Piurci, So Long

Hi Everyone,
I hope everyone is doing well. Since this is my last blog entry of the semester, I want to let all of you know that I really am grateful for meeting you at the intensive this summer and learning from you guys this semester, you all are great people!
I want to wish everyone a restful, safe, healthy holiday season. You all will do good in whatever you choose to do. Stay in touch. Piurci (Literally means, "keep on keepin' on"), So Long.

Setting net under the ice

The recent freeze up had many people traveling to specific locations to fish/trap for certain species of fish. To do this, one had to locate a river or slough and pick through the ice to set these nets and/or traps. Here my husband and our friends traveled over the Askinuk mountains to set a white fish net under the ice. The net, 31/2" in mesh was set in one of the many rivers "other side" in hopes that some or all of the three species of white fish we have would get caught and especially the most valued and scarce, lush fish.

The net is spread out on top of the frozen river to measure how far and how many large rectangular holes should be made through the ice to pull the net through. Once they are made, a long pole is used to "hook" a line that is connected to one end of the net and pulled through until it is pulled through all the holes. Large pieces of wood are made and placed on each end of the net much like crosses and those will hold the net in place. Now the net is set and it is checked about once or twice a week.

my life

Ice Fishing

This past week our river has finally allowed us to cross to the other side on snow machines and jig for smelts (hooligan) and tom cods. Many people line the banks of the Kun river pulling up fish throughout the day into the evening. The tom cods and smelts are common, but this year there is another fish that is unwelcome and annoying to its catcher. It is the "devil fish", although edible, this time of the year they are very small and unappetizing. They measure about 6 inches in length and have sharp horns that are dangerous if not careful. They are left behind for the few unfortunate seagulls to devour after the jiggers leave for the night.
This week is also thanksgiving and I want to wish all of you a very happy thanksgiving. I hope you all rest, spend time with family and friends, and get refreshed to finish off the semester. I want to thank you Skip for your patience, quick responses, and experitise in this class. I have truly learned useful lessons in technology.

Quarruuk

The Quarruuk or needle fish is trapped by the hundreds from sloughs. It is about 2 inches in length with needles all around it. It is harvested during freeze up and through out the winter. Many people eat it frozen with seal oil or boiled.It is also used as dog food by many dog owners. Some even use it as bait when fishing over the ice for tom cods and/or smelts.

troops are home!!!

On Friday our community had a welcome home celebration for the 7 young men that were deployed more than a yr. ago to Kuwait. The gathering began with eskimo dancing by our home town group and visitors from Kotlik. Half way through the young men marched in to be recognized by the community. It was a time of joy. The night continued with fiddle dancing and a potluck followed the next day with more dancing.
I remember when they were leaving the whole town was at the airport saying their farewells teary eyed. It seemed like a year would be such a long time to wait for them to come home. It's amazing how time flies, now with thanksgiving and relief the troops are all home safely. CELEBRATE!

after school tutor

Our school has just begun an after school tutoring program, which is a first and one that has been talked about and planned for for a long time, now it is a reality!
It is focusing on reading for those students who want to get the extra help and raise their reading scores, but if space is available any student up to 6th grade (I'm not too sure about the grade)that is interested can enroll. There is a limit of 30 students that can take the class which two certified teachers split between themselves for about an hour and half, two times a week. I peeked into one this past thursday and boy those students were working intensely, I was so encouraged to see the number of students attending and how hard they were working. It is a good thing happening in our school.

Another week gone by

Waqaa to you all,
Looks like the snow is here to stay! A few snow machines are riding around town. The ponds and lakes are freezing up, but many boats are still going out to the ocean to hunt for seals. We have three types of seals here: bearded seal, harbor, and spotted. So far I've worked on harbor seals, (especially preferred for the oil)and many bearded seals have been landed in over this past week.
I applied for a part-time teacher aide job at the school and started last thursday. It is a big change of what I used to do (7 hrs. of back to back classes, K-12)to working with a few students at a time. It is good for me right now, so I can still concentrate on my schooling. I can't believe that the semester is half over, it seems we just started classes not too long ago.
I hope all of you are doing good with school work, I'm still trying to finish ed 330 project, I'm aiming for next week. OK, that's all for now, talk to you all later, Have a good week!

