–artist Peter William Brown

Stebbins School was host to many visitors this year, the most welcome of whom were the visiting artists Barb Short and Deland Anderson. Both artists were part of the New Visions grant, from the Alaska State Council on the Arts, which is designed to increase arts education across the district. The three year project will focus on professional development for staff, curriculum writing, leadership training and bringing Alaskan Teaching Artists to work with students.

Barb Short instructed the Stebbins young artists on elements of the color wheel and media through lessons designed by Project ARTiculate. Students revealed their artistic prowess through zen doodling, water color resist projects, and color wheel stories.  Deland Anderson explained elements of aboriginal art from New Zealand, and showed students how to work with an adaptation  of this dot art.  Art projects revealed the students’ interpretation of their own landscapes of Steven’s Hill and the tundra alive with berries. Mr. Anderson even entertained the classes with performances on a didgeridoo.

Greg Johnson, District Director of Curriculum and Instruction, states that,
“ Research and common sense have shown that the arts can inspire and motivate students like no other subject, and teach them critical and creative thinking, problem solving, and expressive communication skills.”

Reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic—and now ARRRRRT!  Thank you, Bering Strait School District, for giving us that all-important fourth “r”!

“Good luck trying to get it out of me…it’s like squeezing blood from a turnip.” So says Jammie Thomas, a woman who was sued for illegally sharing twenty-four mp3s on the P2P network, Kazaa. On Friday, June 19, 2009, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) successfully sued her $80,000 per song, making the total $1.92 million. The 32 year-old single mother of four was warned repeatedly and convicted previously in October of 2009 and ordered to pay $220,000 in damages.

Peer to peer file sharing—also known as P2P—that deals with copyrighted material or material that is already owned is against the law. Most deal with music or movies, but P2P file sharing could also include books, medical information, and even your credit cards. Illegal downloading comes with risks that outweigh the benefits and takes a shot at the law: viruses and spyware could possibly invade your computer, you could get sued big for money, and it violates copyright laws.

Illegally downloading on P2P networks such as: Kazaa, Limewire, Frostwire, eDonkey, BitTorrent, Gnutella, Shareaza, and many more that may come with an unexpected, unwanted package deal of viruses and spyware. Spyware allows others to see your personal information in your computer. They could see your credit card numbers, phone numbers, email addresses, passwords—information that is yours. A stranger would be able to hack into your computer, see your credit card number, and purchase things that you’d have to pay for. Viruses crash your computer and make it unable to function properly. These could make it look like you do more crime than you actually commit.

Sharing music through these networks—even though that you think you’re paying for them—is against the law and it violates copyright laws. In our modern technology world, just about everything that is owned or was produced by a person since 1978 has to be paid for or asked for permission, if a person wanted to own or use it. Some network users believe that the producers make more money than they actually know admit, and can easily afford to give away songs. Violating copyright laws can throw those into jail or federal prison.

Peer to peer file sharing also puts you at risk for a possibly unaffordable debt. The RIAA at unbelievably unaffordable prices sues many. They could be prices that you would have to pay for the rest of your lives, or small prices that don’t take much time to pay and just move on. Being sued is embarrassing and has a risk of evolving into financial problems. Jammie Thomas, a woman who was sued $1.92 million for sharing 24 mp3s on a P2P network, is a single mother of four. Thomas said “There’s no way they’re ever going to get that, I’m a mom, limited means, so I’m not going to worry about it now” to the RIAA. What you thought was legal and free, is actually illegal and comes with a high price tag.

One of the first responses that a P2P file sharer might say is: “But I won’t get caught!” Although you may not get caught right away, or maybe not get caught at all if you’re smart and stop, the RIAA has ability to track you down. They can track you by information from your computer. They are able to track back to your computer just by looking at what was accessed, depending on how much information that you have on your computer, they could find ways to contact you and sue you.

Peer to peer filing networks are against the law and just gets you into trouble. Those who use these networks have a high chance of getting viruses and spyware, sued a lot of money, and you violate copyright laws. Although, these networks are convenient, they also lead you on the route to trouble.

“The P2P acronym has acquired a non-technical meaning as well. Some people have described this second meaning of “P2P” as “people-to-people.” From this perspective, P2P is a model for developing software and growing businesses that help individuals on the internet to meet each other and share common interests. So called social networking technology is an example of this concept.”                    -Bradley Mitchell.

The term P2P refers to “peer-to-peer” networking. A peer-to-peer network allows computer hardware and software to function without the need for special server devices. P2P is an alternative to client-server network design. And also many people use peer-to-peer file sharing program software to swap music, videos, and other files over the internet. It is also illegal to use P2P because it is downloading off the internet. P2P file sharing is increasing in popularity but there are some problems for peer-to-peer file sharing.

Peer-to-peer file sharing causes installation of malicious code. Malicious code can cause network and mail server overload by sending email messages, stealing data and passwords, deleting document files, and even re-formatting hard drives. When you use P2P applications it is difficult for a user to be certain that the source of the files is safe. It is essential to know that specific applications are used by people to transmit malicious code. By going into other files can cause a virus or spyware to enter your computer. If you have a virus on your computer, it can delete your important files. Spyware can also redirect a web browser to a site different from what the user intended to visit or changes the user’s homepage and it can slow the performance of your computer.

P2P is breaking copyright laws. It is extremely important to understand and be able to separate between copyrighted and public material. If you don’t separate between copyrighted and public material, you may get sued for breaking copyright laws. When you download files off the internet, you are causing traffic to reduce the service of certain programs on your computer to be slow or wouldn’t show up or you can even limit yourself to access the internet. Peer-to-peer file sharing has made the copyright law on the illegal use of software a major topic of discussion and anytime a copyrighted property is uploaded or downloaded without the consent of the copyright owner is illegal.

File swapping can also get your personal information to other people that are online. You may be giving people to access your computer without even knowing it. It is very easy for other P2P users to trick you into going into your information. If other people get your information then you may become a victim of identity theft. So, when file swapping isn’t configured properly on your computer, the files that are not intended for sharing maybe accessible to anyone on the P2P network.

Although file swapping is increasing in popularity, there can be major detriments with file swapping. You can damage your computer or get sued for illegal downloading or possibly be put into jail. File swapping can get your personal information to other peer-to-peer file sharers and you are breaking the copyright laws. File swapping can be fun to have on your computer, but it can cause a lot of traffic—due to what you are downloading or stealing. Peer-to-peer file sharing is also a model for developing software and growing businesses that help individuals on the internet to meet each other and share common interest from the people who have embraced  the second meaning of “P2P” as “people-to-people.”

White Mountain School has a new hang up.  Community members and students cooperated to create the 89 piece fence project.  They designed, traced, cut, filed, drilled, primed, painted, sealed and then hung the artwork on the 90’ fence outside the school.   This project was made possible through the generous support of the Bering Strait School District, the Alaska State Council on the Arts and NSEDC.  Next time you are in White Mountain, make sure to check out our newest creation.?

“I got really scared. My stomach is all turning.” 12-year old Brianna said. “I thought it was OK to download music because my mom paid a service fee for it. Out of all people, why did they pick me?” Brianna Lahara was sued for peer-to-peer file sharing and had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars. She was among 261 people sued for copying thousands of songs via popular internet file-sharing software—and thousands more suits could be on the way. Illegal peer-to-peer file sharing is wrong and it should be discontinued. Let me set out the other reasons why we should stop illegal downloading.

One reason why illegal peer-to-peer file sharing should end is because you can get sued for doing it and you’d have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars. Once you get caught downloading songs, you’d have to pay an excessive amount of money for the media that you downloaded. They could also sentence you to go to jail for 5 years or less depending on how much you downloaded, and how long you’ve done it. The fines could go as high as $150,000.

Another reason why illegal peer-to-peer file sharing—in other words “file swapping”–should be stopped is because your computer can get a bad virus which slows the programming down. Downloading can generate so much network traffic that it adversely affects network performance for users who share the same local network. When a computer has a virus, you’d always have to clean it out with a McAfee Security Center or any other program so pop-up windows won’t come up every time. If people stop downloading from Lime-Wire or Kazaa, they wouldn’t have problems with their computer.

The last reason why illegal downloading should stop is because other people can steal your identity. You could open a security hole for hackers, allowing them access to your entire computer. This is called identity theft. When you share media with a network, people could look up your personal information and go through your business and even take out money from your account. Example: A 35 year old guy named Gregory Kopiloff got arrested for stealing people’s identity. He took out their money, and purchased what he wanted and had to serve time in jail for 20 years.

Since all of the downloading programs are free, people download media everyday to keep themselves busy and enjoy their music. They could download videos and music whenever and wherever they want. Some people may say musicians are already rich, and it should be legal to download everywhere. On the other hand, you could listen to the radio or buy your own music/videos from stores. It’s free, instead you’re not downloading anything from a computer. People could also end up in jail for many years.

Everyday there are about 966 million peer-to-peer researches done around the world. As I’ve speculated the difficulties in the previous paragraphs, I suggest that anyone who does not want to deal with these outcomes should stop the wrong doing and you’ll have less stress to deal with. Peer-to-peer file sharing is wrong and it should be permanently deactivated.

Peer to peer file sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia, documents, or electronic books. There are some types of file sharing such as Gnutella, Gnutella 2, Lime-wire, iMesh, and eDonkey Network. Peer to peer can have negative effects and positive effects. Overall, there seem to be more positive effects than negative effects of file exchanging.

There are different ways of using peer to peer file exchange. There are steps you have to go through in this  process, and other software, like the old ways,  may seem harder in the downloading process. When everything is slow and you’re having a hard time downloading from P2P networks, it may be because the material  contains viruses or worms. On the other hand, some software–such as Limewire–have an easy step downloading process. This can be easy, fast, and do no harm to your network service if used legally.

File swapping often takes a lot of download time. Sometimes, some software can be very slow at downloading. Why do people want to take all their time downloading? There are often ways to go through P2P and very few software are close to being the best at downloading. There are some drawbacks to each. Using easy and fast legal downloading processes can help you block all these viruses and worms– all legal P2Ps can block the viruses.

Everybody likes to download music. A man named Sean Fanning introduced the first music file sharing software called Napster. It allowed users to share music files freely with other users. Beyond the unintentional or deliberate sharing of sensitive information, P2P file can expose the school or business or individual user to security risks that directly cause or indirectly facilitate Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) violations. When people do not follow copyright policies they get sued. In the United Sates people get fined for 150,000 dollars per song. To avoid getting fined, people can obey copyright policies and can legally get downloaded music and movies.

P2P is a term that typically refers to a file sharing network. It is a networking technology that normally uses a decentralized communication model. File swapping can take a lot of time and can shut your computer down to have virus or be no more use until you get a new computer/laptop. With a better service such as Amazon or itunes, you get a virus free service and all the benefits of music, movies, podcast, online courses, etc. So,  this can  have a lot more positive effects than negative effects.

Joel Tenenbaum, a normal 28-year-old American, is only the second of approximately 18,000 individuals targeted by the labels to have gone to trial and is the second to lose. A Boston federal jury demanded Tenenbaum to pay a total of $675,000- $22,500 per song to the record labels for illegally downloading 30 songs from KaZaA. Even after his father warned him he would get sued in 2002, he still continued to infringe. He was also sued in 2007. P2P file sharing can cause a lot of problems. People who use P2P file sharing should use it with caution to prevent problems such as hacking, virus attacks and lawsuits over copyright violations.

P2P file sharing can cause others to hack into your computer. This can also cause people to steal all your personal information. They can open up bank accounts, credit/debit card accounts, or to just steal your whole identity. This can also lead to having to pay a lot of money to banks for your false transactions, and it may also cause you to go into bankruptcy.

Virus attacks are common in P2P file sharing. One reason that causes your computer to get viruses is a peer-to-peer sharing system that introduced fake chunks into downloads and those downloaded files were unusable afterwards. This causes your computer to become slow, or it could possibly crash your computer. When your computer crashes, too bad: you don’t have a computer anymore.

P2P can also put you behind bars. Lawsuits over copyright violations can make you face a lot of consequences. These consequences include getting sued or fined. “How am I going to pay my debt? Where am I going to get all the money from to pay my huge debt? What am I going to do?” These are some questions you should ask yourself after getting sued from a music company.

File sharing is free, as people would say. It doesn’t cost a penny. This is the whole reason why people file share: it’s easy, it is way faster than downloading and it’s an early process. It also enables peers to find what they’re looking for without having to rely on a centralized index server, and there’s no single point of failure in the system.

On the other hand, file swappers eventually get caught. They get sued and can’t pay their debt. From not paying their debt, their home is taken away from them for not affording to pay rent, and they don’t have any food or shelter.

All in all, file swappers should be precautious about P2P file sharing because if they carelessly act without thinking, they get sued. If they think downloading is fun, the police will find them. What are you going to do when they come for you?

Sheffner, Ben. “Oy Tenenbaum! RIAA wins $675,000 or $22,500 per song.” Ars Technica. July 31, 2009. Ars Technica. April 28, 2010. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/o-tenenbaum-riaa-wins-675000-or-22500-per-song.ars.

Peer-to-Peer file sharing can be fun. You get the newest videos, music, or even games. Yes it is easy to get the goodies, but the outcome of the whole illegal morale may get an individual in trouble. It has too many consequences to deal with. People should follow the rules, and here are some reasons why we shouldn’t download or distribute illegal files.

Joel Tenenbaum started infringing in 2002 when he was 18 year old. In 2005 he received a harsh letter from plaintiffs. The letter stated that he had better stop what he was doing or he would be taken into custody, on top of that his father warned him that he would get sued. While Joel perpetually went on with this illegal action, he was then sued in 2007.  After the forensics got involved and found over 800 songs, Joel was brought to trial. He was found guilty in September of 2008 and had to pay $22,500 per song. Do you want to end up in debt for the rest of your life as well as Joel? Stop the amoral downloading if somebody told you so, especially if the law had sent a harsh letter.

The individual’s computer can also develop viruses and have slow programming. They may think that downloading wouldn’t cause any effects to their computer—because there are millions of others doing the same—causing the individual to continue downloading and distributing. The next thing that happens is that the computer crashes, causing the infringer to waste money and buy another brand of computer.  Why waste money on another computer believing it’s going to do better than the first?  Stop the wrongdoing before you soon come to a point where you waste money on another brand of computer.

Sending personal information to a website to buy a song may also get a buyers identity stolen. As their information is being sent out, their identity could get in the hands of a psycho and be used for buying other illegal items on the web, or even have your money stolen. Having unsecured and unsigned codes may allow access of your information to somebody else that could swipe your identity, and use it in a bad way. Sending your information out to a website that may be a fraud, can cause any typical problem to you or your computers information. I wouldn’t want anybody to have my identity used by a   stranger, and I know that there are many others that wouldn’t want that to happen either. Stop buying songs from the specific web and you have a chance to keep your identity–and your personal information– safe with you.

No matter what your age or however much money you make, buying or downloading music and videos from an unsecured website is illegal to anyone who dares do it. As I said before, you’ll get viruses and have to pay for another computer or pay even more money, like Joel Tenenbaum. Overall, getting your identity stolen is the worst part of it because you don’t know what anyone could use your identity for. Put a halt to the illegal downloading and distributing, and I guarantee you wouldn’t have to deal with any troubles.

“P2P does not stand for ‘permission to pilfer’.” -US Attorney General under George W. Bush, John Ashcroft

Peer to peer file sharing is software that allows computer users, utilizing the same software, to connect with each other and directly access files from one another’s hard drive. Some of these files include music, images, books, and movies. Peer to peer files sharing is also illegal. A lot of people have been sued for doing so but even after being sued some of them still continue to share files. Peer to peer file sharing may be illegal but it’s the most popular way teens and adults network their favorite media. Take Joel Tenenbaum for example. After being notified by court, he continued to illegally download songs. Eventually he got sued. But until he paid his debt, the producers and artists of the songs he downloaded were upset that they weren’t receiving enough money because of peer-to-peer file sharing.

An artist—Mr. Big—wants to bring down illegal file sharing because he claims he is not making enough money on the market alone to make a living. The people who illegally download do not care about whether or not he is making enough money to get a new Lamborghini because they assume he is making enough money to buy a new BMW daily. Mr. Big knows that peer-to-peer file sharing is illegal but Joel Tenenbaum does not care because most downloading sites are “free” or reasonably affordable. Mr. Big is infuriated that most of his songs are not being paid for as a result of peer-to-peer file sharing, so—still thinking about this—he walks into a produce store and takes an apple without paying for it because he is “too good” to pay.

