Intense Week

It's been a pretty intense week for those of us working in Unalakleet. I got some photos that I think really captured my (and perhaps my co-workers') mood as I progressed through the week.

Beginning of the Week


Middle of the Week


End of the Week

Work Week

A few educators from around the Bering Straits region flew into Unalakleet early this week for an optional work time. Like so many things out here, professional work weeks are bit different than what most people are used to attending. First of all, without any hotels available, we all stay in the school, sleep on air mattresses, and get to spend A LOT of time together.
Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to create rubrics to further explain the standards we use to teach students. The district uses a wiki site to host our rubrics, lesson ideas, resources etc. Anyone in the world can add ideas to the site.

We are working in groups based on subject area. I'm working as a part of the math team. Here's my groupies.

Within our group we split up into our age specialties. I've primarily been working with Anna from Elim. Here we are with our game faces on.

Throughout the week, groups are sure to share their work with others to receive feedback and encouragement.

In the evenings, we get time to hangout, play (instead of work) on our computers and bond.

There are some parts of this system that can be tiresome. Being in the same building, morning, noon and night is exhausting. Sleeping in classrooms and showering in the locker rooms is not always so comfortable. But alas, it's the price we pay for teaching in such a great place.

Here's the crew.

--AnnMarie

The Weekend

This has been a fairly interesting weekend. I attended a one day meeting in Unalakleet for the reading facilitators at each site. My brother John and I happen to help out with the reading program at our respective schools. So, I got picked up by the district plane on Friday night.

The next stop after Brevig was in Elim to pick up John.


In Unalakleet, we visited with folks at Kim and Greg Johnson's home, then spent all of Saturday in a meeting. It was short, sweet, informative, included good food and good company. Saturday evening I returned to Brevig. Our friend Bill Bryson is visiting and he had watched Harold quickly while C.O. came to pick me up at the air strip. Turns out Harold had been sick and miserable all day. Here's what we saw when we got home. --AnnMarie