Back in Fairbanks...

As a conclusion to the blog...

We are back in Fairbanks after a long day of flying and layovers. We spent a total of 7+ hours in the Bethel airport yesterday... and it's definitely just one room. Luckily, they did have TV and the Food Network channel, which we watched for at least 3 hours. We finally got to Anchorage and had another 6 hour layover, and Dustin decided to tag along with my to see my family and friends (what a trooper he is. I think within 6 hours he learned more about my family and my high school than any Whitworth college friend ever knew). My lovely friend Kelsey brought us back to the airport and we arrived promptly at 12:40am.

I wish I could say today is my day of rest, because it should be, but I have to catch up on all the work I didn't do for UAF this last week. Yuck. Better get to it.
-Giselle

Dustin's Last Post

Well it is Friday evening in St. Mary’s and the week has definitely flown by. I spent the last few days teaching most of the middle/high school math classes. As the Alaska Standards Based Assessments draw nearer, this week’s math classes were completely focused on review of content relevant to the exams. Although our reviews can be repetitive at times, the kids have really been hanging in there and participating in lessons. When all is said and done, I hope that the students do well and see the fruits of their labor.

While it has been fun working with the kids in school, I’ve also been fortunate enough to have some nice opportunities to interact with people outside the context of math test preparation. After school on Thursday, I played a two-on-two game of basketball with three students who I have been working with in school. Basketball is a really big deal out here; it is by far the most popular sport that the kids play. Although I haven’t really played any basketball since I was in secondary school, I somehow managed to sink a few shots. Mostly as a result of my teammate’s skills, however, we ended up winning 21 to 16. The game was fun, but exhausting. I haven’t jumped that much in a long time!

At the end of school today, St. Mary's School had their 3rd quarter awards assembly. All of the students (K-12) gathered in the bleachers of the gym. Awards were given for behaviors ranging from citizenship to academic merit. After a week of working with the students in this challenging environment, it was inspiring to see the support and recognition given to exceptional students that help make St. Mary's a quality school in rural Alaska.

So, due to some unseen twists and turns, we will be heading back to Fairbanks tomorrow (Saturday) instead of Tuesday. This week went by more quickly than I could have imagined and surprisingly, I’m not yet ready to leave. It would have been nice to spend the weekend exploring the area and meeting more people, but its back to Fairbanks after all.

I am truly thankful to the great people of the St. Mary’s community; I really enjoyed my time out here!

---Dustin

Friday's Art Show!

Art Show Reception after school.

 It's the first Friday of April and St. Mary's had a First Friday Opening! After a long day of preparation, the small art show came together quite nicely, and I even had a minute or two to add some finishing touches before the end of the school day. I only taught half a day of art, and the rest of the afternoon was devoted to set up. Utilizing the idea from North Pole, I hung the art work on black butcher paper banners in the library and on tables. I also typed up small signs to explain each project to the parents and teachers.

After the art show was over, I felt like I had run a marathon (or since I have never actually run a marathon, I felt like what I imagine it would feel like). I cleaned up all the art supplies that were laying scattered about the school and the office I had been given to work in and headed back up to the high school.

....Meanwhile....
The superintendent informed us that he thought it would be better if we left St. Mary's this weekend, since next week is testing (which is very important to these rural schools: AYP (annual yearly progress)= money. He encouraged us to change our flight, so Dustin waved his magic MVP card and got our flights changed to tomorrow with no fee. We leave tomorrow morning at 9:30am for Bethel and will be back to Fairbanks before dinner.

We still get to enjoy one last meal with teachers before we leave! All the young teachers (all three of them), invited us to our last dinner in St. Mary's. After that, we'll pack, sleep, and zip off to the air-strip in the morning.

It's been a great week. I have grown in my confidence as an elementary teacher, and student manager. I have also really warmed up to the idea of doing Artists-in-the-schools state-wide so I can go out to more villages and do fun art projects/clinics. Because truly, I think all my summer visits to Tenakee Springs as a child made my heart happy in a small quaint village/town setting. I enjoy being about to walk to the store and the post office, and wave to everyone on the street, and have all the children know my name. It's quite nice.

6th graders helped me make a poster for the show.