Joel thinks that Mr. Big makes enough money on the market alone to make a living for a whole family. Tenenbaum is perfectly content with the fact that he is getting his favorite tunes free. So Joel, and millions of others, log online to download or share files. What Joel doesn’t know, yet, is that his car parked outside gets stolen. When he does realize it is stolen, he reports it to the police and they track down the culprit. He finds out that the culprit got sued for illegal downloading and stole his car to pay off his debt by selling it.

Joel was careful when he reported his stolen car because his name was on the line, ironically, for breaking the law—downloading. Just a couple weeks before his car got stolen, he opened an envelope stating that he must not continue to download and share files. He thought there was nothing wrong with downloading songs. After all, he paid for them. Despite the letter, Joel continued to pay for his songs as anonymously as possible. He told his friend how to do so, and as a result, the friends’ identity got stolen. His credit card was cancelled due to being way over debt.

Downloading songs that claim to be free may be illegal but that doesn’t stop people from listening to their favorite songs or watch action-packed, five star movies. Some people are aware that downloading songs is breaking the law but others are not. Take Brianna LaHara for example—she was terrified to learn that she was being sued for something she thought her mom was legally paying for. Whether people are aware of it or not, they lead a secret life of illegal action

BB Scores ending 2-27

BB Scores ending 2-20

March 3-7: Great Northwest Conference 2A Basketball Tournament in Savoonga.  March 4-7: Bering Sea Conference 1A Boys Basketball Tournament in Brevig Mission.  March 5-7: Bering Sea Conference 1A Girls Basketball Tournament in Teller.

BB Scores ending 2-13

Selawik Valley Tournament, the Golovin Boys came in 2nd in this Tournament
Golovin 68
Selawik 48
Golovin 99
Up-River 67

Golovin 94
Buckland 87 OT

Selawik 82
Golovin 75 OT

Chevak Tournament: Girls:
Chevak – 61  Unalakleet – 26
Tikigaq – 53  Scammon – 20
Yakutat – 66  Togiak – 20
Chefornak – 56  Kotlik – 44
Scammon Bay – 39  Unalakleet – 36
Chevak – 43  Tikigaq – 42
Togiak – 62  Kotlik – 37
Yakutat – 65  Chefornak – 16
Scammon – 44 – Chefornak – 29
Tikigaq p 63  Togiak – 36
Tikigaq – 59  Scammon – 45
Yakutat – 46  Chevak – 45
Boys:
Kotlik – 53  Yakutat – 49
Chevak – 67  Togiak – 34
SAcammon – 57  Chefornak – 32
Tikigaq – 70  Unalakleet – 50
Yakutat – 37  Togiak – 35
Chevak – 89  Kotlik – 52
Unalakleet – 54  Chefornak – 36
Tikigaq – 78  Scammon – 37
Scammon – 72  yakutat – 52
Unalakleet – 64  Kotlik – 54
Scammon – 67  Unalakleet – 52
Tikigaq – 73 – Chevak – 49

BB Scores ending 1-30

BB Scores ending 1-16

The Bering Strait School District was recently awarded a $10,000 New Visions grant, from the Alaska State Council on the Arts, which is designed to increase arts education across the district. The three year project will focus on professional development for staff, curriculum writing, leadership training and bringing Alaskan Teaching Artists to work with students. The district was one of only three in the state to receive funds and technical assistance support.  District staff responded to surveys in November indicating a high level of interest in integrating the arts across the curriculum, so training and artist residencies will focus on showing teachers how to add the visual arts, music, drama, dance, and Native Arts to daily instruction. Research and common sense have shown that the arts can inspire and motivate students like no other subject, and teach them critical and creative thinking, problem solving, and expressive communication skills. These are all critical attributes for success in the 21st century. For more information contact Greg Johnson gjohnson@bssd.org or Kim Sweeny ksweeny@wmo.bssd.org .

Allen Kimoktoak, maintenance worker from Koyuk-Malemute School, was selected as 2009 BSSD Maintenance Person of the Year by a district maintenance panel. Allen has worked at Koyuk school since 1988 and was selected based on several qualities and strengths. First and foremost, the pride Allen takes in his work is obvious to all. He is willing to do the extra things to make sure the school reflects Koyuk in a positive manner. He is dedicated to ensuring the school functions properly and is a safe and comfortable place for student learning. Also, Allen is a dependable employee, completing monthly paperwork and working independently to solve maintenance problems. He is willing to ask questions of supervisors when necessary, and then tackle the tasks at hand. Finally, Allen has shown his willingness to work with others, both site custodians/staff and district itinerant workers, in a cooperative manner. For these and many more reasons, Koyuk-Malemute School and BSSD is proud to recognize the efforts of Allen Kimoktoak.

Congratulations Allen Kimoktoak, Maintenance Worker, Koyuk Malemute School

BSSD Staff, Students, & Parents,

It has been a very busy first semester as usual. Looking back through the last few months of StraitTalk articles, as well as my own pictures that I’ve collected from emails sent to me and collected from my travels, I am pleased to be reminded of all the great work being done across our school district. We are very busy, but also very productive. These last few months have seen the BSSD Educational Conference, Elementary/ Jr. High Wrestling and Cheerleading Tournaments, Regional Mix-six Volleyball and High School Wresting, Strategic Planning and AEC Workshop, and many other activities that are happening at the site level.

Not only is this the close of 2009, but this is the closing of the first decade of this new millennia. If you are a student, I encourage you to think about your future. Where do you want to be in another ten years? If you are a parent, I encourage you to continue to support your child by having them attend school on a regular basis ready to learn. If you are a teacher, whether a first year teacher or a twenty year veteran, I encourage you to take time over the next few weeks to think about all of the great things that have happened during your time with BSSD. What projects are worth repeating or developing, and how can you play a role?

I wish everyone a restful and safe winter break. Happy Holidays!

Sincerely,

Jim Hickerson
Superintendent

By Judy Standafer

The first semester of school has been a busy semester of people helping others in the school.  At the beginning of the school year, Joanie, the principal’s wife, visited from Washington and helped the early readers in their SFA class.

My class learned all about the periodic table for science and below Katherine helps Helena make a large periodic chart for the hallway.

Our own VBC and AEC president, Ellen, helped to make the school Halloween carnival a success.

As we got ready for Thanksgiving, my junior high math class helped the intermediate class do a scale drawing of turkeys. Tia is asking Molly where to begin drawing.

5 year old Chelsea Ida helps Molly and Alicia learn the body systems by offering to have her body traced to draw and label organ parts.

Both my science classes pretended to be surgeons and nurses.  Nurse Julia helps Surgeon Cynthia with her gloves as assistant surgeon Katherine looks on. Nurse Sean helps surgeon Stacey and assistant surgeon Angela with a tough spot working on a hinge joint.

Julia shows visiting district office personnel how the smart board works with an interactive knee replacement surgery.

And finally, the junior and high school help with a practice run of the Christmas Café to open to elders and parents the following two days. Tia takes Lloyd’s order.

It feels good to help each other no matter how old you are.

One of my family members was playing out and there was a person that was riding around on a honda. They weren’t paying attention to the road, and they ran my little brother over. My dad brought him to the clinic, then he was medivacked to Nome. He was hurt, but he was okay. People should think carefully about driving safely.

I would like to keep people safe from killing themselves. If they have an accident and end up dying it will affect their families. They will start feeling sad and down. It will make a single parent have a hard time with their kids. It is better if we stop letting people drive fast and crazy.

I would like to keep people safe when they are walking. It is better if they drive slowly so they wouldn’t run young kids over. When my little brother got run over, I felt very scared and sad at the same time. It can break the little kid’s bones when they get run over. I would like to put up some signs about driving carefully.

If some one drives crazy, they can wreck their honda, skidoo, or car. It will cost a lot of money to fix their honda, skidoo or car. You will have a hard time getting stove oil and water. You will also have a hard time getting to places. People shouldn’t wreck up their stuff, so they wouldn’t have a hard time in your life.

Fortunately, my brother’s body had no broken bones and I am very happy that it wasn’t a very bad accident. If it was a very bad accident, I would be very disappointed and sad that I would have no more brother little to play with. This is why I would like people to drive safely.

Ernest, our host, seated Herman, Lloyd and me at a three-seated – table, gave us a small bag of play money and a menu. Janice, my waitress, only served me because she was shy of the boys I was seated with. Well as we walked in, they had everything fixed like a little restaurant with tables, food, drinks, and employees.

There was a miscalculation in our checks, but we straightened them out.  Fred and Archie were the cashiers that we paid as we left The Christmas Café.

Other workers not mentioned were: the food preparers- Michael, Jr, and Rebecca; waitresses- Tia and Sherrie; and bus-person- Shawna.  Choices of food were brownies, special cookies, cake, jello with whipped topping, juice, coffee, hot tea, and hot cocoa.  They plan to serve elders, parents and other community members in the next two days.

by:Helena Oxereok and Ms Judy Standafer

By Andy Haviland, Principal, White Mountain

Julie Mathews, an Anchorage artist, spent a week and a half in White Mountain working with students to create a school entrance sign. The sign depicts the four seasons of the year and shows some of the activities and wildlife the community enjoys.

Julie created all of the individual tiles, glazed and painted the border of the sign before shipping them to White Mountain. The students (k-12) all worked together to design the seasonal pictures in the middle and then paint them before going through the glazing/firing process.

The students also had an opportunity to make their own piece of pottery with Julie’s assistance. Julie trained the White Mountain school staff on the use of our new kiln, so that the school can continue to work with the students in exploring the fine arts.

The small pieces separating the seasons come from the tiles Julie created with us that were destroyed when our school burned in 2006.

Julie Mathews with our finished sign.

]]> http://blog.bssd.org/2009/12/white-mountain-entrance/feed/ 0 http://blog.bssd.org/2009/12/brevig-mission-math-night/ http://blog.bssd.org/2009/12/brevig-mission-math-night/#comments Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:27:10 +0000 Damon Hargraves http://blog.bssd.org/?p=3272 By Scott Bendlock, Special Education Teacher, Brevig Mission

Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings you can find two dozen or more students waiting outside of school at 5:30 p.m.. Why? Open Gym you might ask? No. These students are waiting to improve their math scores! For an hour and a half, three nights a week, any elementary student may come in and work math programs that will improve math skills. Way to go kids!!!

Dinner. What a happy family. All gathered around the table celebrating one of the U.S’s oldest traditions.  Thanksgiving. Mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, corn, cranberry sauce, yummy blueberry and apple pie and my good friend Bert the Turkey! Poor old Bert. He wasn’t even twenty yet in turkey years. Please don’t eat me! I’m too young to taste good! And if you do decide to eat me, remember, you are what you eat.

Even though turkeys may seem healthy because grain and plants, you never know if I’m sick or not. I could have the bird flu! Or, I could have some type of lice on my feathers when you pluck me. So maybe you should pick a different turkey to smother and serve on the table. You know, I often do have a lot of gas, especially when I’m unconscious.  I might look like a perfect, juicy, very delicious turkey, but on the inside it’s a whole different story.

Did you know that the turkey population is endangered? Yes, that’s why you shouldn’t eat us any more.  That’s one less turkey in the U.S. for you.  My people (the Turkeys) are the ones that help to reproduce. It’s like biting the hand that feeds you.  You should take pity on the turkeys. The turkeys have always been nice to the humans. The humans have been nice to us, until it was judgment day. Take your madness out on the chickens!

How will you feel if a group of turkeys came to your house and killed you and got you ready for thanksgiving dinner hundreds of years ago?  You would probably be the one writing this paper right now, not me. You wouldn’t like getting killed just to be eaten.  I might taste good, but maybe so do you.  You people call it tradition, but I call it hunger.

People say this tradition has been around for hundreds of years cine the pilgrims Well, I say start a new tradition.  Kill chickens for turkey’s sake! Roosters, swans, I don’t care! Anything but turkeys.  The tradition is getting too old. I miss Bert. Why?! Bert was the turkeyest friend that you could ever have. He was the best. But, back to my point.  No more turkey slaughter!

Please don’t eat me! or any other turkey for that matter.  Turkeys can be a good pet—they don’t have to be a good tasty main dish for a family dinner. I’m asking nicely.  Please don’t eat turkeys anymore.

“Mele Kalikimaka! Is the thing to say on a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day!” This is the song the Intermediate Elementary students of Shaktoolik sang and danced to at the Christmas program on Tuesday December 15. The class has been learning about the Hawaiian Islands for the last month. The students learned that there are seven main islands that make up Hawaii. They each researched and wrote reports on a Hawaiian fish, bird and animal. While writing their reports they were learning how to quote an author, create a citation and a reference which is one of their writing standards. After they finished their report each student partnered with a peer for editing and revisions. The student’s then presented their reports to the class. The class then used a rubric to score each students’ work. The class made a six foot long mural depicting all of their discoveries about Hawaii. For their dance the class used Puili sticks. These bamboo sticks are slit to make a rattle sound when hit against the body. Rachel Moore, 3^rd grader, said her favorite part was learning the dance. “It’s fun to dress up like a Hawaiian” she said. The students have enjoyed learning about another culture and comparing it to their own. Their next adventure will take them to Mexico in January.

Intermediate Elementary students of Shaktoolik: Anikan Paniptchuk, Jeremiah Sookiayak, Travis Savetilik, Joshua Takak, Ashley Sookiayak, Brad Sampson, Rachel Moore, Levi Sagoonick, Leslie Sookiayak, Kiya Andrew, Everson Paniptchuk, Kacie Rock, Ethan Evan, and Crystal Katchatag.

By Lynda Bekoalok, Teacher, Shaktoolik

On September 24-26 over 40 new teachers from BSSD assembled in Shaktoolik for a Cultural In-Service. The theme of the weekend was “Beyond the Horizons: When you’re on the horizon you can see in all directions. Connecting the past, present and future to attain success.”

The weekend opened with students from Shaktoolik School saying the Pledge of Allegiance in Inupiaq, followed by the Upper Elementary students singing the song “High Hopes”. Then the entire student body of Shaktoolik performed a few Eskimo Dances lead by Mary Huntington.

The speakers for the first evening were Superintendent Jim Hickerson and BSSD Board member Melvin Otton from Koyuk. They spoke of getting involved in the community and to get to know the elders in your village. The elders are a wealth of knowledge that can help someone new to the region become better acclimated to their surroundings. Several villages sent elders to be a part of the conference and to interact with their new teachers.

Throughout the course of the weekend the teachers were trained in Sheltered English Instruction. Anne Swigard, Educational Training Specialists, LLC of Phoenix, AZ, taught the teachers how to better work with children that English is not their first language. In 15 hours she took them around the world to ten countries involving them in the teaching/learning process.

On Friday evening many of the teachers were given a tour of the area by Gary Bekoalok. Gary took them to the old site of Shaktoolik and explained about the erosion. He then took them to the ancient village when the residents lived over 1,000 years ago in earth dugout dwellings. The visitors enjoyed getting out in the country and seeing the flora and fauna of the area.

Saturday morning was a favorite of the participants. They were able to choose among four different sessions that were presented by area speakers. Annie Conger and Bernadette Alvanna-Stimpfle (Nome) and Nita Towarak (Unalakleet) spoke to the teachers about the history of Norton Sound. They spoke of the changes the area has seen in education and life in general. Jerry Ivanoff (Unalakleet) represented NSEDC and informed the group about the function of NSEDC and how they can help in education with things such as scholarships. Mary Huntington (Shaktoolik) and Yvonne Ivanoff (Unalakleet) lead a session called “From Student to Teacher”. They spoke about being students in bush Alaska and then becoming educators. Paul Ongtooguk, originally from Kotzebue now an instructor at UAA, gave the group some very valuable tips on teaching native children.

On Saturday evening the community and the teachers enjoyed a native potluck in conjunction with the wedding reception of Floyd and Kristin O’Connor. After everyone enjoyed the wedding cake, entertainment was provided by the King Island Dancers, sponsored by NSEDC, BSNC and Kawerak. Many of the teachers remarked that they would like to learn more from all of the presenters. Hopefully it will be possible to hold such a conference again for teachers of the area.

It was on christmas-last year-when I experienced my first holiday gathering. In my world we only take time away from harvesting once a year to celebrate a holiday, and that is christmas. We don’t celebrate thanksgiving because that is your holiday. On your holiday you humans eat my kind and that scares me. If my relatives and I were to celebrate thanksgiving, we would be thankful that you’re there for me to eat. But no! You’re too huge to kill and besides, you look like you taste bad. I know I may be delicious, but I’m alive! I breath, eat, and sleep just like you, but of course—in a very different way.