slideshow of Scammon

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Hi, Here's my slideshow of Scammon. The photos were all taken by myself or a family member. I hope you enjoy it

What's happening

Hi everyone, I hope you all are doing well. I'm OK, just wish I was all caught up with all my classes, I've been very busy taking care of birds.(plucking, cutting, bagging), I did almost 20 so far since Friday, have about 9 or so left. The wild game that are caught have to be taken care quickly or they will ruin.
The snow has fallen! It has stayed so far for about three days now, but I think it will melt. That's all I have for now, Have a Good week.

panraven storybook

http://panraven.com/mylife/ViewStory.epage?sp=103394

I think this storybook would be appropriate for any age (K-12) and adults that want to learn more about rural communities and/or a native culture.

new season approaching

We had our first snow fall this Friday. Although it did not stay, It made many people especially children excited. As the season changes, so does the subsistence activity, now the snow geese are focused on by many men. They work hard to get to them, but year after year, they look forward for their arrival. Even they don't get many on a trip, they keep going whenever possible. I think my husband brought home a total of seven last fall, for the year. Snow geese are a prized delicacy meal once they are plucked.

Many people, especially girls and women are lining the banks of the river and slough to pull in tom cods, a small fish about 12" long. When a person gets enough, they are gutted, strung, and hung to dry, they are also edible frozen or boiled.

And as the season progresses other animals, plants will be sought after.

Sneak peak on Scammon

I thought I'd write something up about Scammon before I do a sildeshow. This way you all will have more info. about the village I live in.
Scammon Bay (Marayarmiut) is settled at the foothills of the Askinuk Mountains. The people who relocated the village moved to a higher ground because of flooding in the previous place which is about a mile east from here. The population is approximately 500 or more and still growing.
The main places that people are employed all year long are the tribal and city governements, the school, clinic, and the corporation. Seasonal jobs include firefighting, city projects, and commercial salmon fishing. Although many families earn their income through a year round or seasonal job, almost every household depend on harvesting from the land and sea. There are a few who depend on gov't assisstance, but someone from each household goes out hunting and fishing. Although the gas prices are at their highest, 4.78/gal. it doesn't stop them from going out.
The new K-12 school, which is about three years old now has about 300 students that go through the doors every week for 180 days out of the year. The staff includes 16 certified, six of whom are from Scammon and about eight classified classroom aides. The HeadStart has 17-20 children ages 3-5 enrolled (centerbased) and there are many that considered homebased (due to no space in the center, ususally younger ones). It is operated through AVCP, organization based in Bethel.
There are two main stores (all grocery) here and two smaller businesses that sell snacks, rent movies, and provide game equipment (pool tables) for anyone interested (mostly teenagers hangout there). Two churches, catholic and covenant are pastored by people who are from out of town.
The main sport that people are mostly interested here is basketball. Our Highschool boys and girls have been contenders in our district for a long period of time, going to state meets almost every year (girls), but this year they have been moved up to 2A, because of high enrollment numbers in the highschool. We will see how this year goes.
There are just a handful of elders left here in our community. And all of them speak fluent Yup'ik, while the younger people are not. So many times we have to interpret for our own people, which is very sad. The fluent speakers range in the age range of 35-40 on up. Although the school provides a bilingual program, we cannot depend on it alone to keep our language going. It is up to parents and grandparents to teach it to their kids/grandkids.
I hope you get a little idea of Scammon, but if you'd like to know something, just ask, if I know the answer I'll tell you.

confused blogger

Hello fellow students and professor,
The weeks are passing by very quickly. I forget to enter a weekly blog before or on a Sunday. I wish the computer could remind me by flashing a message before the deadline of due entries, wouldn't that be nice? I just need to keep organized, I guess (trying to do many things at once).
Moose hunting season, black and cranberry season are coming to a close, but many people are fishing for tom cods, seal hunting, and bird hunting. It is still raining and blowing but a few breaks allow people to go out and do what they need to do.
I tried uploading photos for my panraven storybook, but it took too long I canceled. Is there a faster way to upload photos? It took about 2 hrs.or more to do 5 pics at a time. (I hope I will remember the steps to complete successfully). I'll keep trying.

