Has Wrought Spring Has Put Asunder
      Sixteen hour long days are bringing a quick thaw to the village.  Walking is hazardous at best and the mud everywhere is epic.  The boardwalks on this end of town are all messed up. 

 When in Kotlik...

     Here in Kotlik, custom dictates that if something wants to leave one’s body then one should endeavor to hasten its’ exit.  What I’m talking about is spit, nose nuggets, stomach and intestinal gas.  Yes, those habits I have grown up to consider reprehensible are perfectly acceptable here, and in fact encouraged in order to rid the body of foul substances.  I have witnessed on several occasions grown-ups and elderly folk out about town hock up a voluminous lunger and emphatically spit it out beside the walkway.  The phrase “I used to be disgusted but now I’m just amused” describes the situation in which I’ve seen the Yup’ik language teacher in my classroom delivering a lesson then halt and summon a lugy from the depths of her trachea and casually walk over to the trashcan to expectorate.  

     Then there are the gastrointestinal vapors.  There are probably more deep-belly belches occurring in class than I notice anymore because I’ve become so accustomed to hearing them from petite girls and older boys alike.  One thing I haven’t gotten used to is the flatulence that follows the morning dose of milk with breakfast.  Not only is it loud and from every direction in my classroom but the miasma I’m forced to endure in the aftermath is worthy of a union grievance.  I don’t say a thing and I suffer in silence but there have been occasions where the room’s atmosphere became so polluted that the children have banded together and forced the most offending individual to move to the hallway. 

Spring Arrives

    

 The days of the snowmobile are numbered here in Kotlik.  Last weekend was a blizzard and whiteout with temperatures in the single digits.  This week began with snow falling every day and the mercury slowly creeping into the teens and twenties.  Now it’s Friday and temperatures are in the mid thirties.  They are calling for 41 degrees on Sunday.  Yeah, a heat wave!

     So the snowmachines (what we call snowmobiles) are trudging around town, the tracks spinning up slush as the engines whine, straining to make any headway at all.  Kotlik is now buried in a foot of grainy chilled slurry.  Walking is a chore with every step sending up an icy splash in every direction.  There is no solid footing anywhere but on the boardwalk now, where the 4-wheeler snowplow has cleared down to the wood planks. 

     The ice on the river can’t last much longer.  Seventeen hours of sunlight a day is taking it’s toll on our frozen thoroughfare and breakup will be soon.  There’s already a good layer of water on the ice’s surface.  The sloughs around town have flowing water in them.  Thank goodness Hobart and I have less than a month remaining here.  Our days of aimless perigrinations are at an end because for the rest of our stay we’ll be stuck on the boardwalk unless we want to go slogging across the muddy tundra bog. 

     This year there has been ice on the Yukon since October.  Around here ice is about two feet thick in the center of the river.  This close to the open ocean the river level is affected by the tides so the surface of the ice moves up and down.  The movement is imperceptible but the difference between high and low is sometimes as much as three feet.  The surface of the river is a solid sheet of ice all the way across so somewhere something has to give as it rises and falls.

       The point of weakness is usually parallel to the bank several feet from the shore.  Long cracks, running along the river open in the ice, never more than an inch wide, as the thick center ice breaks from the thinner ice held fast to the land.  Water from below will seep up through the fissure and flood onto the surface then freeze, creating a new thin layer of ice.  Sometimes the surface of the new water will freeze but then the unfrozen water recedes back through the crack leaving a glassy thin ice layer suspended an inch above the more solid foundation layer.  Stepping on this feels and sounds like walking across a floor littered with fine crystal dishes. 

     On the coldest of days the water freezes before it gets to the surface and the cracks suture themselves pretty quickly.  Sometimes a crack will make a jagged dash across the center of the river.  In the cold of winter that’s nothing to worry about because the ice on both sides of the crack is still feet thick.  No chance of falling through. 

     During one of these tide changes I can lay on the river and listen to groans and creaks.  Sometimes there’s a snap.  It sound a little like the whale songs I’ve heard on television. 

 Red Sky at Night

     Me and Hobart’s pre-bedtime walk tonight started at around 10:30 and it was still about an hour before the sun would be touching the horizon.  The western sky was an impressive fiery yellow but the southern sky for some reason was a beautiful mix of reddish-orange-pink.  The redness of the sky was reflecting on the snowcaps of the Nulato Hills in the distance and sandwiched in between was a bruised dark purple streak of clouds.  The whole colorful display got me thinking where else I’ve ever seen colors like that.

       The first thing that came to mind was a ripe persimmon I’d seen growing on one of my father’s trees in his backyard.  Persimmons are a very beautiful fruit with an unfortunate name.  Then I thought of a religious pamphlet I received for a small donation from a Hari Krishna at an airport several years ago.  I just remember how colorful the pictures were in that magazine.  There was a chant inside that was supposed to wipe the dust from the mirror of your mind but I can’t remember how it went.  There is probably a good bit of dust on my mirror.  You don’t see Hari Krishnas much anymore.  They always used to hang out at airports.  I wonder where they all went?