My best friend was shipped off to one of the men that are working here. When you’re putting my best friends dead body into your oven, I wonder if he made you very tired after you had your last bite? You’re thinking “OH! That was so good!” Then 20 minutes later you’re too lazy to come to work and take care of me and my fellow turkey relatives. You find yourself comfortable sitting at the couch watching some television. You soon came to a point when you realized that you sat too long—your butt is twice as big. My friend Harry was always a lazy person. I’m glad that you got his laziness for a  moment, and actually got what you deserved afterwards.

Another family was happily spending time with their relatives. It was time to eat and the grandfather had to get the first cut of my cousin. “Give me some of that delicious, tasty turkey.” A piece of my cooked cousin dropped onto his plate, then he took a bite, “My gums hurt from that dry turkey. How did  you cook the turkey? Maybe my 7 year old granddaughter could cook it better. I’m out of here.” The grandparents loved each others very much, but the old lady just didn’t know how to cook. She just wanted to make everybody happy. Instead she cooked my cousin Rose too long she took away her great taste, and on top of that she made my cousin too dry. She also had to apologize to her husband for cooking my cousin too long.

My uncle Tom was captured, killed, thrown in a box, and sent off to a rich family in Rhode Island. The family had a great thanksgiving, and sad to say, but he was cooked so well. The one thing that the butcher didn’t know was that my uncle was diagnosed with some type of bird flu. One of the family members happened to get real sick. They had to miss out on the fun family activities for the past week. Luckily the family was rich enough to take care of the sick family member—otherwise the person could have been killed.

You humans should realize that if things keep happening, maybe you should switch your holiday dish to pizza or popcorn. They’re very tasty and tend to make your mouth water more than I do. They also don’t be too dry or have some type of virus in them. Oh, and they’re not alive—they don’t have a life—they’re bought at the local store—which are sold in boxes. So they don’t have to be killed to satisfy your tummy. Once again I still haven’t been captured yet. I know when they think that its time for a turkey to be taken, I’m always trying to be on the far side of the barn—which is very safe for me. My name is Clarence and I want many years to live.

As a chick growing up, I watched my elders get shot- I thought we were at war with the humans. But no, they kill and eat us every year around the same time. thats not war, it’s slaughter! I am old enough to get eaten now, but I don’t want to get eaten, I want to live!

I lived through the Bird Flu era, but I don’t know if i have the bird flu. I had headache symptoms these past four years. And with all this disaster going on in the world, I think I can get the best of it and live to be the oldest turkey there is.

My feathers are too beautiful to be plucked! Right now I’m in my prime condition as a turkey. I command all the young turkey to stay away from any suspicious looking objects and no to go to any turkey calls. I seen this trick too many times. I see it coming up the drive way.

This year, I’m the last of my kind. All my kids and other family members got killed on the same day. How can I repopulate the field if I don’t have a mate. I’m glad I’m the last turkey because I can get saved by the government. i can get saved but I’ll be pretty lonely.     I can hear you humans already: “Eat him! He’s too delicious to waste!” I say “No, actually I’m too stringy, my meat is too spoiled.

I did it! I’m the last turkey in the world. Also the oldest. Todays date: June 15, 2089. I am 99 years old. I lived so long that the people don’t eat turkey anymore, they would rather eat canadian geese for Thanksgiving. I’m glad they’re eating canadian geese, because there is a heck of a lot of geese. Bye bye humans! I’m going to live at Hawaii.

Patrick Henry, one of your founding fathers, proclaimed, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”  Well, I’ll forgo the liberty and the death, if you don’t mind. I just want life! Give me something to be thankful for this Thanksgiving and don’t carve me up for your feast. Let me live!

Bird flu—yeah, it’s still around. That’s how people get it, you know—from handling—and that includes EATING—birds. I’m a bird. Maybe I have bird flu. Maybe I don’t. Like Clint Eastwood says, “Do you feel lucky?” So think of your loved ones, and spare them the risk of touching and eating my possibly diseased carcass.  I’m not saying I know for sure I’m infected, but in the words of Jim Hickerson, our superintendent, “Anything is possible.” Why take the risk? Spare me.

Al Quaida, suicide bombings, cyber bullying, road rage…there’s too much violence in the world, so let’s start off the holiday season with one less homicide—mine. You’ll feel better for it, and I know I will.

Another reason you’ll feel better about sparing my life is that you won’t be loaded up with trytophan.  That’s the stuff that makes you sleepy. Me—I’m loaded—but loaded—with it. This is the ingredient that causes you to pass out on the floor or in the chair after eating me. You neglect everyone else, all the people who came over to visit, heck—flew over to visit.  Just lying there on the floor like a big fat lump of useless dough, snoring so loud the women can’t hear themselves talk and the kids strain to hear the sound effects on their new xbox game. All because of tryptophan coursing through your digestive system causing you to become comatose. That’s why those toddlers shoved those salmon berries up your nostrils last time—because they could! So be alert this Thanksgiving—don’t eat me.

Sure, I can hear the traditionalists whining, “But we’ve always had turkey for Thanksgiving, ever since the first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims and the Native Americans…” Well, let me tell you something about tradition, pal: just because you’ve always done something doesn’t mean it’s not stupid. Look at those Salem witchcraft trials—it was practically a tradition with them to accuse and hang innocent people for being witches, but that didn’t make it right. Why be a homicidal maniac on this joyous day of thankfulness? For goodness’ sake, your relative are here—behave! Eat some soy bean cake molded into the shape of a turkey, or some of that Vegan stuff—you’ll thank me for it, and I’ll thank you for it.

This holiday is all about ideals, right? People coming together to show their gratitude for cooperation and community spirit in hard times. Being left alive would make this the ideal holiday for me. So,  please, let me live.

I love the days when the snow melts and everything comes to life. When all of the cold white stuff is completely gone, food is plentiful and life is filled with meaning. But then comes the cold, long, dark days. Those are the days that I am most afraid of. It’s not the cold, long, or dark part that makes me scared: it’s the days when mankind—your kind—comes to retrieve our kind, turkey’s, and eat us. Over the past few autumns, I’ve seen at least six of my cousins get caught and taken away. They never came back. Of course, it’s only necessary of me to think that they were eaten. So, when the dark days come, I am aware and cautious to protect myself from getting caught by your kind. I most certainly do not want to die in such a horrible manner.

There is many things your species can do to help us turkeys live in the wilderness—or sadly, captivity—without paranoia. One way is to become a vegetarian. In doing so, every other animal that you plan to kill and eat can go on living their lives—that‘s assuming you do kill other animals to eat then. Well, why wouldn’t you? You kill turkeys, so why not kill cows, pigs, and even marine mammals? I am aware that meat has proteins. You can substitute those proteins. I mean, we, turkeys, are herbivores and we get along pretty well.

My aunties brother-in-laws cousin twice removed once told us that you humans celebrate “Thanksgiving” and “Christmas” and “holidays”.  He also said that it’s just a big gathering of people who eat one big meal. I don’t understand your ways. You just gather around, eat one meal—which consists of my cousin as the main course and who know what else—then just…do it over and over again without any real reason. It’s just pointless. We do it almost every other day. It’s like a cliché. When you guys are done, you store the leftovers away and eat them another day. Why gather so much food when you know you are not going to finish it in one day? Without your frivolous holidays, my six cousins would’ve been here with me and we would’ve been having a great time. They weren’t even elderly yet.

There are other substitutes for us, turkeys. I mean, I understand that we would mix together great with mashed potatoes and gravy with a little bit of corn on the side, but we have lives to live. Geese, duck, even my close relative—the hen—could make the part. The closer the relative, the closer they taste like us. I’m sure they taste just about as good and they’re probably more abundant since they lay eggs and all that. Instead of using them for one thing—laying eggs—they could be useful for “Thanksgiving, Christmas, or holidays”.

We may be delicious and a tradition but we have lives that we want to live. I cannot stress that enough. Being killed and eaten is not the way we want to end our lives. Would you want to end your life that way? It’s a pretty graphic, disturbing image if I say so myself. I mean I picture it every day of my life. There are better, healthier options like becoming a vegetarian so you won’t kill any living animal, or—for my sake as well as other turkey’s—as another option, switch over to hen.  Leave it up to nature to balance out the ecosystem, since it’s only in their—specifically carnivores—instinct to hunt and kill to survive. What I an trying to say on behalf of my fellow species, don’t kill me!

While you are walking down the streets of our village, you see “420” written on broken down buildings or letters missing from public signs. Some of wreckage is left alone because it’s not worth repairing, while other buildings are cared for. For instance, the  school maintains its appearance because it has great maintenance staff who repair the damages. The buildings that are left alone aren’t so fortunate because they don’t have anyone to maintain them. These are just some of the effects of vandalism that are noticeable through the naked eye.

However, there are some effects that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Emotional effects caused by the vandal(s) won’t be as detectable as the physical effects. But that doesn’t mean that the emotional effects aren’t there. They gradually build up inside and eventually come out verbally (whispers, rumors) or orally (written). Then these effects are exposed to everyone around the Norton Sound, opening an opportunity for them to judge. Destruction in a village or town creates a poor impression to visitors. The visitors tend to look at the village with discrimination and disrespect. As a result, vandalism undeniably leaves an impression, whether it’s good—sympathy—or bad.

Vandalism also creates a bad impression for the younger generation, causing them to think it’s necessary to follow in the steps of their role models. If Billy sees Bobby vandalizing, then Billy may be compelled to do so, too. Then it is set off like a chain reaction. Billy may walk around town looking for something to break like windows, or a house to terrorize because he was encouraged by what he saw. Something like that may not have happened if the ruinous Billy were to set a good example and think twice about the consequences.

When any type of sport is coming up, the students get all jumpy and excited because they think that they are going to be competing in the activity. Then the sad news comes from the coach saying the school didn’t have enough funds to pay for the trip. Another scenario would be when the teachers aren’t able to get better teaching supplies because the money was used to repair damages that the vandals committed. Students could have came home with medals or trophies and a feeling of accomplishment. The teachers also could have had experimental projects to make learning more fun and interactive for the students. Instead all the money goes to repairing wreckages. You see, the damage that was caused not only affected the appearance, but it also affected the students’ education.

Scientists have been asking the same question for decades. “What causes some neighborhoods to thrive, while others decay?” That question lead to the Broken-Windows theory. It works just like a cliché’. The more a line is said, the less of a meaning or effect it has. Just like the Broken-Windows theory. The more that people see little problems like litter, graffiti, or shattered glass, the less of an effect they have on the people. Eventually, the people drift away and ignore those problems. As a result, they won’t be fixed. And even when they get fixed, it doesn’t mean that ‘those measures alone would keep people from moving or bring people back.’ (Morin) To keep our village from ‘decaying’ or fading away, vandalism preferably should do the same.

As more vandalism occurs, children are encouraged by it and think they’re able to follow in the steps of criminal behavior. People who leave a bad impression on our younger generations makes them think that it is OK to litter and use graffiti around the village. The more people vandalize, the less of an impression that makes on the village, according to the Broken-Windows theory. As vandalism increases, the student’s privileges decrease as well. There are vital consequences for vandalism. These are just some of the effects of vandalism that aren’t noticeable through the naked eye.

Morin, Richard. “ A Crack in the Broken-Windows Theory.” The Washington Post. January 30, 2005.
The Washington Post Company. 1996-2009.   <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles    /A46381-2005Jan29.htm>.

Getting the biggest batch
of take downs and near falls
in one match.
My opponent stalls.
Gasping for air in a defeated manner
because he’s out of shape.
The ref raising my hand like a victory banner.
My opponent hears my crowd jeering
when I pin him, they start cheering.
They hear the wrong moves of the crowd.
They think it’s alright to sit down
and wait for their match
Whether you think you can fight
or think you can’t –you’re right.

click for more pictures

Bering Strait School District had a great Ed Conference this year.  Stebbins (WBB) and St. Michael (SMK) hosted the entire faculty of BSSD for a week of learning and sharing.  Keynote speakers, Lauren Giovingo and Holly Adkins, shared about “Response to Intervention“ and how schools work as teams to meet the needs of all our students.

Here are the scores from the first weekend of volleyball games.  St. Michael was the BSSD host, and Nome held their annual Mixed Six Volleyball Tournament.

Volleyball Scores 10_17

By Brandon Mike, Student, Stebbins

Wrestling practice started Monday and there’s nothing more pathetic than a boy who is in the prime of his life at age 15 and can’t run two laps around the gym. If you want to stay healthy and live longer, the key is to exercise because it has so many positive effects such as being healthy, having good stamina, be in great shape, and also being flexible.

So many folks want to be physically fit and if you want to be vigorous just eat right. Get the nutrition needed from eating fruits, vegetables, and meat for the iron that the body needs. Getting enough sleep each day helps people be and maintain good health. Get at least 8-9 hours of sleep each day. Drinking water and staying hydrated is one way of being fresh and lively, and it also helps prevent athletes from getting muscle cramps. Want to be robust? Make healthy choices and stay away from bad habits.

Some of the health benefits of being active and energetic is having good stamina. Having good stamina allows champions and players to run longer without getting tired, like unhealthy people who smoke and do bad habits. Good stamina helps athletic competitors practice much longer and have quicker reflexes. Having quicker reflexes helps people do better in the sports they’re interested in.

Being fit and exercising leads contestants or players to be in great shape. Being strong helps athletes perform much better in the activities they’re in– like wrestling. The practices or trainings will be stronger and being strong helps people be faster.

Flexibility is one of the keys to being fit. Being flexible allows those husky weightlifters to do more reps in a work out. They also wont be sore after their workouts. Flexibility allows people to have a better range of motion. Having a better range of motion lets you move and get around easier.

Whether you’re a 15-year-old boy in wrestling practice or a 50 year old playing with your grandkids, its important to stay fit, and exercising is the most effective way to achieve and maintain good health.

Everywhere you look, you see one of two books–one of the Twilight books, or the Harry Potter books. Or, you see people going to see the latest Harry Potter movies or marking on the calendar when New Moon comes out. But I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Stephanie Meyer’s novel Twilight is superior to J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter. Twilight is more romantic, it is set in the 21st century, and it is also more realistic.

In Twilight, the romance begins almost immediately. Isabella Swan moves to Forks, Washington. She’s new to the school so she doesn’t know anybody. She meets a lot of new friends the first week of schooling. But Bella also catches Edwards eye. After a couple weeks of schooling in Forks, she and Edward starts to hang out. She then finds out he’s a vampire. Bella doesn’t freak out or anything but notices she’s falling for him. They fall in love and are inseparable.

Twilight is set in the 21st century. Bella’s father is the chief policeman. Both Edward and Bella attend a public high school. Whereas Harry Potter goes to a private school that no one knows exists. Edward has a black Volvo while Harry Potter rides a broom. Harry Potter and his friends wear old-fashioned clothes and use trains as their transportation. Bella does everyday activities such as, getting a good education, cooks for her and her father, hangs out with friends and talks on her cell phone.

Being a more realistic novel is the main reason Twilight is a great book. The seven vampires act as if they’re human. Unlike in Harry Potter, the characters don’t use potions and wands, practice wizardry, or cast spells. Its true. Teens are more into Twilight rather than into Harry Potter because Harry Potter is ridiculously fake- talking letters, pictures and newspapers, three headed dogs, plants that are alive, riding on brooms, moving stairs, and balls that have wings. Twilights setting is in a more civilized place where people use 21st century technology, such as computers, telephones, and cars.

Some readers think Harry Potter is a better book because of J.K Rowling is a better writer. Her books have mysteries that make the readers want more, and more action. One of the publishers quoted Harry Potter as “A wonderful sequel, as suspenseful, charming, and ultimately satisfying as its predecessor,” according to The Los Angeles Times.

However, the plot of Harry Potter is childish, boring, and immature when compared to the high drama of vampires. Twilight has a better plot and is more interesting. USA Today stated, “Move over, Harry Potter.”

Most teens find Twilight to be a better book than Harry Potter. Twilight has more drama, its more romantic and realistic, and interesting. Twilight can outbook Harry Potter in more than just popularity.

By Liz Johnson, NACTEC

The Northwestern Alaska Career and Technical Center (NACTEC) staff was elated to attend a donation ceremony with NACTEC’s governing board on Friday, September 18 to accept a monetary donation from Siu Alaska Corporation.  In attendance were Bering Strait School District (BSSD) board member Melvin “Dumma” Otton, Nome Public Schools (NPS) board members Betsy Brennan and Lynette Schmidt, Northwest Campus director Lee Haugen and BSSD Superintendent Jim Hickerson.

