God's Take

Due to all the hype surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden, this might be beating a dead horse, but it has been weighing on my mind all day.  I journaled about it last night, and my mind can't seem to let it go.

I'm not going to lie: when I heard the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed, my reaction was elation.  I was excited that they finally got him.  I found a live news feed on the internet and watched President Obama's address to the nation.  When he made the official announcement, I wanted to get up and do a happy dance.  Call me a sweaty heathen and lay on the guilt as heavy as you want, but I was (and still am) happy about it and I'm not going to be apologetic about it.

Then I started thinking.  I'm still excited about it; I'm still glad he's finally dead.  But what is God's take on this?  I fear my excitement and elation over a death might be a sin (at which point my unapologetic attitude is going to get me in trouble).  This man masterminded a plot that killed thousands of Americans on US soil.  He has killed scores of others from all different walks of life around the world.  His hate seemed to consume him.  (I read an article today that said he hated the Soviets and communism almost as much as he hated America.)  Yet, God does not wish any of His creations to be lost.  Evil or not, this man was created by God for a special purpose.  Granted, he wasn't interested in fulfilling that purpose and had clearly joined the dark side, but that's what redemption is all about.  What does God think about this death?  I honestly don't know.  If bin Laden's heart and soul were evil, is it good that he's gone?  Does God rejoice when evil is removed from the world?  Or is He grieving the loss of a child?  Justice?  Redemption?  Forgiveness?  Grace?  I don't know.  I would love to hear other thoughts about this.  (But please, be nice.) 

A few final thoughts: What makes a man hate the world so much that he is bent on destroying it?  What drives a man to harbor that much anger?  How could he be so lost?  I know these questions don't really have an answer.  I guess it's just the nature of evil, and it had such a strong hold on him. 

Seek Ye First

Awhile ago I wrote about seeking answers to certain prayers that I have been praying for years.  My conclusion was that God's word says to ask, seek, knock, and ye will find.  By the time I finally reasoned it through, it seemed so clear.

But here I am, months later, with the same prayers, questions, and desires on my heart.  The words of an old song stopped me in my tracks this afternoon.  I'm sure you know it: Seek ye first the kingdom of God / And His righteousness / And all these things will be added unto you / Allelu, Alleluia.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God.

It's right there in the Bible, in Matthew 6:33, but that was not what I had previously concluded.  Somehow I'd missed that verse.  I had been thinking that asking, seeking, and knocking was about seeking the answers to my prayers.  Have I been seeking the wrong thing all this time?  Maybe, instead of prayers for answers, I should be praying for the kingdom of God.  You know, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done."

What does that mean, though?  What does seeking the kingdom of God look like?  I don't have answers for those questions.  I'm almost afraid to find the answers.  I'm afraid that it'll be like the love conundrum: God says to love Him, loving Him means obeying His commands, His commands are to love Him.  A wonderful, never-ending circle that I don't understand.  Is seeking God's kingdom like that?  I don't even know where to start.

Music and Lyrics

I'm a sucker for a good romantic comedy, which is what Netflix is good for.  That and wiling away the long winter weekends that we are still afflicted with, even though we're halfway through April.  I think Mother Nature missed that memo.  Anyway, I recently watched Music and Lyrics, a delightfully breezy comedy starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore.  There's a song that Hugh Grant sings that caught my attention.  I'm not sure why, but these lyrics really resonate with me.

"It's never been easy for me
To find words to go along with a melody.
But this time there's actually something on my mind,
So please forgive these few brief awkward lines.

Since I met you, my whole life has changed.
It's not just my furniture you've rearranged.
I was living in the past
But somehow, you've brought me back,
And I haven't felt like this
Since before Frankie said, 'Relax."
And though I know,
Based on my track record,
I might not seem like the safest bet.
All I'm asking you
Is don't write me off just yet.

For years I've been telling myself the same old story,
That I was happy to live off my so-called former glory.
But you've given me a reason
To take another chance.
Now I need you,
Despite the fact that you've killed all my plants.
And though I know
I've already blown more chances
Than anyone should ever get,
All I'm asking you
Is don't write me off just yet."