      Another thing you don’t see at airports anymore is the coin-operated television.  Remember?  You sit down in one of those uncomfortable chairs with a TV attached, put in a few quarters and watch for 15 minutes.  I guess they went the way of the pay-toilet.  The last time I saw a pay-toilet was at South-of-the-Border on I-95 years ago.  What a bad idea, both the pay-toilet and South-of-the-Border. 

The last speck of sun is setting here but in Helsinki they are watching it rise.  Perspective!

    The Lap Game

 A festive crowd gathers on the river every night now.  It's been going on for the last two months, ever since it’s been light enough in the late afternoon.  They get out on the ice and play 'lap game'.  It seems like over half of the village is out there some nights.  They start small, a few people show up and start the game around 8pm and by 9 it's in full swing, with some times over forty people.  The sun doesn't set until around 10:30 now and at 11 it's still light enough to play.  Lap game is a hybrid of baseball, dodgeball and red rover.  There seems to be no limit to the number of players and it looks like the rules change on a whim.

     On their solitary island of civilization out here on the tundra the people of Kotlik get together for things like this the way a bunch of families in the South gathers for dinner on a Sunday after church.  There's lap game, Eskimo dances, basketball games, and bingo at the community hall.  There are no strangers here.  Everyone knows everyone else and their parents and grandparents.  Such is small town life but especially in a place so remote. 

     So the lap game goes on into the sunlit night and everyone out there knows they had better play while they can.  The 'break up' is coming soon when the river ice thins out and flows out to the Berring Sea.  When that happens the lap game field is gone and our freedom of movement will have melted away.  Restricted to the boardwalks, we'll find ourselves confined by the soggy tundra on one side and the river on the other.    No more fields of ice to play on.  No more striking out in any direction on foot or snowmobile to see what's over the next line of trees or to visit a nearby village.  Everyone will feel just a little more isolated and wait longingly for next Fall's freeze.

These are cool pictures of dirty snow at the end of the runway.

VILLAGE ENGLISH

     There is English and then there is village English.  Here in Kotlik and all of the villages on the Yukon Delta I have visited they speak a village English where syntax is a little jumbled from what we are used to and phrases have different meaning.

        Time has a new identity.  I’ve been asked “You always walk your dog?” by people when they see me walking around town with Hobart.  I want to reply that I do not always walk Hobart. I do other things at various times besides walk Hobart but at this minute I am walking a dog.  You see, “always” and “never” mean something different in village English.  ‘Always’ can mean ‘sometimes you do’, and ‘never’ can mean ‘sometimes you don’t’.  So in village English the phrase “You always sometimes never let us play games.”, makes perfect sense. 

    “ I need a this kind.”, “Do you have a this kind?”, “Get me a this kind”.  I hear this one all of the time.  Instead of the phrase “one of these”, in village English it’s “this kind”.  So you hold up a pencil and say “I need a this kind”.

     Pronouns are not what they seem here.  “We”, “she”, “he” isn’t always used in the traditional way.  I’ve been asked in class if “us are going to watch a movie”.  Or, “her isn’t here today because her is sick”. 

     Another common one is “Where you are going?” which is translated to mean “where are you going?”.  If something is lost you would politely ask “Where it is?”

     The one that has me puzzled the most is “try see”.  I can’t figure out where this one originated.  Where most people would say “Can you let me hold that?”, or “Can I see that?” the phrase here is “try see?”.  So if a friend is holding a basketball that you especially covet you might say to the friend “Try see?”.  And if he asks what you want you could point at the ball and say “this kind”.     

IDITAROD

     The Iditarod 2015 is in full swing.  Some of the teams are past Unalakleet.  I've been listening to reports and interviews on KNOM radio station.  They have a lot of good stories and pictures on their website  (  http://www.knom.org/wp/ ).

Martin Buser in his 32nd Iditarod talked to reporters Laura Collins and Matt Smith and he gave an awesome interview I think everyone should read.  In this quote he refers to a plain cardboard sign he saw along the trail.  it was put up by a high school class from a nearby school and it simply said "We teenagers look up to you".  He goes on to say..

"Buser remembers the Huslia teenagers, saying it’s that sign that needs to be remembered when the chips are down. “That’s when you can really lead by example. That’s maybe when in the darkest moments you can make a difference. When somebody thinks about checking out, but they don’t. People can overcome, people can tough it out. If I make this race so important that I compromise my values, then I’m a loser. That’s what I don’t want to happen.”"

Wouldn't it be great if professional and college athletes and coaches had this philosophy and lived by it?

     These mushers are some awesome people.  As I listen to their interviews I hear how humble they are and how they care more for their dogs than themselves.  It's really inspiring and I recognize so many things that sports in America today are missing.  In contradiction to Coach Henry Sanders, to these guys and girls on the trail 'winning isn't the only thing'.  To persevere in this grueling competition means so much.
     The field of competitors this year has several women.  There are brothers competing against each other and father - son competitors too.
     On thing I find so refreshing about the Iditarod is that the spirit of competition is so pure.  Trash talk and put downs have no place here.  Each competitor has so much respect for his fellow racers and when the race is over there seems to be a closeness among all of the teams.  The camaraderie is amazing.

I think I've found my new favorite sport to follow.