After addressing the crowd and expressing appreciation to NACTEC for providing vocational education in the Bering Strait region, Siu Alaska Corporation Chairman Don Stiles presented a check in the amount of $200,000 to NACTEC director Doug Walrath.  After acceptance speeches from both BSSD Superintendent Hickerson and the NACTEC director, NACTEC governing board member representing BSSD, Melvin “Dumma” Otton also expressed appreciation recalling when NACTEC was only a vision during discussions at BSSD school board meetings.

Also present were Siu board members Dan Harrelson of White Mountain, Harvey Sookiayak of Shaktoolik, and Siu President John Eckels.  Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation (NSEDC) CEO Janis Ivanoff was also in the audience to support its wholly owned subsidiary Siu Alaska Corporation.

NACTEC has been successfully operating since 2003 and funded through various grant sources, including most recently H.B. 61. Alaska state lawmakers approved H.B. 61 this year expanding state tax credits for approved secondary vocational education. Siu Alaska Corporation has contributed $200,000 to the NACTEC program. This is a tax credit benefit for businesses or others that contribute to vocational education through a local school, school district or state-funded vocational program.

The NACTEC program is a joint venture regional vocational training center located in Nome. The goal is to prepare students for the world of work after high school.  The continued development and success of NACTEC has been accomplished through cooperation and partnerships with the Bering Strait School District, Nome Public Schools, Northwest Campus/University of Alaska Fairbanks, Kawerak, Inc., Bering Straits Native Corporation, Norton Sound Health Corporation, the sixteen regional communities of Brevig Mission, Elim, Gambell, Golovin, Koyuk, Little Diomede, Nome, Savoonga, Shaktoolik, Shishmaref, St. Michael, Stebbins, Teller, Unalakleet, Wales and White Mountain, the Nome Common Council and the Alaska Department of Labor.

Thank you to Siu Alaska Corporation and NSEDC for showing support to NACTEC!

For more information about the NACTEC program, visit its website at nacteconline.org.

Neal Nichols, Jr; The Geography Guy, flew into St. Michael, Alaska on September 10th , 2009, engaging students and teachers alike at Anthony A. Andrews School with his 90 minute, World Map Show. St. Michael students were amazed and interacting with Nichols while he outlined the world continents from memory, including capitals, mountain ranges and bodies of water. Students were awed with his artistic drawing as well as when he later quizzed them in his unique, game show format.

Neal Nichols has been traveling to the majority of schools in the Bering Strait School District these past few weeks. His home base is at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, yet he travels all over the world, utilizing his artistic abilities and life experiences to make a difference in the lives of those he meets along his way. His only hardship is having to always say goodbye to the wonderful kids and friends he meets during his travels; however, the success he realizes by doing what he is passionate about (travel, art, geography, teaching, etc.) keeps him enthusiastically motivated .

Nichols inspired and encouraged students in St. Michael to take advantage of their learning experiences in school while relaying to them the importance of protecting their futures by making good choices now. They have a broader view of the world, both literally and figuratively speaking, thanks to “The Geography Guy.” More information about Nichols and the services he provides can be found on his website: www.geographygameshow.com.

Drawing is a gift, and one that I am flattered to have. I know that I am not the best, but I strive to learn more from looking at other artists and asking for tips. I first was inspired by an Anime TV show, InuYasha, to work on drawing the anime style. Then I made a Deviant Art account and was inspired by ShadowUmber’s artwork. She is working on a graphic novel filled with lovable charactors and follows a great storyline. I love her style of shading and depth.

My DevinatArt account —-   http://redskyterror.deviantart.com/

ShadowUmber’s account—–  http://shadowumbre.deviantart.com/

Please check out ShadowUmber’s account. She is hoping to get her story published and the popularity she has, the more chance she has of sharing her book wit the world!

I will be posting more art to my DA account and some on here.

Kindergarten students watch as Brittany Weyiouanna measures the distance her airplane flew.

By measuring the distance their planes flew in meters, they also got a dose of measurement, which was a skill we needed to work on as a group for standardized testing.
After collecting data, students went back to the classroom and found averages for each plane, computed the range, etc. Students then analyzed the data and made conclusions.

Nellie Okpowruk crunches data to find the mean and range for each plane she flew.

For this part of the experiment students worked directly with their teacher to model the process.  For the next, students worked on a similar activity where they chose their favorite plane and chose modifications that would allow their plane to fly farther. This time students worked with minimal help from their teacher to show proficiency on the many standards they were working on.
Students had lots of fun and it was great to see them engaged while completing many standards.

Freshman cooking breakfast

We plan this retreat at the beginning of the week, Monday-Wednesday,  leave on Thursday, and return on Friday. We travel up North River to Bible Camp. Each of the advisory groups has a committee to plan this whole retreat. The freshman decided what we ate and who is going to prepare the food, the sophomores had the activities, the juniors planned the scheduling for what we were going to do, and the seniors decided how we were going to get to camp.

High School playing electric trashcan

Once we got to camp, we participated in leadership activities such as “chocolate river,” where the high schoolers had to work their way across the river from bank to bank in hula-hoops. Without the “marshmallows,” hula hoops floating down river, we had to wait for each student to get onto a marshmallow in order for us to get to the other side. With five hula hoops we had to fit 40 people in each one, all the hoops were crowded and people went on shoulders and backs. The human knot was another leadership game we played. We had to untangle each team with talking and without talking. We also had a scavenger hunt, this is where each team had to go and find items the staff came up with and take pictures of them.

Chocolate River

After the evening games such as bucketball and blob tag we had a bonfire and then went to the cabins and went to bed. The following morning we listened to guest speakers who talked about what you can do with your life. The speakers were Karl Erickson and Heidi Ivanoff.

My favorite part of the retreat was a game called “capture the flag.” At the beginning of the game we started out with some rules and in the middle of the game we made rules up that weren’t mentioned. People were getting frustrated because we forgot about the rules, and in the end people were happy that the game was over.

High School students playing blob tag

By Willis Ferenbaugh, teacher, Diomede

People in rural Alaska know what comes with the territory. Teachers out here quickly learn about the particular circumstances they face, and they learn that even these circumstances may change from day to day. Flexibility is essential in this part of the world.

Getting out to Little Diomede Island has always been a significant task, from boats to ice runways to the weekly helicopter service that has delivered mail for almost 30 years. But passenger service was not available in August, and so the staff of the Diomede School jumped on the crab boat INALIQ in Nome so that the school year could start on time. This trip was unusual and unexpected for both the teachers and the crew of the boat, and we all cozied up for an overnight trip with some weather coming into the Bering Strait area.

Five teachers hunkered down with the captain and two crew members in the comfortable but crowded quarters. Departing just after noon, we watched Nome drift away slowly… extremely slowly, having become accustomed to the whizzing of the helicopter. The adventure of the trip was tempered by waves on the open ocean and the rocking in our heads and stomachs. We took shifts for napping in the four bunks, and it’s safe to say that it wasn’t the most sound sleep for anyone. It was a long night at sea. But when dawn brightened the night’s thick fog, we could see the south side of our little island destination.

Because Diomede doesn’t have a large boat dock, this was not the end of our journey. The seas weren’t calm enough to attempt a landing, so we sat anchored near the north side of the island until evening. The ocean wasn’t settling down, so some of the local men of the village braved the waves in a small skiff to transfer passengers and many boxes to the island. Men, women, and children helped to transfer all of the cargo up the slippery rocks on the shore. And finally, about 30 hours after sailing out of Nome, everything had been transferred to the Diomede School. We were all tired, and there was a lot of sleeping to be done before our preparations could begin to start the school year in less than four days. But we had arrived.

We are looking forward to a great year at the Diomede School. Many thanks to Captain Greg Alexander and crew members Louis and Thomas for keeping the cramped quarters comfy — as much as possible. (Greg should be especially complimented for his fine cooking, though some of us weren’t able to fully enjoy a big meal.) And thanks to NSEDC for helping to arrange the trip with BSSD.

What do Chinese Oil companies and Stebbins Students have in common? Analysts say Chinese oil companies have realized it is time to help each other in order to continue to grab distressed overseas assets in major oil firms. Stebbins secondary students practiced these same cooperative learning and conflict resolution strategies during the first days of school.

Monday was devoted to reacquainting everyone with rules and procedures, examining test data and progress reports, and filling out short term objectives on Notices of Graduation. Tuesday was another story.      

In an effort to develop business skills, students tackled various problem solving tasks throughout the day. Building the tallest tower out of a set of objects, completing a scavenger hunt race, and constructing an airplane with a teammate using non-dominant hands were some of the activities that promoted problem solving, role specialization, critical thinking, conflict resolution and communication.

Other activities, such as the “Name Game” (in which participants must guess through a process of yes or no questions the name of the person on the paper that is taped on their back) and “The Green Glass Door” encouraged students to look for patterns, form group consensus, and strategize.

A favorite of all was the frozen T-Shirt: teams of students raced to thaw out a frozen t-shirt and be the first group to don the damp clothing. Thumping, tugging, pulling, body heat and sunshine were all strategies students documented.

All activities were developed to encourage camaraderie and promote cooperative learning and discussion in all the content area classes. Some debriefing sessions were held to analyze what was effective strategy, and what hampered teamwork.

Chinese companies that learn the art of working together may win the oil game, but Stebbins students are mastering that art as well.

Two summers ago we were able to add future Battle Books to our summer book mailing. This summer the Battle Books are looking especially tempting, so keep an eye out. Here are a few of my favorites.

Kindergarten – Second Grade

Dave Pilkey’s A Friend for Dragon and Ted Arnold’s Hi Fly Guy are new books to the list this year. They will join some old favorites such as Ezra Jack Keats Caps for Sale and Judi Barrett’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatball’s. One of my favorites, Alexander and a No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst is also on this year’s list.

Third-Fourth Grade
Perrenial favorites Patrick Stene Catlings’s Chocolate Touch and John Erickson’s Hank the Cowdog will join new books such as Cynthia Rylant’s  Gooseberry Park and Nancy Yi Fan’s Swordbird.

Fifth-Sixth Grade
Two of my favorites in this section are “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” by Jeff Kinny and Finding Alaska by Shannon Cartwright. In “Finding Alaska”, we get the biography of Shannon Cartwright. We also get to see some of her artwork that was never published. In “Diary of Wimpy Kid”, Greg records his sixth grade experiences in a middle school where he and his best friend, Rowley, undersized weaklings amid boys who need to shave twice daily, hope just to survive, but when Rowley grows more popular, Greg must take drastic measures to save their friendship.

Seventh-Eighth Grade

I think this may be the luckiest group of all. The twelve books are a wonderful mix of oldies and new books.Lois Lowry’s  “The Giver” and Farley Mowat’s “Never Cry Wolf” join new books by favorite author’s such as Gary Paulson’s “The Boy Who Owned the School” and new author Shannon Greeley’s  “Model Spy”. All of these books as well as the others on the list include a lot of action and intrigue.

High School
It is hard to decide which my favorite four books are from this list. “Peak” by Roland Smith takes us hiking up the Mt. Everest. “The Code Talkers” by Joseph Bruach tells the true story of the Navajo Indians who used their native language to build a code to use during World War II. John Green’s “An Abundance of Katherines” tells the story of a young man who has only dated girls name Katherine. Upon graduation of High School, Josh and a friend head out to find an adventure. David Lubar tells a great story of a high school freshman in “Freshmen Never Lie”. We learn the lessons that our character thinks his little brother will need to know when he gets to high school.

The new books should come to you about the first of July. If you receive a Battle Book, it will have a colorful star sticker on it. Have a great summer.

Elim

Matt Takak:  UA Scholars Award and NSEDC Scholarship
Gambell

Trevor Tungiyan:  UA Scholars Award

Barton Koonooka:  NSEDC Scholarship

Jewel Koonooka:  UA Scholars Award and NSEDC Scholarship

Lorianne Koonooka:  NSEDC Scholarship

Shishmaref

Theresa  Olanna:   UA Scholars Award, NSEDC Scholarship, and SDMA Scholarship

White Mountain

Michelle Simon:  UA Scholars Award
Wales

Vanessa Tingook: UA Scholars Award
Savoonga

Flashman Noongwook:  UA Scholars Award
Golovin

Brenda Henry:  UA Scholars Award

Stebbins

Yvonne Pete:    UA Scholars Award
Teller

Iris Topkok:  UA Scholars Award
Unalakleet

Sasha Johnson:   UA Scholars Award, Pell Grant,  ASAA Scholarship, SEOG Scholarship, SPANS Scholarship, John Russin  Memorial Scholarship

Austen Erickson:  ASAA Scholarship, Wells Fargo Scholarship

Hazel Freytag:  ASAA Scholarship, SPANS Scholarship

Jenny Dill:  SPANS Scholarship

Langford Adams:  SPANS Scholarship

John Ivanoff:  SPANS Scholarship

Teeda Katongan:  SPANS Scholarship

When I went up to the corral with Brendan we saw a reindeer that went across the road and almost ran over Brendan. When we got up there people were already wrestling the reindeer and herding the reindeer into first and second pen. The first pen is where they hold the reindeer till the reindeer in the second pen run out and they could let the reindeer into the first pen. Then, when they’re done they would have to herd the reindeer into the first and second pen again just to go on a half an hour break.

Earlier that evening we  got back to the corral and had to herd the reindeer back into the first and second pen and start all over again. When Brian was wrestling a female maverick he had said that the reindeer would not rag—that’s when a reindeer tries to get away and bashes its head against the herders– when he wrestled the reindeer he was stuck on bottom of the reindeer and he asked for help. When the help came, he had let go and the reindeer had gone away. Later that day we didn’t wrestle any reindeer; we just put them in the clamp and took the antlers off and let them go.

When we got all done with reindeer in the first and second pen, we went to take a break for at least an hour and a half at the I.R.A. When we went back to the corral,  we herd the reindeer again and again. When we were done, we were getting tired so we just sat around till Teddy came because he was in charge of the corral. Once he came, he said, “You guys can start wrestling the reindeer but watch out for the bull. We’re going to castrate the reindeer because it is my bull.”

Later that morning around five o’clock someone came to us really worried, saying that they had seen a brown bear not too  far from the road on  the other side. Lenny hurried home and got his .44 magnum and went back up to the corral and  shot a couple of shots with his gun and the bear ran away and everybody was happy that the bear was gone.

When we were all done we said to each other how good it was that all of us did a good job. All of us at the corral went home and had a nice long sleep since we were at the corral for four days and never slept one day.

I remember when I was just a little kid, I had my very first teeth that were loose. I told my mom that my teeth were “loose and going to come off.”

She said, “Just leave it alone, it will come off by itself.”

I asked her, “ Will we grow our teeth back?”

She said, “Yeah! But it will take awhile to grow back.” Once it came out, I waited for awhile for it just to grow back.  I was thinking, maybe it wouldn’t grow at all, so I keep on asking my mom when will my teeth will grow?

She said “Yeah! it will grow, you will have to wait until a few months, then it will grow back.” So I waited for a couple of months, then finally when I looked in the mirror and smiled that’s when I noticed that my teeth grew back! I got really happy and showed my smile  to my mom and she said, “See! It grew back.”

So yeah! That’s when I finally believed that our teeth will grow back, and every time when I have a loose tooth I will tell my mom to pull it out so I can grow back my teeth again!

It was a fast-paced, fun-filled week during the fourth annual Inupiaq Days Celebration during the Shishmaref Spring Carnival. In addition to the packed-house basketball games and daily dog mushing races, Shishmaref School sponsored three days of cultural activities. Students divided into multi-age groups to participate in hands-on project-based learning. Community members, teachers, and student volunteered their time and skills to teach and facilitate activities.

Highlights on the elementary side included soap carving, beading, ornament sewing, native youth Olympic games, Eskimo dancing, and Tlingit hats. CAMP, the local VPSO, Cold Water Safety, and the Shishmaref Environment Program were also on hand to make presentations.

Junior High and high school students contributed to the Inupiaq dictionary, prepared food, carved ice fishing hooks, sang translated songs in Inupiaq, made kuspuks, and assisted elementary students in compiling an Inupiaq Days memory book. The students also listened to presentation by Northwest Campus, Kawerak’s Anti-Tobacco representative, and community elders.

A culminating event was the elder’s feast prepared by the students and community members. Elders were invited to the school to enjoy a variety of stew, meat, and desserts. Community members and visitors have already expressed anticipation of next year’s events.

April was an action packed month for skiers in the Bering Strait School District.  The first weekend started with two annual ski racing events.  Shaktoolik hosted the southern elementary schools district ski race, and Nenana hosted the 22nd annual Western Interior Ski/Biathlon Championships (WISA) at Birch Hill Ski Center in Fairbanks.

