Yukon Chatter Bug

Three things Ric Elias learned about himself from his experience being on US Airways flight 1549, the plane that landed in the Hudson River:

1. He’s a collector of bad wines.
2. He has one regret.
3. He has one wish.

Rowan Manahan’s blog Presenting is Simple (It’s just not easy) has a short TED video of Elias speaking.

It’s worth every second.

To witness such brilliance, complexity, and movement in the Hamlet (solo) performance by Raoul Bhaneja is a must. I had the privilege of attending with a group of students this afternoon and am tempted to see the performance again. The whole of it is a piece of dramatic art to the fullest.

The actor uses nothing but his body to perform about 25 characters. Oh! The characters! He flows from one to the next without a blunder; his mastery of movement and voice make it easy for the audience to know who is speaking. No props, no costumes, no special effects. He uses every square inch of the stage and more, he uses every muscle in his face, and he uses every position humanly possible. From whispers to shouts that would wake the dead, the whole beauty of the play comes alive in the first instant and keeps you mesmerized until the end.

So, are you questioning whether to go, or not to go? Please, do yourself a favour, and get your tush in one of the cushy seats. That kind of performance deserves a full house.

Thursday and Friday, January 13 and 14, Yukon Arts Centre, 8pm.

January 15, Haines Junction

Not long ago I attended a mish-mash of storytelling and music at the Yukon Arts Centre, and what drew me there was my favourite storyteller, Ivan E. Coyote, about whom I’ve written before.

At the show, I got my hands on her latest collection of short stories, Missed Her, and as is the usual habit when reading her books, I couldn’t put it down.

Try saying the title out loud, and you’ll soon discover that it sounds like “mister”, which continues with her theme dealing with “fluidity in gender and sexuality, much like Coyote’s previous work.”*

The thread of her stories have a serious message with cringe moments scattered here and there, and they either leave you chuckling or pondering. Or both. Beautiful. Powerful.

And to give you just a little taste of her writing, here are some bits and pieces of language that left imprints for me:

“Ever heard of a place called Pink Mountain? [...] You can get a tire fixed and buy an Alaska Highway hunting knife with a fake bone handle made right there in China…”

“…a narrow hallway humbly covered in decades-old carpet hammered down by thousands of work boots and dress shoes, a worn-out roadmap that directed me to a doorway.”

“The midnight sun stretched the light so far and long that dusk was bent over backward enough to bump into the next day.”

“He was wearing brand new sneakers, so white they caught the sunlight and bounced it right back, bleaching the backs of my eyelids when I closed them.”

“She blurted out her words like machine gun bullets, like she had been rehearsing them for a while, her mouth pursed in a determined little raisin.”

“…trying not to let the tears spill over my bottom lids…”

“I needed a barber. A good, old-fashioned, wait-your-turn-twelve-bucks-take-a-little-off-the-top kind of guy…”

“Their chubby knees scrubbed and squishing out of the tops of sparkling white knee socks.”

And one powerful quote reminded me of a young fella in a school where I subbed a few years ago. He had been teased mercilessly about his gender. And I happened to notice he was in the audience that night:

“I hoped that the new pride he held in his shoulders wasn’t going to be pounded out of him in gym class, or while he tried to learn trigonomometry. I felt sad, but mostly I felt rage. Rage that we are beginning the second decade of the twenty-first century in what is supposed to be one of the most liberal and progressive countries in the world and still we haven’t made our schools safe for kids like him. That something as vital to his future as his education happens in a culture of fear and under the threat of violence.”

As a teacher, I spend April Fools’ Day getting pokes and slaps on the back hard enough to send me into a fit, and I’m not supposed to notice. As I go about my business handing out paper and pencils for our weekly dictation, I hear little whispers, ignore muffled laughs, and notice conspiring eyes throughout the room. In keeping with the French tradition of poisson d’avril, students write notes on fish-shaped paper cut-outs and surreptitiously stick them on the backs of others, so I’m beginning to look like a human fish tree. One note read, “Made in China”.

After dictation, I hand  out a second piece of paper and tell the kids to read all the questions before starting. These are francophone students in an English class, so I tell them that these are very simple instructions designed to evaluate their ability to understand simple English directions, and even if it’s super easy, they should still complete the test.  You know where this is going, I know, but I couldn’t help myself.