"DIAMOND DUST"

     As I walk around this place on sunny days when it's really cold, there is often a sparkly quality to the air.  Tiny little flashes of light, I men really tiny sparkles everywhere.  If I ever dropped acid I would probably write it off as a flash back of some kind but it's a weather phenomenon called "diamond dust". 
     Tiny little ice crystals are floating in the air, tumbling around and reflecting sunlight on their flat crystal faces.  I can't get a picture of this phenomenon because I just can't but imagine you're living in one of those snow globes with glitter instead of snow and you can hold your breath for a long time so you don't drown and someone shakes up the globe and you're holding onto something stable so you don't get hurt then you look around after the big person is done shaking and this sparkly glitter is floating all around you.  That's what it like.

 A Little Experiment 

  Lately I've been conducting a little psychological experiment with my students.  Actually I was forced into this experiment because weather has planes grounded and mail hasn't been delivered in over a week so my bulk candy order hasn't arrived.  But let me back up a minute. 

     The way I start every morning is to come into my classroom and tape a piece of candy to each student's warm-up math assignment, the one they did yesterday.  So here's the routine, the kids come in the door and pick up a strip of paper with about 10 math problems on it.  The problems have something to do with what I'm currently trying to teach them or something I want them to get practice on since they don't do homework.  They go to their seat and start working or copying from someone else and then turn in the paper.  Later, I grade it.  If they get a high enough score they get it back the next day with a piece of candy attached.  Usually a reward-worthy grade is 80%. 

     When I started getting low on candy I upped the ante to 90%.  Back when 80% was good enough rarely did I grade a 100% paper.  In fact, most were in the 80 to 90 range and some kids even left a few blank at the bottom if they felt they had the minimum needed for the reward.  I mean, heck, why do more than you have to?  When 90% became the new threshold all of the sudden nearly everyone was getting 100's and 95's. 

     Well, for the last four days, since my supply has run out, participation has dropped to where few kids are doing the warm-up at all and grades have plummeted.  I've even been told that I am cheap because I don't go to the local store and buy some candy at ridiculous prices.  Keep in mind these are the same kids who receive all of their paper, pencils, and notebooks from the school, as well as their breakfast and lunch every day.  I suggested that the students could all pitch in and I would go to the store and purchase some candy.  That was met with righteous indignation, much like the suggestion that anyone on unemployment should take any job that comes along.  It's interesting to note that when I do have candy and I am passing it out there is rarely a thank-you uttered, not to say that it never is.  Also, after the students leave the room I am guaranteed to find no fewer than 5 wrappers discarded on the floor. 

Perhaps this very same experiment is already being conducted all across America.  It looks to me like it is.  My conclusion is that when the minimum is acceptable that is all you can expect.  And where there is no tangible reward there will be little tangible effort. 

It was a bright sunny day out on the tundra Saturday.  No wind at all and the snow on the ground was fairly hard and easy to walk on.  Me and Hobart went hiking for 3 hours.  We struck out in a northeasterly direction.  It is so flat that even several miles away we could still see the town in the distance.  The terrain at first seems featureless but you have to take a closer look.  What I call the micro-landscape is pretty neat.  With the low angle of the sun the play of light and dark makes interesting designs with the small snow drifts and ice

 Some of the scenes would look the same at two inches in height as they would if you were looking from 2000 feet up.  Scale becomes unimportant.  The same forces and conditions that shape these tiny dunes and ripples form the grand features of the worlds great deserts. 

 Of the two stores in town this is the one I go to the most.  The Alaska Commercial Company claims to have been around since Alaska was bought from Russia but it has changed names and hands so much it doesn't even resemble the original business.  The people who run the store are a family from Virginia.  They agree to stay in the village and run the store for a certain length of time then they move on.  The last family was from New York state.  They moved to a bigger village after leaving here.  Locals are hired to stock and run cash registers while the husband and wife team are the managers.  They live in a house connected to the store. 
Prices are a little higher than they would be in the lower 48, but think of the transportation costs. 

The entire produce section.

 

 ARCTIC MIRAGE

     The only land features visible anywhere around here are the Nulato hills far off to our east and southeast.  The other day however when I looked to the south there had sprung up immense skyscrapers, wide flat plateaus and buttes.  Even an enormous pagoda with it's characteristic flared roof line.  It was incredible!  Miles away on the horizon an entire city had sprung up literally overnight.  I was out on the tundra with Hobart so I let him wander and I sat and watched.  It was mesmorizing to watch the building slowly shift and morph, becoming wider, then taller then fading away entirely.
    What I was looking at is an arctic mirage, also called a superior mirage or fata morgana.  Density differences between cold air and warmer air are the cause of this phenomenon.  As you look toward the horizon you are actualy seeing objects and land that are below the horizon from your perspective.  Google pictures of this and you will find some good ones.  I didn't have my camera that day so I didn't get any.  They would not have done it justice anyway. 

Here's a link to this and other arctic phenomenon
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/arctic-meteorology/phenomena.html

And then of course there is Wikipedia which has some good articles on the subject.
Also look up Croker Land.  It's an interesting story about how an expedition went looking for a land that was really a mirage.