Shaktoolik Elementary Ski Race

Forty-five skiers representing five schools (Golovin, Koyuk, Unalakleet, St. Michael and race host Shaktoolik) participated in the ski races (April 3rd and 4th) held in Shaktoolik.  The following photos are students enjoying the competition.

Western Interior Ski/Biathlon Championships WISA

Nenana hosted WISA and races were held at Birch Hill in Fairbanks.  Birch Hill ski trails have been skied on by some of the fastest skiers in the world.  On April 2nd through April 4th, BSSD skiers had a wonderful experience racing on the world-class ski trails.  The WISA 2009 fifteen-member team was made up of skiers from Golovin, Koyuk, Saint Michael, Unalakleet, and White Mountain.

Team photo:
Top row: Renatta Olson GLV, Precious Lincoln WMO, Season Haugen UNK, Rayna Buck-Nassuk WMO, Linda Kimoktoak KKA, Aly Daniels UNK, Katie Daniels UNK, Middle row: Chris Lockwood UNK, Thomas Amaktoolik GLV, Shyler Johnson UNK, Asa Bergamschi WMO, Kevin Ione GLV, Ben Currier UNK, Front: Garrett Kimoktoak KKA, not pictured Alex Otten SMK

Skimeister Season Haugen leads the JR. High girls in the 5K skate race.

WISA Team Champions Unalakleet’s JR High Girls: Aly Daniels, Season Haugen, Katie Daniels

WISA Team Champions Unalakleet’s JR High Boys: Ben Currier, Chris Lockwood, Shyler Johnson

Individual Skiers:

Precious Lincoln

Rayna Buck-Nassuk

Renatta Olson and Aly Daniels

Katie Daniels

Linda Kimoktoak

Kevin Ione

Thomas Amaktoolik

Alex Otten

Asa Bergamschi

Chris Lockwood

Ben Currier

Shyler Johnson

Garrett Kimoktoak

Sierra Corsetti

Unalakleet’s End of Ski Season Picnic

Hot dogs, tree climbing, hill climbing, skiing, and just hanging out under the purest blue sky entertained community members of Unalakleet by SBS (Shyler’s Broken Ski) Loop.  One could not ask for a more fantastic day with a gathering of energetic Wolfpack skiers and family members.  Thanks for a great season and supportive community that lends a welcome hand!

Arctic Invanoff, and Shawn Mixsooke are skating out to the picnic.

Elementary skiers, Summer, Cyruss and Karlee dash out to the fire and picnic.

William Dick and Deb Currier enjoying the sunshine and skiing.

Jonisha Wilson, Season Haugen and Talon Erickson enjoy a good laugh on a perfect day.

Cyruss Sarren and Shawn Mixsooke soaking up the wonderful day.

Roasting dogs in the pit!

Relish, Ketchup, and Mustard!

36 high school students across Bering Strait School District attended 13 different University of Alaska courses during the ‘08-’09 school year.  University courses have always been open to high school students who meet the prerequisites and can find time in their schedules.  Some students even take classes in the evening to take advantage of BSSD’s commitment to fund students pursuing college credits and experience. Now BSSD and UAF Northwest Campus have collaborated to make it more accessible for BSSD students.  UAF Northwest Campus, which is physically located in Nome, created a BSSD specific list of courses to be taught via distance and offered during the school day.  The idea is to get students college experience, skills, and even some college credits before they strike off on their own post-secondary journeys.

Spring Semester saw a jump in student enrollment for UAF Northwest Campus courses as students gear up for full time college courses this fall.  Spring courses mostly focused on college readiness through classes like University Communications which is designed to prepare students for college level writing.  Another course, College Success Skills, explicitly teaches college study skills along with reflective strategies for coping with college and adult life.  A math class was also offered which roughly equates to BSSD Math Level 11 or Algebra II.  Students in any course offered by the university also receive BSSD credit by passing standards and levels for the course work they complete.

Oceans students record observations in the lab

The Oceans class is a prime example of how the system works.  It is a four credit class that satisfies a core course requirement for science in the University of Alaska system and can also go towards a Bachelor’s degree from UAF in Fisheries.  The course includes a lab component that took place in Nome over two weeks as a NACTEC session.  Nine BSSD students participated in the course and are also receiving BSSD credit for standards and levels they pass with the work they are doing.

A new list of courses for the 2009-2010 school year is already in the works.  College Reading and Math as well as College Success Skills are lined up for fall.  College Writing, The Oceans, Math, and another round of College Success Skills are slated for next spring.  See your school’s principal or contact Nathan Pitt at NACTEC for details.

Oceans Lab participants from left to right: Instructor Heidi Herter, Yvonne Pete, Merlin Johnson, Theresa Olanna, Austen Erickson, Marc Barr, Frieda Grierson, Nelson Crockett and Marcus Barr

Teachers pucker up to Rocky, the Slobber Monster, for a student council fundraiser. Here, teacher Lacey Byrd nervously applies lipstick before smooching Rocky.

In the Penny War that was going on for the past month, Lacey and Vernetta only had a difference of seven cents! It was a very close Penny War. As Lacey applied lipstick, she tried to fool the whole school into thinking she won because she didn’t want to kiss this slobbery dog.

Well we have to admit, she had us fooled for a while but she admitted defeat and kissed Rocky. Her lipstick application almost fooled Ms. Banning into kissing Rocky. The Poor SFA facilitator, embarrassed kissed Rocky as well.

The Penny war raised $366.05. Three-quarters of money is going to be saved for the Student Council, who had this genius idea. They are going to use the money earned for a big Student Council meeting in Juneau Alaska called “Close Up”. During the Penny War these are the finishing positions for t he entire K-12 Grades…

13th place is 6th grade w/ -2255 points
12th place is 3rd grade w/ -1,649 points
11th place is 8th grade w/ -1,613 points
10th place is 9th grade w/ -1,049 points
9th place is 5th grade w/ -913 points
8th place is kindergarten w/ -667 points
7th place is 4th grade w/ -584 points
6th place is 12th grade w/ -620 points
5th place is 1st place w/ -358 points
4th place is 10th grade w/ -106 points
3rd place is 11th grade w/ -53 points
2nd place is 7th grade w 825 points
1st place is 2nd grade w/ 832 points

Positive points were earned by having pennies in the class jar. negative points were earned by having silver coins or bills in the class jar.

Well that is all for the Strait Talk in St. Michael. Good evening and good night.

Deal out five, seven, or nine cards to each player (depending on how many place values you are reviewing).  Lay your cards out in front of you in any order you choose.  Next, place the decimal and say your number using the words “point” and “and.” For example, if a player has 9876.9 they would say nine thousand eight hundred seventy-six point nine and nine thousand eight hundred seventy-six and nine tenths.  Last, the person who didn’t deal the cards rolls the die and if it shows 2, 4, or 6 the player with the highest decimal wins.  If a 1, 3, or 5, is rolled the player with the lowest decimal wins.

Janelle Cothern and Luther Komonaseak reviewing deicmals.

“Le-ee-ek! Leek!Leek!” All the students are making weird sounds in the hallways. They are all looking out the windows, looking out for something. All of them are talking about the best season to go hunting. Yes, its spring. Every year during spring, my cousins or my friends and I go out at Qasignguaq to hunt snow geese which is 12 miles south from our village. Before we head out to Qasignguaq we have to get some things ready. We get some grub (something to snack on while we are out there). Our hunting gear has to be ready like warm, camouflage jackets and pants, geese decoys, a tent with sleeping bags if we are going to spend the night out there, callers, and waterproof boots. We would also need shells for our shotguns and enough gas to bring us over and back.

I first went hunting at Qasignguaq with my brothers when I was 9 years old. It was there at Qasignguaq that he showed me some of the hotspots where most of the geese land. I wasn’t the only one that was going out at Qasignguaq for the first time—our dog was coming along with us. My brothers brought our dog along to try and teach it to be some kind of a geese retriever. Thinking that the snow geese were something to play with, our dog went to try and catch them, running after them. All of them flew away making the sky look like fluttering blankets. Our dog only scared them away.

“Gat out here ya lil’ mutt!” said my uncle. I only laughed as it came to me, looking sad while wagging its tail.

“Dumb dog. Supposed to try to get them after we shoot them,” my brother said. Even though  our dog scared some of them away, we still caught some snow geese.

Now that I am older, I can go out hunting at Qasignguaq by myself. It is a bit of a drag to be out there at Qasignguaq by yourself because you have nobody to play pranks with and have good time to  hang out with. So I always ask one my cousins or friends if they want to tag along with me. They usually say yes because its fun to go to Qasignguaq, especially by snow-machines. Its fun because whether you are going by walk or snow-machine, you can play some pranks on your friends or cousins which is what I always do to them and sometimes they get me back. With snow-machines, you can cross through the ponds and lakes that are on the way getting to our destination.

When we reach there, we cover our snow-machines up with grass because our snow-machines don’t match the grass for it be camouflage. We set up our geese decoys so the real snow geese think that they can land wherever we put our geese decoys by. Then we go hide in the tall grass with our callers and shotguns ready to blast what we have been waiting to blast for the whole winter time.

Anna Kirk

Hey, people,  take a look around. Tired of being overweight and not in shape? Well, let’s think. Why? Because there is no P.E. class for the high school students, that is why we have an epidemic of obesity. So,  we need P.E. so students can be healthy and stay with the life skills level they need to be in for their grade.

First of all,  a P.E. class would fit in the schedule and the curriculum.  It would  help us pass life skills and let us get to the level that we need to be in. Also, it would keep us awake and alert in class—it will assist in keeping our heads up in class more often and getting the exercise we need for our body. Exercise helps us focus on what needs to be done because if you put P.E. in our classes we will do whatever works we need to make sure we can go to P.E. we might even make AYP at the end of the school year if you give us a P.E. class.

P.E. class would help students stop mouthing off to the teachers. It would let them get along with one another and take anger out on exercising instead of the teachers. P.E. will give us more teamwork skills and more body strength.

Most of the time it is eighty below zero outside and we can’t go out. We like to go out where all the space is, but we can’t because of the weather. Many of us like and miss P.E. class; however, we can’t have that because the School Board might think that gym will just distract us—well, they are wrong– plus, most of the time we don’t have open gym because of some vandalism that a was done by a non-student and that is sad because we have nothing else to do.

Plus, it is not fair that the elementary kids get a P.E. class and the upper level doesn’t. Come on, now think about it– they have gym time in the morning then again during lunch and let’s not forget about P.E.  And open gym. What about the upper level? All we have is lunch and open gym—that is all the time we get to play in the gym and we want to have fun, too. Little kids have all the fun.

High school needs a P.E. class to help raise their levels and have more exercise time: plus,  we need   to defeat the epidemic of obesity and be in shape. These are the reasons we want a P.E. class.

Stebbins

There are four different seasons in a year: spring, summer, fall, and winter. Spring and winter are two of the four seasons. The two seasons are almost the same, spring changes a little more because of the tilt of the earth’s axis. The earth’s axis tilts before summer comes, letting the earth face the sun. Spring and winter areboth cool seasons.

Winter comes after fall, and then it starts to snow. Winter’s a cold season because of the freezing winds blowing snow all over the place. There’s a lot of snow around the place, and it snows all day or have blowing snow making huge banks of snow. The men in Stebbins who use big tractors clean the road almost everyday because of the snow. There are a few winter birds flying around looking for food and there would be a few ravens, too. The birds wake late and sleep early because the sun would rise late in the morning and set around three or four in the afternoon. It doesn’t look that pretty when the sun is up because there would be these gray clouds hiding the sun and looks so plain, but Winter still look beautiful because when there’s no clouds the horizon look beautiful when the sun sets. Winter is beautiful when it is not so gray.

Spring is a just right season, because it’s not so cold and not so hot. In spring, there’s till a lot of snow around, but it melts slowly in May making lots of water. While the snow melts, there’s still winter birds flying around singing their bird songs, and there are ravens, too. While birds fly around there’s cool breezy winds with the smell of summer coming. There’s more sunlight in the morning because it raises around seven sets around nine or ten, making the birds out longer. It looks prettier when the sun is up in the blue sky, with the cliffs and mountainsbrownness with some snow covering them. Spring is most beautiful during the day.

Spring and winter are both seasons–spring comes before summer, and winter comes after fall and before spring. There’s still a lot of a lot of snow during both the seasons, and very thick ice. In winter it snows a lot, in spring the snow is still there. During both the seasons the winter birds and ravens still around the place flying about constantly looking food. It still gets cold in both the seasons, but that’s what they do every year. These seasons are both great seasons.

Winter and spring are great seasons, but spring is better. In spring men and boys go hunting. The four seasons have different jobs every year and different things for the people to do. Like in summer women go pick berries, and in winter people go munaqing. The seasons would probably be the same if the Earths’ axis didn’t tilt.

Ellen works with kindergarten artist Tyler Lincoln

Quiet on the Set!

by Kim Sweeny, Teacher, White Mountain

These words were heard from White Mountain School students as they prepared to make movies during the two week Artists in Schools residency with Sitka videographer Ellen Frankenstein.   The Artists in Schools program is made possible through a partnership between the Alaska State Council on the Arts, which receives support from the Alaska State Legislature, the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and additional support from the Rasmusson Foundation.

All grade levels had the opportunity to create movie projects with Ellen while learning the subtleties of sound, video recording and editing movie footage.  Projects included making sound effects for favorite foods, creating torn paper pictures to go along with an invented Iditarod song and interviewing elders, villagers and mushers.  Along with interviews and artwork, flip books, speeding up and time lapse techniques were explored. When asked what students learned, one middle school student commented, “You have to do a lot of work and stay focused.  Have fun.”

Junior and Senior High students made projects in small groups.  Their shorts included a claymation story of a fish, a scrapbook of students’ lives, interviews, snowmachine racing and skiing excitement, elder stories and a film essay on diversity.  Older students had to create and edit their footage so they learned that “when you interview someone you have to pay attention to them and making a film takes time”.  Another student said “I learned to be patient with a camera and look for different types of views”.

Ellen took two evenings to show her own film work. She showed a sampling of some of her documentary work and her work with students at Mt. Edgecumbe HS.  She also showed her movie Eating Alaska which takes a look at what Alaskan’s eat and how and where they get their food.   This movie will be shown in Nome later this year.

The end product of the residency was a dvd of student work which will be copied and distributed to all families in the school.

Quiet on the set!  White Mountain students are on the prowl for new video stories and we’re looking forward to seeing and hearing what they have to tell.

Adrian Barr, Jesse Ashenfelter and Rayna Buck-Nassuk work on a film with Ellen

by Stebbins Staff

Charles Horton Cooley stated that “an artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.”  Stebbins School was teeming with success in mid April when talented Alaskan artists came together to inspire, work and create.  Under the tutelage of photographers, painters, dancers, musicians and other artists, students and staff spent two afternoons focusing on their artistic talents.

Funded by a School Improvement Grant, Stebbins teachers Becky Small, Lauren Anderson, Tracie Nash, and Rob Treiber contacted local and state artists to fly in and work with the students for two days. Natalie Chomyk-Daniels treated the students to lessons in the color wheel, symmetry and the beautiful designs that one can create with paper cutting. Photographer Harry M. Walker sent students out to capture the essence of Stebbins life in photographs. Local talent Matt Anderson taught music, while Master Lim gave some lessons in Tae Kwon Do.

Students studied oils and painting with Linda Postmus. Bicultural teachers Minnie Aluska and Rebecca Atchak helped kids design and construct their own drums and dreamcatchers. Roselyn Nashoanak, Marie Otten-Pete and Agatha Pete taught weaving and paper design. Desiree Lopez kept the young ones on their toes with Native Dancing.

Participants were able to switch sessions and sample a variety of ways to express themselves artistically.

Other funds from the same grant enabled the school to bring writer Deb Vanasse to the school who inspired the students to write poetry.

The book Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya (TQS Publications) is a  book in the style of magical realism. This book caught my attention on how Antonio, the main character, was able to get along with Ultima, his grandmother.  This book would appeal to both girls and boys: girls would like this book because of the fondness of between Tony and Ultima, while boys will like it because of the adventures Tony has throughout the book.

In the beginning of the book Tony–Antonio–has dreams of being born. In his dream, Ultima is the midwife for his mother. Then he finds out that Ultima was going to move in with them. After they met, Tony became very close with her. After she’s lived with them for a while, she dies. Tony was sad but Ultima stayed with him in his dreams.

