Togiak Beach
Hello all. This past week has generally been a “run of the mill” week. We went to school, underprepared and overwhelmed as usual, and taught classes. Pretty normal stuff. Although, we did have some variations, in the Post-secondary education department. In order to get an Alaska Teaching Certificate, teachers are required to take 6 credits of Alaska History and Culture (3 credits each). This year, our school district is offering an Alaska Culture class and an additional Responsible Thinking Process class (our discipline strategy) taught by one of our local teachers and endorsed through University of Alaska: Fairbanks - Bristol Bay Campus. For the low price of $75, each, we can receive 3 credits per class of post-secondary classes. On paper this sounds great. It is generally unheard of to earn 3 post-secondary college credit classes for $75. In the real world, who has time to take 6 credits of classes your first year in a district, or teaching for that matter?
We attended our Alaska Culture class on Monday of this week via distance delivery. We have a room dedicated to distance based learning where we can talk with, and receive, instruction from various places around the district. It’s actually quite cool. In this class we are suppose to learn about Alaska Native Culture, which is quite beneficial to us because of our location and job description (teaching Alaska Native children). The books the district wants to use for the class aren’t in print any more, so people have to share. The class seems like a good opportunity, unfortunately, both of us don’t feel like we have enough time to create good lesson plans and participate in this class. We’ve been trying to drop it, but getting a hold of people here is actually quite difficult. Time in the native culture is calculated differently then time we are used to.
We attended our Alaska Culture class on Monday of this week via distance delivery. We have a room dedicated to distance based learning where we can talk with, and receive, instruction from various places around the district. It’s actually quite cool. In this class we are suppose to learn about Alaska Native Culture, which is quite beneficial to us because of our location and job description (teaching Alaska Native children). The books the district wants to use for the class aren’t in print any more, so people have to share. The class seems like a good opportunity, unfortunately, both of us don’t feel like we have enough time to create good lesson plans and participate in this class. We’ve been trying to drop it, but getting a hold of people here is actually quite difficult. Time in the native culture is calculated differently then time we are used to.
Togiak Gas Station: $5.21 per gallon
We are also taking a class for Responsible Thinking Process. This is the discipline program that our district uses. It’s based on giving students the opportunity to learn to make good decisions by answering questions based on what the are doing and how that is not in conjuncture with the rules. It’s actually a good program. I like it because it doesn’t take agency away from students. They are responsible for their actions and for making situations right caused by their actions. Very little discipline, just recognizing bad decisions and learning how to correct them. We just need to learn how to use it correctly. It’s difficult to let go of traditional discipline tactics of “you do what I say because I am the teacher” and replace it with questions like “what are you doing” “what are the rules”, “what happens when you brake the rules?” “what happens next time?”. In theory, it’s gold because when the students misbehave they are “breaking the rules” not going against the teacher. In real life application, it takes some time getting use to.
