2 Months

Wowzers! I have been here for now more than two months and it still feels like yesterday I flew into Dillingham. This coming up week will finish off quarter one at school. Can you believe it? Thankfully it is a four-day week with students and then on Friday I will have in-service. During these in-service days we usually have informational meetings such as improving teaching skills or meeting with other math/science teachers. For me, in-service days are low stress days so I am very thankful for them.

Well I must tell you what I have been up to in regards to school. Other than teaching all-day and working with two professors at the local community college, I have a handful of other things that I have partially taken on either by choice or not. I am on the Math Committee and this year is a big year for the committee because we have “Math adoption”. This means that we will be ordering new Math books and oh boy, is this really important and mildly stressful. Also I am co-leading the middle school MATHCOUNTS after school once a week. This is fun because I am getting to see and be around a whole other population of the school-middle schoolers! The other role I play during school is the 9^th grade Advisor. Another low-stress job but I actually get paid for this one! Recently I have been assigned to another group called the Data Group. I still haven’t been able to figure out what this group will look like.

School is a big part of my life but I am starting to expand on my outside of school life. The last few weeks I have solidified the church I am apart of. It is a church that is two doors down from my house called the Moravian Church. God has been great in affirming the decision of being apart of this church and I am starting to feel apart of the community. Last week there were many connections to my life and the church. I am helping with AWANA every Thursday. AWANA is a program for younger children to learn and memorize verses. Apart from church, I am almost regularly going to an indoor soccer fun thing that one of my students puts together. Its great to get some workout at the same time of hanging out with some awesome kids!

Here are a few photos that I have taken over the last few months! Sorry for such a long time lapse in my posts. I would greatly appreciate prayers. My life is definitely a roller coaster when it comes to teaching. Thank you for reading!!!

The Teacher Life

I thought that being a teacher in Alaska would change me completely into a different person. In a way I have changed but I struggle to not let my job define my whole life. Yes, parts of me will be and already is greatly influenced by being a high school math teacher. But I am trying to learn how to have my own life outside of school. I have had "seasoned" teachers ask me what I like to do outside of work and I honestly haven't had much of that outside life yet. Don't worry though! I am taking steps to find how I fit in my life here in Dillingham. A big part is finding a church that I can have friends that aren't all teachers and can challenge me spiritually. The three churches I have been to so far have positives and negatives so I am praying that God will show me which one is best for me. Also I try to do fun things with my housemates either out of the house or at home. Our thing is to watch Northern Exposure a TV show that is place in Alaska. We get to laugh together about it and just spend some quality time. Here they are!

But enough about that, I really want to tell you about the school, my colleagues, and my students. We are the Wolverines and there are five sports here: cross-country, wrestling, volleyball, and boys and girls basketball. Also we have NYO in the spring which is Native Youth Olympics. The clubs consist of Drama with a show in the spring, Pep Band, Student Council, and sometimes a science club. The school and the community college are very connected and often you see professors walking the halls. I get to work with a professor on bringing Calculus dual credit for my students during the second semester. Recently the college brought to my attention another possibility for my lower level students dual credit in math by using lots of hands mathematics in construction. I am really hopeful for this to work out because it would be great for these students to feel accomplished on having a college math credit even before they graduate from school! This accomplishment is usually provided for students who are academically succeeding in school.

My coworkers are great!! Instantly I connected with the science/math teacher who is across the hall from me, Tara. There is another math teacher who is mainly middle school but also has two high school classes, Andrew. His wife is the PE teacher at the HS/MS and she is a sweetheart, Meghan. One of the English teachers who has a lot of my students is named Andria and I know after we get to know each other, we will really get along! She has traveled quite a bit and has some of the same desires for the high schoolers as I do. My classroom neighbor is awesome at making sure I am doing well and gives me many opportunities to talk about my day, Nathan. He is great at giving advice and has been apart of the school community for a longer time than most. My principal is great and seems to be supporting us in all ways for teaching our students.