Kindergarten Table.

Watercolor paper collages.

Sarah, if you're looking through these, this is the project I wrote up inspired by your "Loretta." I had them paint paper and rip it up to make their favorite mode of transportation in the village.

--Giselle

Thursday's "Crazy Woman"

I'm pretty sure I never stopped running today. I literally had no prep or clean up time and was painting with several classes, trying to be as organized as possible, but sometimes my head would be so jumbled I couldn't think straight. I have 6th graders last, and I came in and had to catch my breath. As I did so, one of the girls said, "You're crazy Ms. Stone." "I know," I responded.

High school is doing a very nice job on perspective drawings. They're incredibly visual students. The idea of a 3-D space is very easy for them to see and draw onto the paper. It's been impressive.
Kinders finished their crabs (see cute pictures below... I'm very proud of them), 1st graders finished dinos (I made up that project in about 2 minutes, and that definitely showed in my disorganization today, but the kids had a blast painting and gluing, Every other group is slowly finishing up their projects for the art show tomorrow afternoon.
I'll take pictures tomorrow and post them in the evening.

I was told today that there is an art position in Barrow available... tempting, but I would never do it alone. A whole month of night would be horrible by oneself.

Sunrise before breakfast.

4/5 grade collages-- warm and cool colors.

Kindergarten Hermit Crabs!

Another sweet crab and his decorated shell.

Wednesday's Art Day...

Warm/cool colors in 4th grade...

One-point perspective in high school.

Warm and cool color fields.

Tissue paper landscape collages with the 6th graders.

Today was an even busier day of art in St. Mary's. I had the high school students continue their one-point perspective hallway drawing (which they will finish Friday and put into the art show). The 6th graders are doing my landscape tissue paper collage that I developed for Chinook, and it worked quite well! I'm looking forward to doing this lesson again in Fairbanks. The 4/5 kiddos are painting color fields of warm and cool colors that will eventually be a collage, the 2/3 kids also prepared collage paper using crayons rubbings on different textures, the 1st graders enjoyed a day of dinosaurs (read a little book and drew dinosaurs, then did crayon rubbings over the top to look like dino skin), and the Kinders are slowly beginning a HERMIT CRAB! My favorite lesson that I've developed by far. I read them the Eric Carle Hermit Crab book, and they sponge painted a watery background of blue and greens and painting a small page orange, which they will cut their crabs from tomorrow. They will also decorate a hermit crab shell tomorrow too.

Had moose steaks last night and moose fajitas on the menu for tonight at one of the teacher's homes.... moose, moose, moose.

I have no time for homework because of prep and dinner--- I'm cutting out 22 hermit crab shells for the Kinders to decorate and crab templates for them to trace.
---Giselle

Day 3: First Full Day of Art

Teaching Kindergarten to find shapes in the teddy bear (preparing for drawing time).

4/5 Students working on color wheels.

First full day doing my rounds of art classes! I decided to start one-point perspective drawings with the high school students this morning. I gave a small powerpoint and when we went out into the hall with drawing boards and rulers and spent the period drawing together. Only 2 of the 4 students showed up for class, which is normal. Those two will just have finished drawings by the end of the week and the others will have to rush a bit more.

I went through each elementary grade throughout the day teaching 45-minute lessons. I did short drawing lessons with the K, 1, and 2/3 and then did color theory/color wheel lessons with the 4/5 and 6th graders. With sixth grade we explored seasonal colors in St. Mary's and talked about the different emotional value color can have... they were also a lot more interested in my personal life (definitely middle schoolers!)

I got to skype with Mel last night and Michael this afternoon (two wonderful Whitworth U friends), so if you'd like to skype, I'll probably be on every afternoon after 3:30ish... or we can schedule a weekend chat.

For now... it is nap time. I'm tired. The wind was blowing hard today, which is not very pleasent walking to and from the elementary school and high school, but a good experience I suppose. My cheeks are red from the cold and wind.

Dinner tonight with the Principal-- so I got to rest up.
Giselle

Road down to the river from the high school. Main residential area.

Day 2 (Dustin)

Dustin on the Andreafski River in front of St. Mary's.