King Island Dancers

Last fall, our school staff had some grant money to play around with.  We decided to use it to fund an artist-in-residence for our students.  That set off an almost year-long process that culminated this past week with 6 members of the King Island dance group coming to Elim and spending 4 days teaching our kids to dance.  The 4 men drummed and danced, the 1 female of the group did a lot of the dancing, and the little 7-year old switched back and forth between drumming and dancing. 

Elim does not have a strong dance tradition.  When the missionaries first moved through, they discouraged/banned dancing because of ignorance - they feared a link between native dancing and pagan spirit worship.  The missionaries were also enamored with white indoctrination, which is why the native language started to disappear.  As a school, we would love to see the students learn the language, learn the dancing, learn the native ways of their ancestors, but that push has to come from the community.  They have to initiate it.  That is why the community outpouring of support for this group was so encouraging.  If adults start to bring back these ways, the kids will pick it up and run with it.

The present state of King Island is sad.  It is uninhabited by humans.  For some reason, all natives were relocated to the mainland (Nome area) in 1964 and have since scattered across Alaska.  The highest concentration is in Nome, which is where the dance group is based.

The students were split up by ages and each group had a set time during the day to learn how to dance.  The kindergarten/first-grade group was in the middle of the morning - during our 90-minute reading block.  That was nice.  It shortened the long reading time into a more manageable 45 minutes, which I used for review before we start the next level of the reading curriculum this coming week.  I took a lot of pictures, but they all have kids in them so I can't post them. :-(  On day 1, the girls learned the rabbit dance and the boys learned the walrus dance.  The best part was listening to the boys grunt like walruses at the end of their dance. :-)  On day 2, we reviewed the dances from the previous day, and learned the green-picking dance.  The dances tell stories.  For example, the rabbit dance mimics some of the movements of rabbits; the walrus dance mimics a walrus.  The green-picking dance is about picking fresh greens, piling them up, showing them off.  Day 3 was a resting day.  The dancers did not want to wear out their voices, so they showed the students part of a video from a 1979 potluck/celebration that they danced at in Nome.  Day 4 was reviewing the dances we had learned in preparation for the evening performance.

Before the performance Thursday night,  we had a community potluck.  Only in Alaska would a potluck look like this: sloppy joes, several king crabs, turkey, ham, pasta salads, baked beans, rice, muktuk (whale blubber), berries, agutuq (Eskimo ice cream), and fudge. 

At the performance, the first 45 minutes was showing off the dances we had spent the week learning.  My fear going in was that students would get stage fright and not want to dance in front of such a large audience.  I shouldn't have worried.  Most of the kids were so excited to get up there, even if they had no idea what they were doing.  That was so encouraging.  Even the adults were excited.  The first and last dances were invitational dances - anyone could get up and dance.  Some of the adults were old enough to remember the dancing they had done as children and got up to dance.  If we can find a way to capitalize on that excitement and enthusiasm, there is hope that native dancing will find its way back to Elim.

The second half of the performance was the dance group doing its thing.  That was cool.  The first dance Butch and Jessica did was part of the Wolf Dance - a traditional dance/celebration that usually lasts about 3 days.

The headgear the Butch is wearing is made out of eagle feathers.  His mitts are made out of sealskin, with the little jangling tokens made out of puffin beak or ivory. 

This is the Raven dance.  I could see the mannerisms of ravens in the movements they were doing.  The little boy, Martin, was so intense.  He's been dancing since he was about 4, and totally knows what he's doing.  He was so cute to watch.



After that, they stopped introducing the dances.  Sometimes I could figure out what they were depicting and sometimes not. 

 

I'm not sure what these masks were supposed to depict, but I know I wouldn't want to meet on in a dark alley late at night.

Sylvester, on the left, has got to be at least 60, but he was able to dance with the same range of movement as the younger men.  He does not show his age. 

Another walrus dance, but these two had masks for this one.

In case you were wondering, the clothing they are wearing are called kuspuks.  It is a traditional clothing garment that both men and women can wear.  Women's kuspuks are longer and look more like dresses, while men's kuspuks have a shorter hem and look more like shirts.  The drums they are using are made out of walrus stomach, stretched on an oak frame.  Trees are scarce on King Island, so traditionally, the frames were made of spruce gathered from the driftwood washed up on the beaches.  The handle could be made from either wood or ivory.