It was the old classic:

#1: Read all the questions before beginning the test.

#2-6: Random instructions about drawing shapes in certain corners, underlining this or that. You know the kind.

#7: Now that you have finished reading the test, only do question #1.

In one of my high school classes, we just finished reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so I drew up a list of questions for an open-book pop quiz. No one caught on that I never, I repeat, never give pop quizzes, and I told them so at the beginning of the year.

Again, the first instruction was to read the whole test before beginning to write. The last question was, “Copy any verse from Act V, Scene 1, and do not complete any other question. Rather, work on your assignment that is due for next week.”

At first I wondered how long I should let this go considering we’re using precious in-class time. Then I thought to myself that the questions were good review of what we had learned, so it wasn’t a loss.

Every single student was busy answering review questions from the play.

And this was after I told them twice to read all the questions first, AND after I read the test instructions out loud to them, AND after I listed reasons why they should read it first (jogs your memory so that when you get to the question again, your brain has already been activated…easier to answer…blah blah blah). On second thought, maybe it was the monotonous blah-blah-blah that made them tune me out.

I’m not sure I’m anxious for next year’s poisson d’avril. I have the feeling I’ll get smoked. Yikes!

This one’s for Average Mom.

Les jours de la semaine

On more than one occasion, I’ve heard comments from people saying that they’re not worried about losing their mother tongue because they learned it as a kid and still use it. And that’s the key to keeping their language: they still use it.

I grew up in a French-Canadian household, and unless we had English-speaking guests, we always spoke French at home. Plus, I went to French school most of my life. Still, having grown up in Ontario, I became fluent in English at a very young age. Eventually, I married a Québécois and we moved to Toronto where I worked in a customer call centre for a mutual fund company answering incoming calls on their French line. So, as an adult, I continued to hone my French-speaking skills. In fact, it wasn’t unusual for callers from Québec to ask which part of their province I was from.

Fast forward to my move to Whitehorse where, despite the ease with which a person can live in French thanks to the surprisingly large francophone community, I mostly worked and lived in English. I also went back to school where everything was in English, and I am happily re-married to a WASP. So until recently, I only used my French on occasion. With what result?

It got to the point where, when speaking French, it seemed like I had to search for my words. I felt like I was forgetting expressions that I had always used. And the part that bothered me the most? I was developing an English accent when speaking French. This drove me insane! But more importantly, it drove home the fact that yes, it is very possible to lose your language.

Fortunately, I have had the opportunity to use and improve my French with my current job, and I am more aware of the danger of losing my language. I have never been political about such things as most franco-Ontarians aren’t, but I have a better awareness of how fast I can lose what I have if I don’t take care of it.

To use an old saying: Use it, or lose it.

Therefore, although I didn’t use my French much when I first moved to Whitehorse, I am grateful that I have many opportunities to do so. Because of the push for French language within and outside of Québec’s border, I can order French books, I can work in a French environment, and I can request French services. I don’t usually push this last one, but I do use them when they’re there. For example, when doing my First Aid – CPR courses or when I wrote my GED at Yukon College, I did them in French. For practicums in my studies to become a teacher, twice I applied to work in a French environment and was accepted both times. I figure if I don’t use these services, someday they may not be available to use because of lack of demand. But the most important reason to use your language? Ask any First Nations person in the Yukon, and they’ll tell you that yes, loss of language is very real.

My second year of teaching is well under way, and what a relief it’s been that the learning curve isn’t as steep as last year. I still feel scattered and overwhelmed, but having a year under my belt makes for a much reduced stress level.

For one, I already knew most of my students before the first school bell rang. A huge advantage I have over a regular classroom teacher is that I get to teach my students year after year, so I see them grow in their knowledge and blossom in their language skills. The drawback is that I only get to see them a short period each day, so building rapport is tougher; I don’t get to know them as well as their homeroom teacher.

I’m also familiar with the school’s routines, staff, and layout, which makes navigating the system much smoother. I’m still getting hit by information overload but of a different kind, and I can actually assimilate more of what I’m receiving.

The curriculum is not all new, and I’m starting to get a better feel for what students at different grade levels should be able to do. I know I missed plenty last year and probably will again this year. Things will eventually fall into place…thank God.