The first day with students... I began in the computer lab while high school math students while they took some short practice tests for the upcoming SBAs. I’m looking forward to future days when I’ll be working more closely with the math students. In fact, tomorrow I get to teach a lesson on logarithmic equations to the Algebra II students who have already passed the High School Graduation Qualifying Exams.

During lunch, the science teacher offered me the opportunity to teach a little review lesson to his 8^th grade science students. The subject was basic “science math” and we did things like operations with scientific notation. Considering the tedious subject, the students were surprisingly engaged and about half of them were ready to shout out their answers for each problem!

After school, Giselle and I headed down to the AC convenience store and got some basic amenities: frozen pizza, zucchini, and a mango. Since St. Mary’s is so far removed any Alaskan cities, we were both surprised to see a selection of about 20 different fruits and vegetables. So, we took advantage and had a semi-fresh dinner.

To document our AC experience (Photo by Giselle)

--Dustin

Day 2: Ready, set, prep! (Giselle)

I just quite possibly had the busiest prep day of my life. My day began with a breakfast with the elementary kids in the gym, then 1st period of art in the high school. The high school art class has four students (and they all showed up, which I heard was unusual). The teacher, who was very kind, showed me the art supplies and then asked, "so what are you thinking about teaching today?" Woo-hoo!! Right off the get-go. Luckily, they had been working with tissue paper, and I have been doing that as well, so it worked out alight. It was a very brief demonstration-- me setting up glue and brushes and demonstrating painting techniques simultaneously.

High School art class this morning.

After the hour of high school, I went down to the elementary school. The principal introduced me to each elementary grade teacher and then talked to me about schedules. I will be teaching 45-minute art classes to every grade (2/3 combined, 4/5 combined) every day. AND, he wanted an art show of what we did in all the classes set up for the Friday afternoon assembly! I was forewarned that I would be busy, so I wasn't too surprised. I set off to prepping lessons for every grade-- I made sketch books for Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders. I created color wheel worksheets, cut copious amounts of construction paper and read through children's books in the library. Thankfully, I already had some multi-day lessons prepared for Chinook (the Fairbanks Montessori) that I could try out with the 4/5 graders and the 6th graders... so they're good to go.

Of course then there's the searching for supplies. That was half the battle. But by the end of the school day, after having individual meetings with each teacher about their students and their curriculum, I felt somewhat ready for Day 1 of elementary art, which will be tomorrow.

Snow machines outside the elementary school-- the main transportation of the village.

St. Mary's 1st graders have reading time in the hall.

My next challenge this evening is to plane for the high school class. The teacher really wants them to do sculpture, I tried to explain I'm a little less creative in the 3-D design/sculpture area, but I will brainstorm. I think I'm just going to have them do Zen-tangles trees tomorrow morning. Easy, fun and cool results.

--Giselle

More photos from today...

The tech guy at the school came up this evening and hooked up our computers to the wireless network and now I can upload pictures from today... just a view good ones.

-Giselle

I should make Era pay me for this photo.

Little dancer.

In flight.

Welcome to St. Mary's

I made it alive!

Our trusty bush plane from Bethel to St. Mary's.

Day 1

It’s Dustin…

Our day of travel was certainly more eventful than I imagined it would be. During a four-hour layover in Bethel, Giselle and I were taken to town by a very thoughtful school official and we went to the C’amai dance festival at the Bethel Secondary School. The festival was a full-weekend event that was clearly popular among the citizens of Bethel. We saw a wide range of dance acts indeed including traditional Yup'ik dance, Vietnamese Hmong dancers, and even a hip-hop-style stomp routine. The school was filled with all sorts of friendly community members; the event was lively and I wish we could have stayed longer.

However, we took one of Bethels many cabs (we were told it has more taxis per capital than any city in the country) back to the airport and hopped in a Cessna. From Bethel, we had an exciting low-altitude ride out to Mountain Village and then here to St. Mary’s. As soon as we landed, the principal from St. Mary’s picked us up and gave us the grand tour of the surrounding area. The village is about six miles from the airport and sits on right on a hill overlooking the lower Yukon River. We were driven around the village and led through both the elementary and high school buildings. The schools have very nice classrooms, exercise facilities, and they each have a great computer lab as well. I’m really looking forward to meeting the kids tomorrow when they come in.