Subsistence and School

Subsistence is School

Our school here in Scammon excuses students and staff to go out subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering. Although there are no number of days given that will be counted excused the homeschool coordinator says that she will push for setting a number of days this year. She mentioned 5 days as "enough", any more than that is "too much missed days." This is for the students, as for teachers they have a given number of days of leave that they've accumulated and that's what they use.

For now, our school does not have a fixed plan on make up work. It is totally between the teacher and student.(There might be one, I just briefly spoke w/homeschool coordinator about this.)

Our school does not operate around our subsistence way of life. It begins around late Aug., break for Christmas and end in early part of May.

I wish it would operated around our subsistence way of life, this would teach students and new staff where/what/how to hunt/fish/gather during a certain time of the year (season). For within our culture to subsist is to survive. Subsistence is a huge part of our culture.

Staff who take out their student to do some kind of subsistence activity incorporate certain content areas like science, math into their curriculum, but when parents pull out their child(ren) to subsist it may be something that the student and teacher work out to make up missed work.

If we teach our students to survive, we are teaching them a "real life" skill and now-a-days that's what schools are pushing for, aren't they?

Technology Trouble

Hello Friends!
It's been a while since I got on line, so many obstacles to overcome to keep in touch with all of you.You guys are important to me.
Without technology what are we to do? We (I know I have) come to depend on the internet system for everything I do. For one lllooonnnggg week I felt soo helpless without the internet services that have become an important part of everyday life. My everyday life for now are the classes I'm taking this semester, and for each one of them I have to get on line. Man, you guys dont' know how good it is to be reading your entries and "feeling" like I'm in touch again.
I don't know how long the village will be out, but I am able to use the schools computers to some work. It's kind of scary and sad to realize that I have become so depended on technology, but it is mostly good. :)

New school year begins

Hi everyone, I finally am able to sign into blogger. (I knew I'd forget my password). I hope everyone's doing well. It was really nice to be able to be in the same class with all of you, the environment was great.

The New school year has begun for our K-12 school. Both returning and new staff are well on their 2nd week of instruction. I am hoping the school year will be productive and positive for all who attend and work there. We've had teachers (especially highschool) that have changed almost on a yearly basis, makes me wonder about the progress of our highschool students,but I'm hoping it will be different this year. I'm hearing great things about the leadership so far.

The weather has been great, it's like summer is finally here, but sad to say that it's mostly gone. It really has gone by fast. The first cross-country meet was held here this past Saturday with neighboring villages, Hooper and Chevak participating. It was great to see the young people's energy bubbling all over town. Our H.S. boys and girls did very well.

I hope all is going well for all of you, it's good to read about what's happening in your part of the world.

Intensive week reflection

Wow, this week went by pretty fast. I really enjoyed the class because we actually did assignments and learned the steps. I just hope I will remember all the steps to each program. The inspiration, I think is a really useful tool to use anytime. Learning about blogger and flickr's capabilities was interesting and fun. Talk about fun, the movie, book, and slide were exciting to do. I plan to do more with them in the near future.
I know when the actual time to doing the assignments come up I'll have questions, but you all were so patient and helpful, for I'm still learning about the computer and what it can do. My main problem when doing assignments is finding where to go. While here I've learned on a Mac now when I return home, I'll have to re-learn on a different computer that kind of scares me.
As long as the steps of the assignments are posted I think I'll make it. But it's been a fun week, good stuff to know as teachers huh?

Here are two pictures of my family and my baby and her cousin. I had problems uploading more photos.



Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Learning two new programs

I enjoyed learning (not totally proficient) about the two programs that we used yesterday. On the power point program- I am still learning how to use it (mainly finding where to find tools). I've used it last semester but on windows, when I thought I got the hang of it, I'm using a different computer (a more updated one). I think it will definitely be useful in the classroom for teachers and students when they want to show and tell, share personal experiences, pictures that won't be necessarily available in a certain time. (show summer plants, animals, and activities during the winter months.)
The inspiration program will help in organizing subjects or in teaching "how to". The tools are amazing and useful, I think students would find it more interesting and an appealing way to learn. Excellent programs to know how to use.
The only downfall would be for me to become comfortable to use and teach it, practice, practice, practice.

Seasonal subsistencing in Scammon

Every season brings in a new subsistence activity. At this time we are busy picking salmon berries. Every household picks about 40-50 gallons per year to last throughout the winter. Salmonberries are mostly picked and used in akutaq (eskimo icecream).