Week 2: School & Community Life

Community: There are some major differences that I've noticed about living in the North, rather than back home.  For example, everything is of a limited supply.  This weekend our water "ran out".  That was definitely a new concept for me!  We had to call an after-hours phone number and the "water truck" came to fill up our tank.  Luckily, they were very quick!  Another interesting aspect of this community is the amount of hunting that takes place.  For example, right now our neighbour has a pair of walrus tusks hanging on his porch.  In addition, a polar bear was killed just outside of town on saturday and I heard that the skin can be seen just outside the community Northern store.  They have a yearly cap of 13, which is the amount of polar bears the community is allowed to kill.  One of those 13 bears is "tagged" for sport hunting (usually by a paying tourist). One other major difference is that there isn't a court house, but rather a "court day"... which happens to be tomorrow.  Court officials fly into the town and the school gym is used for the day.  This event seems to be causing a great deal of tension among the students and the overall community. 

School: I still can't believe I'm in my second week at the school already!  Today was another good day.  We learned that we'll be going on another cod fishing trip tomorrow, so the kids are very excited for that!  I also had a chat with my teacher today and we started to schedule in some times for me to be the lead teacher for a few lessons.  I'm starting on wednesday with a lesson on the tides in the bay of fundy.  The children have been very curious about where I'm from, so I hope that they will be engaged!  I also plan to start a writing lesson with them next week, where we will work together to compose an email to eventually send to my last practicum class back in Amherst!  I'm looking foward to taking on a larger role in the classroom, but I'm also a little unsure about how it will go.  These students are performing at around a grade 3 level, and I've been finding it hard to adjust my expectations (when compared to my last grade 6 class).  Things are alot slower in the classroom here, and are mainly handout based.  These students don't do well with independent work and are very resistant to writing assignments.  But advice from the other teachers in the school has been encouraging.  Basically, everyone just tries their best, goes at a slower pace, and doesn't take the resistence personal.  I guess, as the teachers at the Mount always stressed to us, you just have to "meet the students where they are, and try to move them forward."  Wish me luck!  :)