Revelations

I was so jazzed on Friday to ride my bike across town to catch a ride to school with another person in my program. Things were going great until I was half way there and got a flat tire. This is only the third flat tire I've had since I obtained this bike three years ago, so I'll take it. I have a tube, now all I need is pump and I'll be back in business the bike.

I have to say that I am really happy to be in Anchorage right now to be part of this program. In some ways I'm kind of honored, I am in a room with a lot of really talented, incredibly educated people. One of the great things about this program is that they require us to reflect and journal every single day. What a concept!?! I have to share my journal entry from last week, it's kind of funny, probably won't surprise most of you, but really, it's GD ridiculous. I can hardly believe that I shared it with the people I'm working with. Here you go:

Friday, May 27th, 2011
I had a revelation today as we were asked to define our teaching philosophy. It’s something that I am not proud of and definitely need to work on before I have my own classroom. I’ve had this realization before but dismissed it because it didn’t think it was important. I realized that part of my education philosophy, and I don’t want to say the reason I want to teach, but some part of me believes that if more people thought about the world the way that I did, then the whole world would be a better place. I feel like I arrived on my beliefs through a variety of channels, but mostly just exposure to information. Now, I know that this is not entirely true! There are so many factors that make-up my belief system. These factors include my upbringing, where I’m from and where I studied. I did not individually come to these conclusions. For the record, I also understand the limits of my own cognition. I KNOW that just because I think or feel a certain way, that it’s not the only or right way, I know this. And this is why it was so disturbing to me when I found myself honestly thinking that if I could just present my students with information they will starting thinking like me and therefore be better human beings. So I may be a tad narcissistic, working on it.

Can you believe that??

Paper Politics

It's weird to be working within a school district where resources are so limited. I remember at Metro Parks how I would get so irritated when we would waste boxes of paper on stupid promotional stuff. A lot of the paper would never even make it to public before we would recycle it.

I finished my first week of school. The last two days I was working with my mentor teacher to set up our classroom. We were given exactly two packages of paper that needed to last until the end of summer school. We literally divided out the paper among our classes. Every piece of paper was accounted for. In one way it made me SAD to think that there is so much waste in city and state government yet here we are scrambling to find enough paper so that our students can journal everyday, and simultaneously HAPPY to see us stretch our resources and save some trees. It was also inspiring to meet teachers who volunteer to teach summer school and invest so much time and money to the cause. This summer is going to be awesome!

Pic: Flat Top, Anchorage, AK

Some people would call me crazy.....

Just because I moved to Alaska without a job and with the intention to teach in bush. In fact, a lot of people have called me crazy, to my face. Whatever. I'm here now and things are mostly good. My first couple days of classes have been pretty interesting. I really excited about being a teacher. The only real problem is that I don't have a job yet. I had a really promising interview yesterday with the Southeast Island School District (my first choice) only to get a call at 10pm last night to learn that they offered the position to somebody else. I'm not going to lie. I kind of wanted to cry. So back to square one, applying for jobs, practicing yoga, generally keep it real.

In unrelated news, I unpacked my bike, somebody is going to come over tomorrow and help me assemble it. This will generally improve the quality of my life, I'm sure. Then I can add riding bikes, kicking ass and taking names to the list of things I'm doing.

Pic: the Nishiki in the kitchen

And I'm Out

It's been a long time coming people. Thanks to EVERYONE who made my last couple weeks in T-Town amazing. I feel loved.
Pic: All my OA Hommies