Instantly, I knew that my students would be like any other set of students found around the world in thinking about whether I have "good" or "bad" students. With this said, I feel like my students are behind in math skills compared to other schools. This means that I have lots to work with my students and supporting them by giving opportunities to succeed and learn. My classes are as follows: a lower level Algebra class that consists mainly of 9th and 10th graders, Geometry which are 10th graders, Informal Geometry which is geometry without the algebra, Algebra 2 which are 11th graders, and Calculus! The first day was definitely the most tiring day compared to the rest of the first week. I really enjoyed getting started with the content and already I see students starting to learn. The school is on a block schedule therefore Monday classes are 55 minutes, Tuesday-Thursday 80 minutes two days, and Friday 41 minutes. Every Friday afternoon we have in-service and meetings. Teaching hasn't changed much from being in college. What I mean is that you are working on school work at all different times of the day. The only difference is I get paid!!!

This weekend my housemates and I went to Aleknagik Lake which is the next town and only town we are connected to by road. Man was this a beautiful drive and I finally got to see the mountains up close and see the beauty found in Alaska. It felt good to get out of town and really get the chance that I live here and not only work here. I have been able to catch up on a lot of reading and about every week I finish one to two books. The school is very big into getting students to read that every day for a half hour we read. I LOVE this and glad I get to be apart of it at school and at home.

The Lord has taught me a lot over this week and I think the major thing is that we don't have to have everything together all the time. I'm not really sure how to be improving myself as a Christian at the moment and also exactly what I am doing at the moment. BUT I have learned as long as I let God be apart of all of the confusing parts it won't be as much confusing. My focus at the moment is also to just love my house mates by being there for them and supporting them in what they do.

Thank you for reading and I miss you all!

Alaska and the Summer

The difficulty of sitting down and typing of my recent thoughts of my trouble is big enough to have kept me silent this entire summer. I did though have some fun adventures over the summer. First, I went to Washington DC for a conference done by the National Science Foundation for participants of the program I was involved in for the last three years. The program provided me with a lot of scholarship funds so I was very happy to be at the conference to hear other speakers. Actually, I got the chance to speak to a room of about fifteen people. I spoke with another student and we talked on the fact that because of the program we are much more prepared to be math teachers than students not in the program.

Second, I went to California to be a part of a camp that I have been so long hearing about from my very close friend, Kiira. The camp is called Extreme Mobility and it is for young adults who are blind or have partial vision. Naturally being in California, we did a lot of things in the water such as wake boarding, tubing, swimming, going to a water park, and surfing! Also we went to a baseball game, go-kart racing, and eat A LOT. My favorite part of it all was how much worship we had over the week. I met some amazing people and got to see some great transformations. I got close to a handful of girls that I look forward to being around and hanging out with next year at the camp. Forever I will support this ministry! Another reason why I went was to help Kiira move there. To spend some special friend time together, we went to Disneyland. Oh boy! I had so much fun. It was hard to say goodbye but I was happy to see that Kiira was moving into a beautiful and friendly community.

Now I am most excited to tell you about my big move to Dillingham, AK. A little over a week ago I began my two-day travels to the farthest north I have been to Bristol Bay. With five pieces of luggage, my roommate (Liz) picked me up at the airport. The airport’s check-in, security, baggage claim, and gate are all in the same area. We drove to my future home and on the way I got to see some beautiful tundra with mountains in the background. Immediately I noticed the water that seems to surround the town because we are located where two rivers meet and go into the sea. There are beautiful purple flowers all around called Fireweed, which is even more pleasing to the eye in regards to the scenery.

Within the first two days I began to see the characteristics of living in village Alaska. Going to the grocery store, I saw prices that are double to triple the price of back at home. I was beginning to see why lots of people fish, hunt, or berry-pick for all of their food. Having a good conversation you don’t know is very regular. The probability of me teaching of someone’s child or a friend’s child is very high. The town is very used to “out-siders” coming to the town to live. It wasn’t hard to get my new phone (Verizon doesn’t work here) and my new mailing address. My room is all situated and the house I have moved into has impressed me. I live only four blocks away from the school and on the way is the post office. I have gone to two different churches and I will still be looking at others. I am hopeful that I will find a great community to get involved with.

This is all I will share this time and by the end of this week I will write about my school. I have been doing in-service training all week and the first half of this coming up week. A little hint of how I am adapting is that I have been thinking a lot about how I will be spending more than one year here. If you need my new phone number or address, just let me know via Facebook or e-mail. I hope you enjoyed the photos!