My perception of what is normal has become so skewed. There is no way that if you had asked me 6 months ago whether or not it was normal for the following things to happen i would have said yes:
a) a high school basketball team to have to practice in a gym made of asbestos
b) the pipes of said gym to burst during practice, flooding the gym and simultaneously freezing over due to lack of heat and negative temperatures
c) my portable to have a dysfunctional heater that turns off at night, causing the entire thing to freeze over so that in the morning the lights don't turn on until an hour after the heater has been restarted and the portable is thawed
d) the smoke detector to go on...relentlessly...for hours, when the heat gets turned on in my classroom because it can't handle the temperature change from -15 to about 40 with the heat on.
e) The district to send home memos to parents warning not about lice or whooping cough but about a rodent born viral infection being spread by infected mice and rats at the schools
f)Students to live as far as 60 miles and more from the school they attend
...And that's not even half of it. Seriously, I couldn't make this sheet up! So yeah, I didn't used to think any of this stuff was normal. But now its like just another old day on the rez. Surprise.
jueves, 3 de febrero de 2011
The Slow Uptake of Life's Goals (in Crownpoint, NM)
I have imagined myself keeping a blog since the beginning of my grand move to the wild west. I thought I could share this experience, teaching high school to Navajo students on the reservation in the Northwestern corner of New Mexico, with everyone back on the east coast. But I just didn't have it in me to sit and write about the stress of a day after struggling through it for 12 and 15 hour days. But now, 6 months, 1 semester of classes, 1 craigslist couch purchase, and 2 snow days later, I am finally ready.
I have had two snow days in a row now, and that apparently is enough rest and recuperation time to actually reflect and document some of what life is like out here. I won't try to retell everything I've lived for the last six months, but I'll make a list of a few standout moments/events/experiences/learnings since everyone likes lists and they are easy to swallow:
1. I work in a portable classroom completely disconnected from school: no PA system, no fire alarm, no bells. At first, i hated it. Now i love that no one can interrupt my class to make dumb announcements. It is a bit irritating that the bell doesn't ring though, I'm almost positive I always let my students out a minute early.
2. Every day I watch students eat "flamin' hot cheetos" and a red bull for breakfast. Yuck.
3. Speaking Spanish in the classroom as much as my teachers did is not easy when you are a native ENGLISH speaker. Is it bizarre that in an area with the highest percentage of Spanish speakers in the US, the Spanish teacher at Crownpoint High is a gringa? yes.
4. Having a student come to a class of 6 kids high makes for a very awkward, very disappointing, tear-inducing episode.
5. There is far more Christianity on this native american reservation than i ever would have guessed but it makes sense when I think about missionary movements and using it to force assimilate the native peoples.
6. In the city, when something is sub standard it is "ghetto." Out here, when things are such, they are "rezzy". For instance, the gym that my basketball girls practice in is referred to as the "outside gym" because it is unheated, has rats, holes in the ceiling and floor, and is made of asbestos. Initially I was inclined to refer to this gym as "ghetto" but now i understand that it is, instead, "rezzy".
7. Coaching basketball is the greatest choice I've made.
8. I have become a master at cooking mush for every meal which usually consists of quinoa or bulgar with veggies mixed in.
9. There is no reason why a 22 year old with no teaching certification should be hired to teach kids that are already being failed by a broken system, but thats what has happened and I am trying my hardest not to let them down any worse than they already have been. Recently a student told me about ordering food from a taco vendor in Spanish and it made me feel SO GOOD. They are learning!
10. The name of this blog and this post: So, I feel like for a long time and still sometimes I'm waiting for "real life" to begin. But at some point you just have to realize, THIS IS REAL LIFE. TODAY IS REAL LIFE. So stop wasting it. Do the things that are meaningful. Live in the moment. Soak it up. Sometimes, the things I want to do that are meaningful get put off because living is really treading water in a sweat-suit and I'm just trying to stay afloat. But now that I'm afloat and I have a stained couch with 2 recliners, I can finally get to goal 1--write a blog. Hopefully it wont require weekly double snow days in order to continue.
Thats all for now folks,
<3 Hatza (yes, all my students and colleagues refer to me by JUST my last name. The ones who I like a lot just call me Hatz. It's like a when dad was little story)
I have had two snow days in a row now, and that apparently is enough rest and recuperation time to actually reflect and document some of what life is like out here. I won't try to retell everything I've lived for the last six months, but I'll make a list of a few standout moments/events/experiences/learnings since everyone likes lists and they are easy to swallow:
1. I work in a portable classroom completely disconnected from school: no PA system, no fire alarm, no bells. At first, i hated it. Now i love that no one can interrupt my class to make dumb announcements. It is a bit irritating that the bell doesn't ring though, I'm almost positive I always let my students out a minute early.
2. Every day I watch students eat "flamin' hot cheetos" and a red bull for breakfast. Yuck.
3. Speaking Spanish in the classroom as much as my teachers did is not easy when you are a native ENGLISH speaker. Is it bizarre that in an area with the highest percentage of Spanish speakers in the US, the Spanish teacher at Crownpoint High is a gringa? yes.
4. Having a student come to a class of 6 kids high makes for a very awkward, very disappointing, tear-inducing episode.
5. There is far more Christianity on this native american reservation than i ever would have guessed but it makes sense when I think about missionary movements and using it to force assimilate the native peoples.
6. In the city, when something is sub standard it is "ghetto." Out here, when things are such, they are "rezzy". For instance, the gym that my basketball girls practice in is referred to as the "outside gym" because it is unheated, has rats, holes in the ceiling and floor, and is made of asbestos. Initially I was inclined to refer to this gym as "ghetto" but now i understand that it is, instead, "rezzy".
7. Coaching basketball is the greatest choice I've made.
8. I have become a master at cooking mush for every meal which usually consists of quinoa or bulgar with veggies mixed in.
9. There is no reason why a 22 year old with no teaching certification should be hired to teach kids that are already being failed by a broken system, but thats what has happened and I am trying my hardest not to let them down any worse than they already have been. Recently a student told me about ordering food from a taco vendor in Spanish and it made me feel SO GOOD. They are learning!
10. The name of this blog and this post: So, I feel like for a long time and still sometimes I'm waiting for "real life" to begin. But at some point you just have to realize, THIS IS REAL LIFE. TODAY IS REAL LIFE. So stop wasting it. Do the things that are meaningful. Live in the moment. Soak it up. Sometimes, the things I want to do that are meaningful get put off because living is really treading water in a sweat-suit and I'm just trying to stay afloat. But now that I'm afloat and I have a stained couch with 2 recliners, I can finally get to goal 1--write a blog. Hopefully it wont require weekly double snow days in order to continue.
Thats all for now folks,
<3 Hatza (yes, all my students and colleagues refer to me by JUST my last name. The ones who I like a lot just call me Hatz. It's like a when dad was little story)
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