Teaching is such a complicated job, and those not in the business really have no clue what it’s all about. They only see the visible part of teaching: students working in class; lessons being taught; workbooks being filled. They don’t see the hours (outside of 8-4) of preparation and marking. There is more that goes on behind the scenes than what is visible. Kind of like the old analogy of a duck looking calm on the surface but paddling like hell underwater.

I’m feeling good about this new venture, which is more than I could say this time last year. Things are getting better.

Well, it’s just about done. Primary students finished last Friday, while secondary students are writing final exams. This year-end winding down offers time to reflect on this past year.

As most of you know, this was my first year of teaching. It had its many challenges, but right there along with these were many successes.

It took a while four months for me to finally feel like I was getting somewhere with one of my primary classes. Some of them hated, hated, hated English. They would have nothing to do with it. Every time I spent time trying to plan a new, fun activity, all I got were sighs and eyes rolling.

Around the half-way point in the year, something just clicked. I haven’t put my finger on it yet, but suddenly they seemed more willing to try new things and get to work. I couldn’t give them enough work; they literally begged for more. They ended the year with a read-aloud of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which they ate up, and I ended the year with a feeling of having succeeded, if nothing else, at getting this keen group of kids motivated in English class.

One of my secondary classes spent a very busy year socializing, getting involved in sports, and socializing some more. Of course, this is what life’s all about at fourteen. When overdue assignments weren’t coming in, I felt like a witch having to put my foot down and threaten to dock some marks. It’s all part of my learning curve too, I’m well aware. Trying to get them to write even a little was like pulling teeth.

At the very end of the year, however, they completely blew me away. They wrote beautiful narratives and essays linked to a class trip, and their stories brought tears to my eyes. The tears had nothing to do with the writing itself, but with the realization of how much they learned about real life on this trip.

I was told by an experienced teacher:

A seasoned teacher gave me advice in my first year of teaching.  She said that in your first year you tend to concentrate on  yourself.  That’s ok.  Do what you need to do to survive.
The second year you concentrate on curriculum. That’s ok.  Do what you need to do to learn where you’re expected to take your students.
By the third year you can then concentrate on the students.  Your students become more real to you; then you can invest in their lives and try to meet needs.

Here’s to surviving my first year!

While attending this year’s Yukon College Convocation ceremony, I was reminded of a little mishap when I attended my own ceremony last year. My mother-in-law, who sent me this clipping, also has a good sense of humour. Unfortunately it took me a year to post it:

In trying to reach my goal of losing 30lbs before my 40th birthday, I joined Weight Watchers and increased the amount of physical activity I do. One of those activities costs nothing, needs no specialized equipment, and can be done anywhere: jogging.

The school in Carmacks hosts the annual Tantalus Ridge Run, and other Yukon schools are invited to take part. There’s a 3k portion for the younger ones and a 5k for the older kids.

The two wonderful teachers in grade 7/8 at our school invited me along with their class to join them in the run. Because I was always busy teaching while groups of kids trained for the run, it was up to me to train on my own time.

I didn’t expect to run the whole race since I hadn’t quite worked myself up to 5k’s by today, the day of the run. But I got three girls in my truck, and while they took care of the tunes, I sipped my coffee and bopped along with them as we drove the North Klondike Highway two hours north, stopping to gawk at members of the Braeburn Elk Herd basking on a hillside along the way. (I love the Yukon!)

It was sweltering hot, but my water bottle kept me hydrated as I started off after the starting signal. The race started on a wooden boardwalk along the Yukon River, then edged its way left on a refreshing trail in the woods where not all the snow had melted yet. The coolness was a welcome sensation halfway through the run. (Another reason to love the Yukon!) Then came the ridge with the hot sun beating down on us. That was the hard part. While someone offered water about halfway, the sun offered my first sunburn of the year.

I’m proud to say that I managed to run the whole race (except for a short hill that was so slippery with mud that I had to hold on to trees to keep from sliding back down).

The most exhilirating part, of course, was near the end hearing my name shouted as I ran across the water-logged lawn to the finish line. I don’t know what my time was, nor do I care. I’m happy I did it! YEAH! The great people of Carmacks had water jugs full and huge bowls of orange wedges waiting for runners finishing the race.

Oh, and did I tell you I’m down 20 lbs?