Tony is a boy at the age of 7 years old, when he meets Ultima.  Ultima is a old wise curandera, a curer of the sick. The setting of the book is in New Mexico. It is not in modern days, it is after the World War II. The theme is to show the relationship between the old and the young.

The author’s style is magical realism and the the author’s technique is to blend in mexican myth and culture. The author uses Ultima’s owl to symbolize her soul and also uses symbolism to show the golden carp as a god. In the book, Anaya uses a lot of metaphor. Such as, “The golden carp has warned us that the land cannot take the weight of the sins.”

This book has connections with the yupik culture. Just like in the book, the yupik culture has a curandera but yupiks call that person a shaman. Another connection would be the good medicine person and the bad medicine person. Unlike the people in the book, yupiks don’t call the bad shamans “witches,” the yupik culture just calls them bad shamans or evil shamans.

I liked this book because of the adventure and connections with the yupik culture. I would recommend this book for anyone to read because all readers will  like the many adventures Tony throughout the book– adventures that will lure you into reading  more  to get to the good parts of the book.

By Damon Hargraves, Student Broadcasting Team Facilitator, District Office

Another season of “Iditamania” is almost over as the last musher approaches the burled arch in Nome. Now that things are settling down, I have a little time to reflect back on these past few incredible weeks of BSSD’s Iditaprojet. For those of you who don’t know, Iditaproject is a BSSD created educational VTC program freely available to anyone who signs up.

Over the past few years we have seen an incredible growth of participants. This year we received close to 300 registrants, and we had many more online viewers. During the three days of March 16th through the 19th we broadcast a total of 64 hours. This broadcast time includes twice daily video conferences, live updates, a webcam feed of the Unalakleet checkpoint, and a webcam feed of front street in Nome.

During these three days we accumulated a total of more than 14,000 viewers, which snowballed into about 6000 hours of total viewing time. Our broadcast reached the Ustream.tv top 20, which made company with CNN and Fox News, accrued 8000 posts to the Mushing Forum, Ustream.tv wrote an article about our project, and the popular website Iditablog interviewed me about our project.

All of this positive coverage and participation is due to the hard work of the largest Student Broadcasting Team (SBT) yet, which produced live coverage, interviews, and news from the Iditarod start in Anchorage, the Unalakleet checkpoint, Koyuk checkpoint, White Mountain checkpoint, and the Nome finish.

Thank you to the following SBT students (in random order) for your extra hard work:

• Lori Larsen
• Mia Concilus
• Mildred Nanouk
• Korbin Storms
• Josh Dewey
• Brice Hardy
• AJ Andrews
• Iris Billingsley
• Jacob Okbaok
• Henry Ahgupuk
• Bert Sockpick
• Samuel McElwee
• Asa Bergamaschi
• Brandi Oquilluk
• Allison Topkok
• Jill Freytag
• Brittany Sarren
• Kirstian Haugen
• Deyonne Milligrock
• Corrina Odizoff
• Zona Fitka

Also, thank you to chaperones Michelle Foster, Kyle Schneider, Lacey Byrd, and Katie Bryson.

Visit the Iditaproject website for more information on this project and how to participate next year

When I go outside I see dogs in the trash cans looking for food, making the village junky. Some dogs are dangerous and might maul up little kids who like to play out. Dogs are getting into the trash and littering the village. All loose dogs should be shot.

A lot of dogs are getting into the trash and honey buckets, making the village trashy and causing it to have a fetid odor. Little kids might get sick from their dogs because the dog’s body will smell awful and dirty. Dogs are eating out of the honey buckets and the spilled honey buckets are making places really malodorous. Dogs are eating out of the garbage and dragging debris all over the village.

At night dogs are wandering around making a lot of noise. People can’t sleep and get mad about dogs
making a lot of noise like growling, fighting, yipping, and barking. Dogs are barking or playing around by houses where people are sleeping. Some dogs mess up other peoples property by breaking things and making the place filthy. Loose dogs are all around the village making the village trashy.

Also when a dog is walking on the road a vehicle might bump it and have an accident. Dogs always chase each other anywhere. On the roads they are running or walking and sometimes even laying down in the middle of the road. This is when dogs get bumped by vehicles, if the dogs are not paying attention to the vehicles. Some dogs get killed when they get bumped by vehicles and some people get into accidents, too.

It is getting a little more complicated when too many dogs are loose running around making the village full of vandalism. All of the dogs should be chained outside and the ones running loose are dangerous. The loose dogs should be put down.

In the Anchorage Daily News, Renee Crow stated, that, “When we chose to speak in English to our children instead of our own language, we are choosing to allow our language to die.”Even in Stebbins our language is dying out slowly because we mostly speak in English and not our own language.

My Yupik culture is fading slowly.

One reason my culture is fading slowly because younger people are not speaking in Yupik. Younger people like teenagers can’t carry on with a conversation with elders. They know only a few Yupik words like “Waqaa’’ because they mostly speak in slang and rap language. Yupik languages still can be learned if teenagers start to practice Yupik language from elders or Yupik teachers.

Not learning the Yupik ways of life is also causing our culture to fade. Most of the teenagers are not practicing the Yupik ways of life. Some teenagers show a lack of knowledge: when they go hunting the hunters don’t know how to read the weather and skin the animals. They don’t know how to do those kind of skills because they don’t ask elders to teach them or they don’t watch elders and learn.

Younger people are not respecting their elders. Young people are showing lack of courtesy because they don’t listen very much to their parents and elders. They don’t give respect because they always talk back to parents and elders.
Some people even display a lack of pride because they sometimes don’t care and make a fool out of themselves. When they make a fool out of themselves is when they don’t know how to Yupik dance, don’t understand Yupik language and can’t hunt animals for food.

People in other communities are showing lack of understanding of their own culture. People that don’t understand when a person is speaking Yupik to them will say, “I can’t understand what are you saying?” The person who was speaking will be ashamed of him because he can’t speak his own native language. They should start right there and ask, “What is this word? how do you say that word?” Use a bilingual dictionary.

Our culture is dying slowly because we don’t teach children the Yupik ways of life and Yupik language. Parents are speaking in English instead of our Yupik language because they are starting to forget how to speak in Yupik language. The elders are ashamed at us teenagers because we are not practicing the Yupik language and the ways of eskimos dress and act. This is why my culture is fading slowly in our community.

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by Perry Corsetti, BSSD Curriculum Department

It was a sweetheart of a weekend! Sixteen teachers from around the district were able to travel to Unalakleet for the first Working Weekend of the new year. Working Weekends are designed to create a supportive and collaborative environment for teacher planning. One participant wrote: “Thanks for another great working weekend! It is so beneficial to have time to “map out” our plans, for months at a time, surrounded by our colleagues. Each time I participate, I learn something new and always come away from these weekends feeling recharged and focused on the weeks ahead. It is a great chance to collaborate, work in a relaxed, supportive atmosphere and…oh ya, it’s fun! I know I’ve made this pitch before, but it would be really valuable to do this quarterly – or at the very least, once at the beginning of the year and again at the start of second semester. Thanks again for the opportunity.”

Here are the scores from February 13-14, 2009.  The weather had us cancelling many games, and rearranging teams going to places that were flyable.  Thanks to everyone for sending in scores.  With two weekends left of the regular season we wish all teams good luck and safe travel.

By Virginia Degnan, Ed.D., Director of Program Support, District Office

On February 10 the Alaska Head Start Association presented the School District Collaboration Award to Bering Strait School District.  School Board member Melvin “Dumma” Otton accepted the award on behalf of the district.  Malinda Besett of Kawerak Head Start in Nome nominated BSSD for the award and helped present it at the association’s statewide conference.  This award came as a result of BSSD and Kawerak Head Start’s partnership in various aspects of educating 3- and 4-year olds.

In nominating BSSD, Ms. Besett referred to the Success for All (SFA) program developed specifically for preschool children that BSSD purchased and help implement in all of the Kawerak Head Start classrooms through an Alaska Native Education grant.  The grant provided curriculum materials, training, and follow-up support.  BSSD also purchased the Second Step program that focuses on the social and emotional behaviors of preschool children.  

In Ms. Besett’s nomination she wrote, “BSSD has really taken a hands on approach with collaborating with our Head Start program to provide the best education for our children.”  In response to the award, Superintendent Hickerson said, “BSSD is honored to receive this award and we look forward to continuing our collaboration with Kawerak to support the preschool children of our district.

There are three weekends left of the regular basketball season, then it’s on to the tournaments!  The 2A Tournament will be held in Noorvik, and the 1A Tournament will be held in Golovin.

Thanks to all the schools for sending in their scores, and we look forward to more exciting games this weekend!

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A new edition of StraitTalk will be published this week. Look for it in stores. As always, if you can’t wait until then it is available online. Just click the picture.

Thank you to all those who submitted articles to this blog. We are getting more and more posts, which means that there is more and more to fit into StraitTalk. You are all keeping me busy, which is a good thing. Keep posting, and I’ll see you online. -Damon Hargraves, StraitTalk Editor

Shawn Bernard shares traditional Korean soup.

Stebbins teacher Shawn Bernard researched customs of the Korean New Year and made traditional soup to share with his students. After tasting the soup, the class wrote a descriptive essay. The visiting Tae Kwon Do Masters joined the class and shared the Korean words for many of the tastes and ingredients found in the soup. Mr. Bernard’s excellent culinary feat was enjoyed by all.

Shawn's Soup

Students examine the soup.

A team of students, teachers, and paraprofessionals from the Bering Strait School District recently attended and presented at the Bilingual Multicultural Education and Equity Conference (BMEEC) in Anchorage.  The conference was held at the Sheraton from January 28-30.  Highlights of the meeting were a presentation by Ginger Crockett, Jane Olanna, Darlene Olanna (all of Brevig Mission), Chris Koonooka, Marjorie Koonooka (of Gambell), Bessi Sinnok, Sonny Barr (of Shishmaref), and Debbie Anungazuk and Katie Olson (of Golovin) on the Yupik/Inupiaq Digital Dictionary Project that our teachers and students have been building, as well as the recognition that two of our Diomede students received when they placed first and third place in the Alaska Association of Bilingual Educators essay contest.  The students and teachers did an excellent job presenting and gained some terrific practice at public speaking.  The theme of the conference centered around technology.  It was appropriate, then, that we were able to bring the Diomede students in via a Skype video chat and project them onto the big screen during the awards ceremony.  They were able to receive their awards and recognition via cyberspace, which was pretty cool.

The conference theme also tied to our presentation, since our digital dictionaries are housed on our district’s Wiki site.  There are some awesome things going on in our district and it was a great opportunity for these efforts to be recognized.

The village of Stebbins hasn’t had a teen center for about 2 to 3 years. Throughout those years, teenagers have been getting more and more mischievous. More teenagers today do drugs than the teenagers of four years ago. Don’t just watch your kids do drugs, open up the teen center and stop them.

The village of Stebbins should open up the teen center because it would keep a lot of kids out of trouble. When you have somewhere fun to go, you don’t really have time to run around and get into trouble. Plus, the kids will be supervised by an adult and wouldn’t be able to do anything inappropriate. Everyone knows that parents don’t want their kids to start up a bad habit, so a positive place like a teen center can help parents ease their minds about their kids getting into trouble.

If the village of Stebbins decides to open the teen center then they should put games in the teen center. Games will prevent kids becoming  bored with just the music or movies. The teenagers could listen to music while the younger kids play Red Rover, Candyland, and Ping Pong. The teenagers could also play games that are at their maturity level–like Monopoly.

The community will hold the teen center activities, not the school. So the community could establish closer ties  to the kids and teenagers than the school does. The kids go to school for about 7 hours a day. Do the kids have a better relationship with the school that they do with their own community? Possibly, but the city could change that by opening the teen center; that way, the youth would be a lot closer to the community than they ever were. Stebbins has to take back its youth and stop being dependent on the school.

On the other hand, the community might ask, “Who will run the teen center?” or, “That’s too expensive to maintain.” The community has always had one person watching or running the teen center. They have never thought that many different people could run the teen center. If someone can’t go to work then they could just ring another worker. Then when the community complains its too expensive to maintain, the teen center employee could sell snacks and drinks, and they could let the kids and teenagers pay for the games they play– sort of like fund-raising. The money raised  could pay the bills or the staff. Or, they could charge a small membership fee.

There are many reasons why the community of Stebbins should open then teen center. So, if you want to make sure your kids are staying out of trouble, then go to the City office and tell them they should open the teen center. Make the community of Stebbins a better place–act before it’s too late.

December 13th the Unalakleet Wolf Pack ski team members had their first full moon ski of the season.  Over 20 ski team members participate in the event.  With headlamps on, the skiers took off to ski the Dragon’s Back.  After our ski, we were able to warm up by the fire with hot drinks and roasted marshmallows.  The ski team gives a big howling thank-you to the supportive parents who helped with the fire and yummy snacks.

Skiers head to the Dragon’s Back.

Season Haugen, Jaysen Haugen and Christa Eakon are ready for the fun!

Jayden  and Jewel Wilson enjoy the fire with Christa Eakon and Tony Haugen.

Summer Sagoonick and Karlee Katchatag share  roasted marshmallows.

Wolf Pack skiers had a howling good time!

Linda and Janice join in on the RISC Student Panel Discussion.

By Perry Corsetti, Curriculum Department, District Office

A team of students, teachers, and district office staff traveled to Anchorage for the RISC (Re-Inventing Schools Coalition) Winter Symposium, January 29-31, 2009. The theme of this years meeting was “Delivering on the Promise” commemorating the release of the book of the same title by RISC founders Richard Delorenzo, Wendy Battino, Rick Schreiber, and Barbara Gaddy Carrio.

BSSD’s representative team was used extensively throughout the conference. Linda Cooper (Unalakleet) and Janice Homekingkeo (Koyuk) participated in the student panel question and answer session. John Weemes (Teacher), Dottie Pushruk, and Allison Topkok (all from Teller) presented their project, an “Eskimo Food Pyramid” highlighting the four components of the instructional model. Greg Johnson and Perry Corsetti were presenters of the “Understanding the Model” strand throughout the symposium. It is increasingly evident that schools and districts are looking north to BSSD for ideas and information on implementing this standards-based instructional model.

The RISC model is also receiving national attention as our district and others in Alaska have experienced success in educating the whole student for the 21st century. Keynotes were presented by Dr.Robert Marzano, Marzano Research Laboratory, Centennial, Colorado, and Dr. Copper Stoll, Chief Academic Officer in Adams County School District 50, Denver, Colorado. Other groups attending the symposium traveled from Chicago, Maryland, Maine, and California.

The Bering Strait School District has been a coalition member district of RISC since its inception. BSSD first began with implementation of the Quality School Model, now called the Re-Inventing Schools Model. This standards-based system requires students to show mastery of a core group of standards in order to progress to the next level in a specific content area. The four main components of the model are: Shared Vision, Leadership, Standards, and Continual Improvement.

Dottie and Allison present their "Eskimo Food Pyramid" project.

This weekend marked the half way point of our season, there are 4 weekends of the regular basketball season left before the tournament in Golovin March 4-8, 2009.  Thanks to everyone for sending in the scores, and we look forward to the next half of the basketball season.  Hang in there – all you teams!  We’re almost done!  Quyana ~ Annie

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]]> http://blog.bssd.org/2009/02/2009-basketball-scores-2/feed/ 0 http://blog.bssd.org/2009/02/nactec-session-4-aviation/ http://blog.bssd.org/2009/02/nactec-session-4-aviation/#comments Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:51:32 +0000 bmarvin http://blog.bssd.org/?p=756 By Brian Marvin, CTE Instructor, NACTEC

Alaska high school students had their futures take off!!!!

Thanks to the hard work of many people in the Bering Straits region, thirteen students from 3 school districts earned 2 official logged flight hours.  Mr. Sean Bogart has been the flight instructor for NACTEC’s Aviation course since the course began.

Students received aviation instruction from Mr. Tim Daniels, Mr. Vic Olsen, Mr. Perry Corsetti and Mr. Brian Marvin.  The aviation course is a survey course including as many careers in aviation as possible.  The  major aspects of the course are:  aviation maintenance, ground support, flight, avionics and powerplants.  We visited several businesses in Nome-Alaska Airlines, Army National Guard helicopter hangar, ATS, FAA Flight Service, National Weather Service, Bering Air, Department of Transportation-Maintenance and the Department of Transportation-Airport Safety.

Nathan Tocktoo aboard the Army National Guard Blackhawk.

Andrea Jones with a bird’s eye view.

Ginna Walluk in the captain’s seat.

Thanks to everyone who made the NACTEC Aviation a huge success.