Wow

I am a big fan of patterns that occur in daily life.  I make it a point to mention it to my kids when I see them, such as when the date does something cool.  Today, the date was 4/11/11.  Nothing too spectacular.  There are two elevens, which I knew my kids noticed.  I heard little giggles and whispers when I wrote it down during our calendar time today.  I figured that was enough and didn't mention it or elaborate on it.  I moved on.  I could tell one student wasn't totally with me, but he is usually too tired in the morning to function so it was normal for him.  Less than 3 minutes later, he raised his hand and told us that "On November 11, it will be three elevens."  Wow.  My mind was officially blown.

Iditarod

The Iditarod this year turned out to be an exciting race with an ending that no one saw coming.  Lance Mackey was the reigning champion; he had won an unprecedented four in a row.  Everyone was watching to see if he could pull off number five and become the second man to win the race five times (Rick Swenson is the other one), and the only man to ever win five in a row. 

As the racers left Anchorage, everything looked to be going well for all the racers.  Then, within the first day of actual racing, Mackey had to drop a bunch of dogs.  Without the power of a full team, he fell in the standings.  It was a crazy race, with unknown mushers coming out of nowhere to claim the lead and then fall back.  Beautiful weather all along the route led to fast times between checkpoints.  It was clear that this was going to be a race to keep an eye on. 

As racer approached Elim, John Baker was in the lead, with Ramey Smyth right on his heels.  Baker is an Inupiat Eskimo from the village on Kotzebue, on the north side of the Seward Peninsula.  No one really saw him coming.  He took his time for the majority of the race, but when he hit the Yukon River and then the coast, he took off.  I had been watching the Iditarod website all weekend and knew that he was getting close.  An announcement was made Monday morning at 8:35 that he was three miles out.  So, we rounded up whatever kids we could find and headed down to cheer him in. 

He stopped long enough to snack his dogs and let the vets check them out.  He didn't even park his team.

He was passing out what looked to be frozen pieces of fish, but the bag said turkey, so I'm assuming that's what it was. 

Yummy.  The dogs loved it.  They ate while the vets did their work, and then he was off again.  Ramey Smyth was close behind, coming through less than an hour later. 

I went down to the checkpoint after school.  It was a beautiful day - clear blue skies, bright sun that actually felt warm on my face in spite of the frigid wind.  There were a couple of teams there, resting in the warmth.

Hugh Neff's team.

I was keeping an eye on the website for the rest of the afternoon.  I knew DeeDee Jonrowe was coming fast, and I wanted to see her come in.  Right around 6:30, I headed down to the checkpoint, and was just in time to see her come in.  

Her team came in pulling strong and looking healthy.  She quickly got them bedded down while the vets went about their business quickly and efficiently.

Note the bright pink harnesses.  Jonrowe is a breast cancer survivor.  She started running dogs 30 years ago, fought and beat breast cancer about 5 years ago (running the Iditarod 4 weeks after her last chemo treatment), and came back to doing what she loves.  It didn't even slow her down.  She has run the Iditarod something like 27 times, finishing in the top 10 half of those times.  That is what I call an inspirational woman!

I continued to watch the race closely, knowing that the two mushers in the lead were less than an hour apart.  Mackey was way back; it was looking doubtful that he was even going to place in the top 20.  He only had 8 dogs left and was moving pretty slowly.

As Tuesday dawned, Nome was ready to crown a new Iditarod champion.  John Baker crossed the finish line early that morning, shattering the previously held record for fastest Iditarod time ever.  As disappointing as it was to the old champion fall, the new champion couldn't be more worthy.  He is the first native Eskimo to win the Iditarod since the 1970's.  He is the first Inupiat Eskimo to win the Iditarod ever.  Native drummers were on hand at the finish line to welcome him in.  Ray Redington started the Iditarod so many years ago to bring attention to the fact that dog-sledding was becoming lost in the native villages.  It was losing status as a vital part of life, and Mr. Redington wanted to preserve it.  Having an Eskimo from a native village come from behind and take top honors - well, Mr. Redington would have been proud.  The Iditarod was coming back to its roots, in a way.  It's a proud moment for Kotzebue, and for Eskimos everywhere, really. 