Mountain Village Tribal Dancers at the Cama'i Festival in Bethel!

A Mountain Village family being picked up at the airstrip.

St. Mary's from the airport road.

-DN

Made it to St. Mary's!

Giselle here--

After an afternoon in Bethel at the Cama'i dance festival, and a rousing one hour plane ride in the smallest plane I've ever flown in, Dustin and I have made it to St. Mary's. We were picked up by the St. Mary's principal, who drove us the 6 miles in from the airport to the actual town of St. Mary's. We got a quick tour of the schools, and have been deposited at the high school, where we will be residing for the week. Dinner tonight consists of fruit (we brought lots of it), fruit leather, luna bar and yogurt-covered pretzels (a Giselle dinner, of course). We were invited over for moose steaks and salmon on Tuesday at the Principal's home, so I look forward to tasting a little of home that night.

Our plane ride was exciting, to say the least. I felt a little more at ease when the pilot said he used to work for Wings in Juneau. This weather is a piece of cake to fly in compared to float planes in SE. Throughout the whole ride we watched miles and miles of flat tundra run below us. It was completely white outside--- flat, white ground and a while cloudy sky. We touched down for a view minutes in Mountain Village (a small village about 20 miles north of St. Mary's) to drop off two passengers, and then made our way back down river.

So...we're safe, have a place to sleep, meeting with teachers tomorrow, and have enough yogurt-covered pretzels to last us the entire week.

Pictures to come soon when I find a way to get my computer onto the wireless (I need a password). I'm currently using the school computers.

More soon,

G

Fresh Produce and Starbucks.

And we're off. We made it to the Anchorage Airport, produce in hand and plenty of homework to do while sitting here and waiting for our flight to Bethel. I'm pretty sure we have about a 4 and a half hour wait in Bethel, so I'll have lots of time to do work that need to get done before the end of the year. Dustin and I are literally flying by the seat of our pants, as we realized this morning on the plane that we don't even know who is supposed to pick us up from the Airport in St. Mary's... or we don't know any names of the St. Mary's teachers. BUT, I did here, from a friend who has a friend out trapping in St. Mary's that the Discovery Channel is in St. Mary's!! Why? I have no idea, but maybe I'll manage to meet the camera crew and make a cameo on some Alaskan Discovery Channel series.
We were told to being produce (which we have a lot of, a whole cooler full to be precise) but we're not sure how we're supposed to distribute it. My small travel sheet tells me to "offer it to the village" but who do we offer it to? Dustin was envisioning us standing on the side of some road passing out fruit to children running around the streets... which actually might be realistic. I remember being in my first true village, Angoon, Alaska, and the children were running all over the place. I guess Tenakee, AK is similar too... except everyone that lives there is either an aging Juneauite, or a young hippy family.
We fly on an Alaska plane over to Bethel, and then on a Penair flight to St. Mary's.

More later---
Giselle

FYI...Quick Facts About St. Mary's

Some information for you all about St. Mary's...

- Population: 549 (2002 est.)
- Located on the north bank of the Andreafski River, 5 miles from its confluence with the Yukon.
- 450 air miles west of Anchorage.
- Temps range from -44 to 83 F
- Economy is supported by commercial fishing, subsistence activities and trapping.
- An average of 170 Students Elementary through Highschool.

>> Here is a link to the St. Mary's School Website: http://www.smcsd.us/

And of course, Wikipedia is always a faithful way to find information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mary%27s,_Alaska

Preparation for heading out to St. Mary's...

Dustin and I received our travel itinerary this evening for our trip out to St. Mary's this upcoming week. We will be leaving Sunday morning and arriving at the village that night. We leave St. Mary's Tuesday, April 5th for Fairbanks. We know very little about the area or what our experience will look like, but we have been actively trying to brush up our Southwestern Alaskan knowledge and are ready to be flexible. We will come bearing gifts of fresh produce and coffee! Please continue to check up on us. We will be writing at least once a day.

Here is an image from google maps of the location of St. Mary's: 

A beautiful image I pulled off of Google of St. Mary's in the summer, along the river.