The Trap by John Smelcer is a novel that readers who are interested in survival stories will certainly enjoy.  I read this book and I have enjoyed reading it because I can relate to the characters and their ways of life.

The Trap tells a story of an elderly native man named Albert Least-Weasel and his grandson, Johnny Least-Weasel.  One day, Albert goes out in to the Alaskan wilderness to check his trap-lines like he has for the past 60 years of his life.  When he doesn’t return, his grandson Johnny and Albert’s wife begin to worry about the old man.  The temperature is slowly dropping and they wonder if Johnny should go out and look for his grandfather. The harsh setting of the Alaskan wilderness adds intensity to the plot of this survival tale.

Albert has been living in a village all his life. His father had taught him all about trapping which he does for a living.  He is nearly 80 years old and has much experience in hunting game.  Johnny, as the grandson, often helps out his grandparents. He is about seventeen years old an is tall and lean with long black hair. He helps his grandfather get wood for the home and his grandmother with her dally chores such as hauling water and spilling the honeybucket since the village doesn’t have water or sewage lines. People of the village mostly depend on subsistence as they live with nature.

The author uses third person point of view to show both Albert’s and Johnny’s perspective throughout the book. Literary devices that Smelcer uses are imagery, flashback, allegory, epigraph and irony.  An example of Smelcer’s imagery is when he describes the many names of snow: “There is sleet, and hail so big around that the sound of it falling on a tine roof is deafening.  There are dry, soft flakes that fall gently without hurry or anger, like the lazy flakes in a Christmas card scene.” (Smelcer 5)  Another example of imagery would be when the author writes about the nature of the Alaskan wilderness. “The sky was dark blue and contrasted against the blanketed white of the earth.  It was a beautiful place, lovely and deadly all at once, a land of great power.”   (Smelcer   8  )

Johnny has a flashback when he plays his fiddle, a gift from his grandfather who taught him how to play.  “But is had a beautiful sound—rich and smooth—and sometimes he and his grandfather played together for hours.  Twice a year, they traveled to nearby villages to play with other Indian fiddlers.  Those moments were among his happiest memories. “  (Smelcer 118)

Allegory is used when Smelcer explains how the salmon received two small rocks from the Raven so they could sink to the bottom of the river—a learning tale from the Native American culture.  “There is a story that, in the beginning, salmon could not swim down to the river because they had air in their heads that made them float back to the surface, where they were easy prey for eagles and bears.  The chief of the Salmon People complained to the Raven, who opened their heads and put two small rocks inside so they could sink safely to the depths. Since that time, all salmon can swim deep and when you cut their heads in half, you can still see the two tiny rocks Raven put there. “  (Smelcer 22-23)

Excerpts from an old Indian folk-tale about a warrior named Blackskin appear at the beginning of each chapter as an epigraph.  “The chief of the village had a nephew named Blackskin.  The young man did not go down to stand in the sea or try to lift the great tree as the other men did .  Instead, he stayed in the village and helped the elders. He brought them water and cut firewood to keep their fires burning.  He slept by the fire and his skin was black from the ash and soot.  The other men thought he was weak and lazy and they made fun of him. They didn’t know that every night Blackskin went down to the icy sea and stayed in longer than any of them, and he lifted great rocks over his head.”  (Smelcer 47)  The author uses epigraph to help illustrate the theme of timelessness and also show how life for Albert, Johnny, and Albert’s wife is still the same as it was for their ancestors.

The obvious example of irony is how Albert gets trapped in his own trapline.  He had been trapping game for a very long time and has much experience. It is ironic that he has trapped himself in the jaws of the trap that was intended for meat—but not his!

I can relate to the character Johnny because I like to help out my grandparents, and especially my mom.  I, too, live in a village where you have to haul water and spill honey buckets.  Also, Johnny had a dog named Tikaani of whom he was very fond because it helped save him from a bear. My own dog, Gaunda, (which means “boy” in Inupiaq) practically saved my niece’s life from a bull moose when we were living in Anchorage.  I live in Alaska where the weather best fits how the author described his own story’s setting.  Like Albert, I enjoy the northern outdoors because I love nature.  I grew up in Alaska and intend to stay here. This book also reminds me of Hatchet  by Gary Paulsen because of how the main characters from each book had to survive in the wilderness.

All in all, The Trap by John Smelcer is about surviving against the odds of the wilderness and modern life, and knowing when to follow your heart.  I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in survival stories.

Smelcer, John.  The Trap. New York: Square Fish.  2006.

Greetings from Unalakleet!  Here are the scores and standings from the weekend of January 24, 2009.  These games were the third weekend of BSSD basketball.  There were some exciting games, with several ending in 2 points.  Thanks to all who sent in their scores.  We look forward to more scores this weekend.

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How’s that for alliteration?

Certified and classified staff from Brevig Mission, Shishmaref, Wales, and Teller met in Teller January 20-22, 2009 for in-service meetings to improve teaching in mathematics and cross-content project planning. Jan Christenson, author and presenter from the Leadership and Learning Center flew in from San Diego, CA to lead the group in his model, “Five Easy Steps to a Balanced Math Program”. Participation in this session involved an in-depth, hands-on demonstration of the first two steps of the balanced math program: Computation and Mental Math, and Problem Solving. Step One begins with implementing a daily math review time of 15-20 minutes at the beginning of each math class. This computational review is designed to address the gaps in math skills that students sometimes have in traditional math instruction. Mr. Christenson joked that it would take three hours to teach the components of Math Review which was only suppose to be the first 15 minutes of a teacher’s lesson plan for a math class. However, we spent almost half a day reviewing effective instruction practices that would lead to successful implementation of this first step. It proved to be a promising strategy and was enthusiastically received. Mr. Christenson will also be traveling to Gambell and Savoonga in March for another workshop.

For those not involved directly in math instruction, BSSD’s own Susette Carroll (6-Traits Writing Facilitator) provided yet another useful workshop on planning and developing cross content projects integrating writing. Ms. Carroll has been working with several teachers and school sites sharing successful project examples and helping develop new ideas for BSSD schools, teachers, and ultimately – students.

The impetus for this meeting is part of the Bering Strait School District’s Instructional Model – Continuous Improvement. We are dedicated to using data to drive our instruction and assessing our needs. Both math and writing are areas we would like to see more improvement in both conceptual understanding/application, and higher test scores on state benchmark assessments.

Andrea and I were accepted to NACTEC for the Aviation course that was being offered to schools from the Seward Peninsula and other parts of Alaska. Knowing that we’re from Nome, our thoughts were to stay at our own homes, but it turned out that we had to stay at the new NACTEC house, to have a feel of what it takes to be in dorms away from home. We did stay with 23 other students in the house, but not all were there for aviation.

The Aviation class had 13 different students from Nome, Savoonga, Gambell, Brevig Mission, Unalakleet, Stebbins, and Levelock. We learned different types of careers that are available in the aviation field, from being a pilot to a ramper, or being a radio weather person or a service clerk. We often had a reminder of the basic parts of an airplane, from the cowl to the rudders in the back.

Aviation requires at least 48 hours to earn 3 college credits. We had a few experienced guests come to class and share their piece of the pie with us. Vic Olsen, a Frontier Alaska pilot, and Bill Tweet, a pilot for Bering Air, gave us their story on being where they’re at today. Mr. Olsen told us that when he was in elementary school, he would get into trouble on purpose, just so he could go in the “box” to watch a learning video about WWI planes. Mr. Tweet told us about his adventures of making his way to becoming the pilot that he is. He does own a couple planes, which he flies to his family mine, past the Kougrok Road. He told us that he really enjoys his job and we should think about getting into aviation.

The most exciting part about this course was definitely flying the Citabria, with Mr. Sean Bogart. He was our flight instructor, the one who gave us the hands-on experience of being a pilot. As shown in the picture, the Citabria can have up to 3 seats, but we only used two. The plane was built in 1974; it’s a single engine, with dope material over the frame. The Citabria is a high winged plane with a taildragger. All 13 students put in a total of 2 hours of airtime during the 2 weeks we spent at NACTEC.

The first week we had Mr. Tim Daniels from BSSD. He packed a ton of information from the mechanic’s point of view. We talked about the different types of engines, how electricity plays a huge part in flying the plane and the different materials we need to have to maintain an aircraft. He gave us a huge piece of the pie. Also, he let us try riveting pieces of metal. The rivets hold the plane’s material together, they look like bolts along the planes frame.

The teacher that we had for the last 3 days was Mr. Perry Corsetti. He gave us an insight about how the wings are built; that the air works on climbing up and descending downward. He showed us how to read the flight instruments. We learned how to read an altimeter, airspeed indicator, turns and slip indicator, attitude indicator, and the vertical speed indicator.

Did you know that when you’re using a wheelbarrow, it’s just like flying a plane; I didn’t know that until after we tried it out. Mr. Corsetti had us use it, with a person in the barrow, as the pilot, and the other maneuvering it, as the plane. We learned that it’s difficult trying to keep it upright and turning without falling out.

We went to numerous places. We started at Alaska Airlines, where we learned about being a ramper. Mrs. Shield showed the NACTEC Aviation class around the Alaska Airlines building. She showed us what they do on a daily basis, and the recent equipment that they have for the handicapped and what they need to know about the different vehicles they drive. Rampers lift about 50 thousand pounds in a day, just normal cargo and passenger bags.

The next day we went to ATS. Tom Mostoller showed us around and told us the type of materials they use to keep their machines going, what they have around their hangar, and showed us the parts room. That same day, we went to Bering Air to see the planes and talk to Ben Rowe, the Bering Air Chief Pilot and Ben Koelsch, the Chief Mechanic. They talked to us about where Bering Air flies and how many times they do maintenance check ups on their planes, and how they have medivacs on the job every day.

When we went to city field, we walked around looking at all the different planes they have like Piper Cubs, Citabria’s, and Cessnas. They also have a hangar of their own, to share with plane owners, so there’s a place to maintain their aircraft.

Next, we met up with Jerry Steiger who is the NWS Meteorologist and Wes Adkins who is the NWS Weatherman. They told us about the weather and showed all of us some of the weather coordinates, where the weather was then and what was going to do for the next couple of days. They told the NACTEC students that if they wanted to be a weatherman or meteorologist, there would be a couple of years of college studying math, science, and maybe English. Right across the hall from the weather station is the FAA flight service air traffic controller. This is where the pilots get their coordinates and see if the runway is clear or not. The controller’s tell the pilots what strip to land on, so they don’t land on a strip with another plane on it.

The Aviation class at NACTEC had some pretty interesting activities going on from the tools to the planes. There were quite a few people who were willing to share all their information on being in the field of aviation. This experience has given us a different perspective on this particular career.

I’m sure that everyone from this course would agree with me that, yes, this class got dull at some point, but we’re glad we went and got the experience that we wanted. Aviation will take a lot of work, but in the end it will be worth the patience and time. I speak for all my new friends from session 4, we thank NACTEC for helping us to expand our minds and think about what we want to do in life.

This course exposes the student to everything in the aviation industry from maintaining the engine, fueling and loading to actually flying the plane as hands on experience in what it takes to keep a plane flying. Tours to the local airlines is also included.

Throughout the two week session, students are also provided with the necessary resources and skills for employment opportunities, the pursuit of postsecondary education, and independent living skills through instruction in four focus areas: career and technical skills, career exploration, life skills, and work readiness skills.

This course exposes the student to everything in the aviation industry from maintaining the engine, fueling and loading to actually flying the plane as hands on experience in what it takes to keep a plane flying.  Tours to the local airlines is also included.

Throughout the two week session, students are also provided with the necessary resources and skills for employment opportunities, the pursuit of postsecondary education, and independent living skills through instruction in four focus areas: career and technical skills, career exploration, life skills, and work readiness skills.

Check out the website at www.nacteconline.org for more information and when the next Aviation course is scheduled.

Mrs. Thomas’ fifth and sixth grade class are in the process of fixing up the safety cabin on the Nome/Teller Highway.  Our class inspected the cabin and made a list of repairs and emergency supplies that are needed.

With the help of our parents we plan to paint the outside of the cabin and add reflective strips.  We will also replace a broken window and repair the door.  The wood stove is missing, so we will replace it and stock the cabin with firewood.

So far our class received generous donations from NSEDC and Kawerak.  Also, some of the sporting goods supply companies that we wrote to have sent us assorted emergency supplies.  This spring we are going to buy the materials and make the repairs before the end of the school year.  This project has been exciting so far because our class is getting to work on something that will help people in need.

Mr. Ed Becker, Timmy Milligrock, Sophie Iyapana, & Miss Katie Mecsey

By Ed Becker, Principal, Diomede

Little Diomede students “Rock” in pride too! Back in November The Alaskan Association for Bilingual Education announced their statewide Writing Contest for Bilingual Students. The topic PROUD TO BE ALASKA and BILINGUAL/BICULTURAL was chosen to honor the 50th anniversary of Alaska statehood. Principal Becker and Miss Mecsey agreed that her students could demonstrate their knowledge of Inupiaq traditions and culture, apply the Six Traits of Writing, and assist with toggling Cultural Awareness, by working with this writing prompt. In doing so, the students also reflected on traditions and values often taken for granted, but unique to Little Diomede (Inaliq), which excited them about life in Alaska in general. This prompt has once again reminded Diomede students why they should be proud to be who they are. Timothy Milligrock was awarded first place and Sophie Iyapana was awarded third place in the Middle/Junior High category. They have been invited to a noon luncheon hosted by AKABE at the Bilingual Multicultural Education Equity Conference, January 30, 2009. The essays were judged on development of theme, originality, content and clarity of expression and grammar and mechanics.   Below are the essays that were submitted to the contest.

Pretty Proud to be an Alaskan
By Timothy Ryan Milligrock, Student, Diomede

I am proud to be an Alaskan because of traditional music, like Eskimo dancing, and hunting traditions. I like watching Eskimo dance tapes. They are good to watch sometimes. Hunting is hard but sometimes easy.

Eskimo dancing is part of our culture here in Diomede. We practice dancing to travel to other places where they have dances, too. They also do drumming at Eskimo dance. The language here in Diomede is Inupiaq, and only the elders speak the language.

Some of the men here go hunting. Hunting is another part of our culture. We go hunting in boats or walk down the north trail. Down the north trail, there are hideouts that men make, so the seals won’t see them while they are waiting. Also, the hideouts are built of rocks that are stacked up. When the men go, they usually bring throwing line. The throwing line has three big hooks to get ahold of the seal’s skin, then you pull the rope slowly so the hooks won’t come off easily. They bring walking sticks, too. At one end of the walking stick, there’s one hook to drag the seal.

When the ice freezes here, people start going ice fishing. We use to make the holes with homemade ice picks, and today we still use the ice picks. Some people use auger because it’s faster and easier to make holes than the ice pick. Egging is when we go climb on the cliffs for Murr eggs.

I like to be an Alaskan because dancing is a good tradition, and it is fun to watch the men catch walruses. I think Alaska is a good place to live. This, here, is all part of our culture.

Proud to be an Alaskan
By Sophie Annie Iyapana, Student, Diomede

I am proud to be an Alaskan because I like hunting and unique things on Diomede.

There are seals and walruses, and hunters always come back with these animals. People eat a lot of these animals, which they call Eskimo food, and people on Diomede love to eat Eskimo food. We also send Eskimo food to relatives.

Kids like to travel to a lot of places where we have never been. We like to explore new places, meet new people, have fun, and go places that we think is fun or something we can get. We sometimes climb Fairway Rock and get bird eggs or just climb for fun. Some people even go around the island and get bird eggs on scary cliffs. Some people see foxes running all over on top of the island. We see blue foxes, red foxes, and the white kind. When we’re climbing straight up, we’ll get really tired that’s why a lot of us bring water, pop, or juice. While you’re in the middle of the island, on the way up, you can see the view over the ocean, can see over Big Diomede, and we can see our whole village. People always walk way back on the island. Sometimes we see boats going to Wales or coming this way from Wales to pick up people, or bring them over. Kids always play “not it” or “hide -in-seek.” They also play around the satellite and climb on the rocks. Sometimes, when there’s big rocks, kids hide behind them or run around them.

Being from Alaska is cool because we have millions of things to see, explore, and learn.

Nichole Andler, Interpreter NPS work with science students demonstrating the processes of weathering.

Nichole Andler, Interpreter from The National Park Service (NPS) visited Shishmaref School and met with students working with them on several different standards.

Students in grades 3-6 participated in a personal history lesson where students interviewed a partner about what they received for Christmas and mapped their homes.  Ronda Braach had this to say after taking a group of 6th grade students to Nichole.

