Teaching in the Alaskan Bush

 

      Welcome to Wales, Alaska (picture taken May 2018, YES it was STILL SNOWING!!!).  This picture is iconic of many northern Alaskan bush villages.  This picture was taken as I was about to depart after my first Alaskan Bush teaching experience.  I had taught in Alaska for 5 months prior 2 years before but had never been in the bush until coming to Wales (BSSD).  I decided to leave for a two main reasons: 1) after spending an entire semester living in the school they told me they couldn't guarantee me the 2 bedroom housing they had promised me before I signed the contract which sent my foster/adoption dreams out the window and strongly pointed me out of the village with it and 2) I found I preferred 1-2 teacher school houses, which is what I taught in on the road in Mentasta, Alaska (AGSD).  While the students were sweet, I chose to sign with Clark's Point (SWRSD) where I would be 1 of 2 teachers and was guaranteed 2 bedroom housing.  After my adventure in Clark's Point where I was a foster parent to 3 siblings, I journeyed back to BSSD to spend 2 years teaching on the remote island a Diomede, a dream that I had ever since living in Wales where I spent and entire school year staring at it from out my classroom window.  

        I can't believe it but after 4 years of teaching in bush Alaska I can fondly say that I've grown to love village life. While at first I found it disappointing (mainly b/c of lack of promised housing and my inability to fulfill my foster care dreams because of it) a change occurred in me where I began to see Alaska not for what it wasn't but instead for what it was.  Let's face it, Alaska isn't a lot of things.  It's not a place where you can volunteer at the animal shelter daily or run to Michael's Arts and Crafts to grab something for your kid's project.  It's not a place where vegetables are readily available in every village (or just plain nonexistent as is the case of Diomede) or where you can go to a local restaurant for a special occasion and if you could they would most likely serve whale or walrus as opposed to anything even remotely vegan.  But, Alaska is a place where you can teach small class sizes in school of ALL SIZES ranging from 1 teacher to 15 teachers (and even more in places like Anchorage and Fairbanks).  Alaska is a place where the pristine environment will have you feeling like you landed in the wasteland when you visit the lower 48 to go home (those states are so polluted compared to our lovely land).  It is a place where you can learn one of hundreds of dialects of different Native Languages and live in a community that identifies the well being of the collective good before that of individual prosperity.  Alaska isn't a lot of things but it is the only place I've found that has all that I've mentioned and somewhere along the way I found a place that while initially ruining all of my dreams, instead allowing others unknown to come to fruition.  

        To any teachers hoping to venture up to the far north to teach I encourage you to embrace a new form of life while remembering that while it may never be reminiscent of yours from the lower 48, it will shine a new light on what education can and should be.  I have lived in Alaska for over 5 years and while the first 2-3 years were wrought with tears and challenges, my time since has been filled with thanks.  Thanks for the bush villages that invite people like me to come enjoy the splendor of their small communities and to teach children in schools were the goal of life is not to run over others while striving to be the best of the best but rather to help each other succeed.  

 

So as you can see from the video one of the windows had it's lovely ocean view blocked the entire spring semester by snow.  It was even like that when I left in May.  The other window was packed so high that in the event of a fire we would have had to resort to tossing kids out the window and having them slide down to the ground below (this is because the entire back door was packed as you can see below).