Professional Development

A friend of mine sometimes mentions all the trainings he has to go to as a new teacher, and how he despises writing the sub plans for the days that he is gone.  Our district has taken care of that.  They call it a “working weekend,” fly people to a central location (usually Unalakleet), and do trainings and professional development that way.  We don’t miss any school days, but we also don’t get a weekend. 

A couple of weeks ago, the principal sent me an e-mail asking me if I would represent our site at a math training being held in Unalakleet.  We implemented a new math curriculum this year (enVision Math), but no one has been trained in how to use it effectively.  The district was bringing in a presenter to train a handful of people who could then take the information back to their sites and share with the other teachers.  Between other conferences, illness, and maternity leave, I was the only elementary teacher left.  I reluctantly agreed to come, knowing that it meant the loss of my weekend – my time to relax, unwind, and get my homework done. 

My travel was scheduled for Friday evening.  It was a charter plane scheduled to pick me up at 6:40, and get to Unalakleet at 7:30.  Knowing how travel can change so quickly up here, I made sure I was ready shortly after-school on Friday.  It was a good thing, too.  At 5:00, the principal called me and said something about needing to catch some afternoon flight that was currently at the airport.  Was I ready?  I had my stuff ready, but I still had to get all my gear on, which I did as quickly as possible.  We headed up to the airport, not really sure which plane I was supposed to be on.  I got on the afternoon Era flight to Nome, with the assurance that there was a flight going from Nome to Unalakleet.  Turns out, I was meeting the charter flight in Nome, instead of the flight picking me up on the way.  Going west to end up in the southeast makes no sense, looking at a map, but that’s the way travel goes.  We finally got to Unalakleet at 7:45.  I left almost 2 hours early, and got to Unalakleet right about the same time.  Go figure.

We went straight from the airport to the dorms to drop off our stuff and then straight to Peace on Earth, which is the local pizza joint in Unalakleet (the only pizza joint in the region).  They had graciously agreed to stay open late to accommodate our late flights.  Fantastic people! 

No sleeping on the floor like at in-service.  This time, we’re staying at the dorms.  It’s a set of dorm style apartments that house mostly work-study students from around the district.  We’re staying up in the attic, in a small room with bunk beds.  It reminds me of an old boarding school dorm room.  Real beds, with mattresses and sheets and (thin, ineffective) blankets.  What a treat! 

The workshop on Saturday was fantastic!  The presenter did a nice job of answering questions, but not getting side-tracked on tangents.  She fielded everything we threw at her, but it wasn’t disjointed.  I learned so much about what I’m doing wrong, but I also know how to fix it now.  I only got bogged down on one thing about pacing and the order of the topics to be taught.  (It’s a really long story and a whole different blog entry.)  I’m pretty sure my opinionated side is going to get me in trouble one of these days.  Most of it falls under the umbrella of common sense, and the rest of it falls under “Don’t fix something that ain’t broken,” and I have trouble keeping quiet about that.  I’m not the only one with a bone to pick about this particular issue, though, so it’s all good.  There was so much information, so I’m still processing.  It was also very practical; I have ways I can change my instruction starting Monday. 

I went down to the media center after the workshop, and got some new books for my classroom.  Darla, the media center specialist (librarian), has so many books that she gives away to anybody who comes in a visits with her.  I had to re-pack my bag to accommodate the new books.

Sunday morning was more training, which continued the trend of the day before.  We reviewed the important concepts from Saturday (modeling what good teachers do, using the particular model from this curriculum) and then got into how to use the online resources and tools available to us.  I don’t envision myself using the online tracking and don’t have reliable access to a class set of computers so that I can assign lessons, games, and tests to individual students.  It’s also unlikely that students will be able to complete those activities at home, as most of them don’t have computers and even fewer have internet access.  Still, it is good to know what is available and how to use it. 

I am currently sitting in the cafeteria at the Unalakleet school.  Most of the other teachers left on their flights right after lunch.  There is a handful of teachers left – all of them from Savoonga, except me.  We were supposed to go on the district plane, and depart shortly after the first wave.  I was anticipating leaving a bit early or at least on-time, because the district pilot has a reputation for being early.  I shouldn’t have assumed anything – we’re not supposed to leave for another hour, and I’ve already been sitting here for that same amount of time.  It’s the hurry up and wait game.  My least favorite part of this job.