“After Nichole’s visit my students said, ‘Class was real fun yesterday.’  Nichole did an excellent job of taking the 5th and 6th graders through the process of interviewing by having them interview themselves and create a booklet. The booklet contained maps, important information such as family members, and pictures drawn by students. I wish we would have had more time with Nichole.”

The Kindergarten and 2nd Grade classes learned about Nichole’s NPS badge and became Jr. Rangers.  Denise Thoreson added, “Nicole presented the national park symbols used on the park ranger badge.  Students learned what each symbol represented.  The students were also sworn in as Jr. Park Rangers and will receive their own badge.”

The first and second graders were engaged with a lesson on trophic levels in a food web as they learned about producers and consumers and how they get their food/energy.

Nichole Andler, Interpreter NPS work with Shishmaref School students demonstrating the layers of the Earth with water and corn starch.

Nichole also supported some upper level science standards when she presented a lesson on the Rock Cycle.  Nichole started off by simulating the Earth system using corn starch in water to simulate the layers of the Earth with some construction paper on the surface.  The paper representing the crust, water as the Mantle, and corn starch as the core.  Students were able to look at some local igneous rocks from the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve as well as some others that Nichole had collected along the way including one sedimentary rock with some 500 million year old trilobites.  Students also mechanically weathered some chalk by crushing it and then chemically weathered the chalk in vinegar to simulate the two types of weathering.

Nichole also piloted a lesson called “Musk Ox Math”.  Math teacher Mary Huntington had this to say abou the lesson.  “The students learned that the bulky mass of the musk ox is one of the ways it has of staying warm in the cold winter – we looked at volume to discuss it.  Another way it stays warm is by the long spiral nasal passage that warms the air before it goes to the lungs.  We looked at the area of parallelograms to do that: showing how the length of the diagonal of different parallelograms of the same area can vary greatly, giving the air more time to warm up before reaching the lungs.”

Many students expressed that they had a very good time learning not only about muskox but about many of the other things Nichole presented to our students.  We cannot wait until she might be able to come to Shishmaref for another visit.

By A. Kirk, Student, Stebbins

Everyone in Alaska has a story about frostbite, either on their hands, face, neck, or someplace else on their body. This is how to prevent frostbite, hypothermia and the cold from winter exposure.

The first thing you need is extra clothes and extra accessories just in case your clothes get damp or you lose something–you know you will always have something extra.  You must have dry clothes because if they are damp you get hypothermia faster  because your clothes are wet so it is a good thing to have extra clothes.

The second thing is to take food-lots of food- because you never know when your snow-machine  might  break down. If it does and you become thirsty, do not eat the snow, because if you do it lowers your body’s temperature. If you want water or are thirsty and have no water, make a fire and melt the snow in a pot. Now you have water.

The third thing to do is to take a lot of good warm clothing so you don’t get so cold so fast. Take insulated gear  that prevents frostbite like mukluk mittens, a neck warmer and a face mask.  Areas that get frostbite fast like your face, hands, neck and feet need to be covered– especially  your feet– because if your feet get cold your whole body  will react to it and get cold, too. So, I would want really warm boots and thick warm socks to keep warm.

So, now when you follow these guidelines, if you break down or get lost you will be prepared and live to tell your story.

The latest edition of StraitTalk is finished and will be published next week.  If you can’t wait until then, just click here to download.

Educators from around the district met in Unalakleet this past weekend (November 7-9, 2008) to organize, develop, and compile lessons and thematic units on the Iditarod. For the last six years, BSSD staff and students have included the Iditarod sled dog race as part of an annual thematic learning event called IditaProject. This working weekend was designed to provide staff the opportunity to work together and create quality Iditarod activities and lesson plans tied directly to BSSD standards at every instructional level and in as many content areas as possible. We have quite a growing list of resources and ready-to-teach lesson plans available on our Wiki site. Go to http://wiki.bssd.org/index.php/Iditarod_Thematic_Unit and scroll down to ‘Collaborative Instructional Units’.

Working weekends have become extremely powerful and popular with those who have participated. Networking with fellow BSSD teachers is always beneficial and being standards based, our work together directly applies at every school site. Many of the comments about this Iditarod Working Weekend were simply, “We need to do this more often!” We have also already received positive feedback from other teachers throughout the district who have been checking our wiki and noticed the recently added resources. With this in mind, we are planning another working weekend for Jan 16-18, 2009. Mark it on your calendar! And, do not forget that CASC (Content Area Standing Committee) and our August Returning Teacher Workshops are also great opportunities to get together and improve our instructional model. Expect more information on all of these items soon as we narrow down dates and planning specifics.

Working Weekend participants

Sewing is an important way of the Yupik culture. Our success hunting depended on maintaining a positive relationship between people and the spirits of the animals hunted. When the Yupik hunt the animals they respect the animals spirit and thank them for food and their fur.

In the past our ancestors sewed hide for clothes and warmth. They used the walrus bladder for raincoats in the summer. They used beaver’s fur for mittens and caps. When they caught reindeer they took the hide and fur for parkas to have clothes for winter.

We Yupik people use hide and sinew for the sewing materials. We use sinew because it is stronger than string or thread. The hide is important because we use the sinew and sinew is made of hide. We can use hide and sinew for skin boats too.

Eskimos have to make dancing clothes to dance ceremonial Yupik songs. We use qaspaks for Yupik dancing because it’s part of our culture. When we Yupik people have to sew qaspaks it takes us time. A long time ago, they had to chew on the hide to make sinew so they could sew the qaspaks.

It is important for us Yupik people to sew because it is our culture. Before the fur traders came, the hide lasted longer than cotton. When the fur traders came we started to use cotton for the qaspaks. Still today we still use fur and hide for qaspaks along with cotton.

By Greg Johnson, Director of Curriculum and Instruction

The theme for this year’s Bering Strait School District was Cultivating Collaboration and you could find impressive collaboration going on just about anywhere you looked. Let’s see, what were some collaborative highlights?

Jan Christinson kicked the conference off with an excellent keynote on effective teaching practices in math. He honed in on the necessity of teaching both procedural and conceptual understanding and clearly demonstrated the need for teachers to have a collaborative relationship with their students in order to better determine what they do and do not understand.
Keynote Quotes
“He was very entertaining and thought provoking in how everyone uses different strategies to solve problems.”
“I could replace the word math with reading or writing and apply it to what I teach.”

This year’s Museum Walk focused on the conference theme and included some outstanding displays.  An interesting note was that nearly every school took the time to carefully take their displays down at the end of the conference in order to take them back home.

Museum Walk Quotes
“I loved being able to see others’ work during the museum walk. It always helps me to get new ideas.”
“It is nice to see what other schools are doing, and it is a way to share ideas and blow your own horn.”

Team Time Quotes
“It was nice just to have time to talk and just get an overall sense of how things are going and what we need to do differently, or do in addition.”
“I found the team time very useful. We were able to have enough time to work through our discussions and come up with some possible solutions.”
“It was nice to look back at our pacing goals from the beginning of the year and see that we have made progress. So often we forget to look at our successes and reflecting really helps so much in seeing how far we’ve come.”
“A lot of time was spent sorting out issues, but at the end, we arrived at an action plan and was, in the end, effective. The timing was just about perfect.”

With so many people away from home it is still amazing how much fun people have in the evenings. We had a lot of fun with the evening activities. While people enjoyed the musical offerings of the Luv Puppets, it is clear that the overwhelming favorite evening activity was the Open Mic night. From the perspective of everyone having some fun and in keeping with the collaboration theme, this activity was a home run.  Hmmm, it appears we have found something else we will do each year in addition to the Fun Run and Sequence tournament.

It is clear that the notion of continuous improvement is firmly established across our district.  The feedback provided by conference attendees for their sessions and the conference overall is simply amazing.  Some folks send out cheers and some point out opportunities for improvement, the feedback is specific, thoughtful, honest and absolutely appreciated.  It is also, kind of fun to see some of the suggestions for potential improvements.  How about some of these ideas?

“Maybe speed dating for next year? ”
“…chocolate sometime/somewhere”
“Maybe Karaoke next year?”
“Food great – need more Turtle (fudge, carmel) cheesecake ”

At the end of the day though, what really makes our conference something special is the BSSD staff.  When everything was said and done, visitors, presenters and vendors from outside our district continued to comment about what an awesome event we have in our annual BSSD Educational Conference and what terrific staff we have all across our district.  We can only agree.  Thanks to everyone who attended and helped make this Ed Conference the best one to date.

Here is a great quote on which to end:
“It always amazes me that we have the opportunity to grow together, and we do it for ourselves. The most valuable piece for me is watching how much home-grown expertise rises from this conference.”

The opposing team intimidates me. In basketball practice I was confident; I played ball well, and I felt like I was ready to play against another ball team. When it was game time, my heart started racing, I was running down the court and my team members were going the opposite way- I’d forgotten which direction to go! One of my teammates passed me the ball, it was five seconds before the buzzer. One of the opposing team members was guarding me, made eye contact and I took a shot, and the ball bounced off the back board when the buzzer went off.

The basketball skill I worked on was shooting before the opponent defends me. I kept practicing the fade aways to make my shots better when someone guards me before I shoot. I exercised to be in shape and practiced with the boys to increase my speed down the court. I got better. My free throw percentage went up to 95%. My rebounding also improved.

I concentrate on the rim when I practice my fade aways and how the angle, the distance, and the weight of the ball all affect how it approaches the target: the basket. Being distracted during the game, defending your basket and intimidation are part of basketball. But I don’t like being intimidated by the opponent. So I practice and play “team” with my friends during gym hours.

What I understand now is to focus on the game and mind the ball. What I also have worked on is the angle, the distance, and the weight of the ball before taking a shot. I have also worked on being less intimidated by the opposing team and focusing on the game. This skill also help me with other areas, which would better my basketball skills.

Being intimidated by the opposing team can better your basketball skills if you practice and focus on the game. Remember to be confident. The most fun about basketball is working together and playing the game.

Violet Apatiki and Elfie Apangalook picking berries for Yupik Class.

There were about 20 students and staff involved in two days of picking at the end of the Gambell Lake about two miles south of the school.

Taylor James and Andrew Kunayak picking berries by the end of Gambell lake.

There were many other people from the community picking on the mountainside. Each student and staff filled a quart-sized bag as much as they could as the wind was blowing.  A total of 1.5 gallons was picked as each berry is small and a bag is hard to fill up. All this picking was done in about two 55 minute periods each day. After picking, the berries were brought to the Home Ec. Room and stored in the freezer. First, the Home Ec. classes made “Avlaawaliiq”, a mixture of the berries, flour and sugar.

Home Ec. instructor showing the students how to "avlaawaliiq".

On another day the Home Ec. made “Pagunghaq” Pie.

Slicing up and eating the pagunghaq pie made in Home Ec. class.

All in all, the students continued on their traditions of picking and storing for the winter, food from the wilderness, at least in one aspect. They also build up on their patience and respect for the great outdoors as it was sometimes challenging to fill up even a small bag in over an hour, and test their might in facing the wind brining in the cold. All their work brought up a tastey treat in the end.

The raven’s wings sounded like a rope circling hard, cutting through the dense wintry air. “The low-flying bird must be watching to see if I’ll drop food,” I thought. Again the sound of “whoosh-whoosh” came from its flapping wings. The large black bird squawked and flew away down the pebbly beach.

I was walking along the west beach of Gambell, on St. Lawrence Island, and my feet sank into the loose wave-washed gravel. Large foaming white waves collapsed on the wet beach in a quiet, low-pitched thunder, sounding as though the ocean was tossing in a deep slumber. Walking is my way of relaxing after a day of teaching, with the rocky slopes of Mt. Sevuokuk to the east, the rolling tundra south of the village and the gun-barrel blue sea surrounding the Northwest Cape.

Near the western horizon, I could see the wind-thrown spray of a whale surfacing from a long dive. I thought about how they sink far below to hunt in the deep darkness by studying the various sounds. Perhaps through their years of searching and listening to the icy churning sea they have learned how to be free, to journey far and to see emptiness as freedom and darkness as light. Perhaps the ancient life-giving sea has taught them wisdom.

“Learning how to listen is the first step to becoming a mature adult,” I thought. I have tried so hard to teach this to students, but it is as though they do not believe me. There is too much going on inside their young minds; they are too busy with themselves.

Again, a familiar “whoosh-whoosh” sound came from above and behind me. I looked up and saw another large raven floating lazily in the cold sky. Like before, this one was also eyeing me for food. In a passing thought I wondered if, like whales and the sea, it could have heard something from the whispering wind.

The Street of a Thousand Blossoms is a novel by Gail Tsukiyama that takes place in Tokyo before, during, and after World War II. My opinion of Tsukiyama’s novel is that I enjoyed reading it and the story really took me on an emotional ride.

The story takes place in Yanaka district of northeastern Tokyo, where Kenji and Hiroshi Matsumoto, along with their friends and family, lived during and after the war. Throughout their daily lives, they experienced how the war effected families, businesses, and their country. Hiroshi and Kenji started out living with their grandparents and soon they will both learn how to live their own lives and try to find their place within their own world. Both young men are plagued with maintaining a healthy relationship, the loss of their loved ones, and they are challenged by unexpected events, their joys and sorrows alike.

When both Hiroshi and Kenji were young, their parents were drowned to death and so their maternal grandparents had to raise them. Hiroshi is older than Kenji and is much more outgoing and sociable than his younger brother. Hiroshi longs to be a famous sumotori(sumo wrestler) and eventually he becomes one. Kenji is the opposite of his brother, quiet and shy, but his interest is the craft of masks and the theatre. Soon the Noh Theatre plays a major role within Kenji’s life. How Kenji developed his interest in Noh masks, is through his sensai’s maskshop, Akira Yoshiwara, who taught Kenji the art and meaning of Noh masks. As Hiroshi reaches the age of eighteen, he was accepted by Tanaka to be trained as a professional sumo wrestler.

Sho Tanaka has two daughters, Aki and Haru, who are three years apart. Tanaka:s house is also a sumo stable, where he teaches and trains his students to become sumotori’s. During the war, sadly, Tanaka looses his wife and now he faces the challenges of being a single parent and keeping the Katsuyama-beya up and running with the help of his daughters. Later in her years, Aki will soon find out that she will be engaged to Hiroshi while Haru tries to get the attention of the man whom she loves.

Tsukiyama’s style is colorful, because she uses her native language and describes traditional values from her culture with words that are italicalized within her story. By this, she entertains her readers by addressing her native culture and knowledge. Within the story, literary devices the author uses are symbolism, flashbacks, satire, and irony.

An example of symbolism that Tsukiyama uses is a watchtower that Yoshio (Hiroshi’s and Kenji’s grandfather) built for his daughter and grandsons. The watchtower stood in his backyard for many years as a symbol of his grandson’s childhood and Yoshio’s strength. Another example of symbolism is the sport of sumo. Sumo is symbolic of the Japanese culture itself, in it’s rituals and religion, and in it’s belief of honor and defeat. For an example of flashbacks, the character Aki, she had lost her voice after her town was bombed. But when she remembers her mother, whom she also lost due to the bombing, she actually thought she saw her mother and cried out for her, a memory that gave her voice back. Another example of flashback is when Yoshio, who is completely blind, imagines and remembers himself when he was young, when he was able to see. It:s also ironic that even though Yoshio is completely blind, he is still able to move about and can recognize his wife and grandson:s presence and is able to tell them apart. An example of satire that was used in the book is panpan women. After the war, panpan women or “women of the night” entertained American soilders, which were originally what the role of geishas did. These women were violating the traditional values of geishas, by refering themselves as prostitutes. But it:s ironic how many decent women were reduced to this in order to survive.

Hiroshi and Kenji are very close and have a strong brotherly bond. I envy this bond because my brother,Travis, and I also can relate to them than all of our other brothers and sisters. We both grew up mostly without our real parents and lived similar lives, but had the love and support throughout our childhood. I enjoyed reading this novel because I thought Tsukiyama did an amazing job describing how ordinary people can go through much hardship losing loved ones and expecting the unexpected. As I was reading the part when Yanaka was being attacked by American planes, the scenary reminded me of a scene from Flags of Our Fathers. Just the thought of being in your own hometown while it:s being under attack is just chaotic to me. I can’t even imagine what an experience that would feel on a day like that.

More than anything, The Street of A Thousand Blossoms is a story of family and love, the futility of war, and the resilience of a country and it:s people. Tsukiyama has been known for her emotional and detailed stories and this novel, with it’s unforgettable characters will keep you turning the pages. I do recommend this book, no matter what type of genre you read.