10 Things

I finished teaching on Thursday and, because most of the staff is away at professional improvement sessions hither and yon, I am left largely with little that Needs to Happen Immediately, save my own professional development program which involves reading Thomas King (and you don't really need to twist my arm to convince me to read his work) -- and even that is not of great urgency, although it is of great interest.

We've had an overcast few days here in Pond Inlet but the weather promises to be sunny for our Thursday morning departure. I've finished my marking and tidying; Brooke and I are running two more extra-curricular sessions for students who may wish to do fun things like build chairs out of cardboard and boats out of tin foil or make artist trading cards to swap with each other. Beyond that, though, this time here is a curious little buffer between being done with student teaching (forever!) and diving into the job search proper and staring with the for-real teaching.

Still, there is always something worth photographing and, as I inundated you with text sans accompanying photos yesterday, here are some photos sans accompanying paragraphs. Of course, I have concluded the post with a veritable wall of text (in list form!), because it isn't one of my blog entries unless I try to force you to read a million words.

The snowmobile I flipped, which I have named Unexpectedly Speedy.

The splintery wood I to which I added some extra splinters. See that yellow bit? I did that, with the help of Unexpectedly Speedy.

Caribou skin, which I am fairly sure Mother Dog and Puppy were nibbling and/or sleeping on.

A grey day for a delicious brunch, with mountains lit up in the distance.

The best things in life: raw char, an ulu, and lunch break.

Things I am going to miss about Pond Inlet:

1) Unexpectedly Speedy (the snowmobile): Although we had an uneven start, I will miss driving this mechanical workhorse across the frozen sea ice. I wish we had more time together.

2) Bylot Island: Staring at those mountains has become something I do every morning and throughout the day. I am transfixed by them, by the way the light illuminates new shapes and carves out new shadows, by their ever-changing faces.

3) The Sunlight: Once we passed through the blindingly white and chilly sunlight and into warm and yellow and lovely sunlight, the sun, always fascinating, became a source of gorgeous light and warmth. Watching it move through the sky and across the horizon, seeing it gobble up darkness as we progress toward summer, has been magical.

4) Nasivvik High School: I love this place. The staff members are incredible. The students are wonderful. My cooperating teacher is fabulous. The paper room makes me want to weep tears of joy. I've felt so welcomed into this school community and leaving will be (has been!) difficult.

5) Bannock Wednesdays: I don't know how I will be able to make it through another Wednesday morning without Regilee's bannock. My own paltry attempt does not even approach her magical bannock.

6) The Community: The community events, heading down to the Co-Op or the Northern and seeing familiar and friendly faces, developing a sense of the rhythm of the town, saying hello to my students as they drive by on ATVs or snowmobiles or visit the weekend market... I've missed living in a small town and this small town does the sense of community right.

7) The Pragmatism: People here are sensible. Clothes and coats are not for fashion; they're to deal with the weather. Heading out somewhere? Take what you need. Be smart. Be safe. Things can, at first, appear casual -- teachers wearing jeans to school! sweatshirts! heavens! -- but it's all to a point. There is no need to be fancy, to fuss over things that don't matter. The focus on what really matters is, well, beautiful.

8) The Generosity: This may be linked to the pragmatism that abounds here in Pond Inlet, but people are giving and kind. There is a sense that we must, first and foremost, take care of each other. You don't knock on doors here; you enter households because there is no sense in staying out in the cold, not when it's warm and light inside and there's plenty to share.

9) Iceberg Water: How will I ever go back to drinking regular old tap water? I DON'T KNOW!

10) The Students: The students I taught and interacted with have been truly inspiring. They came into class with voices that, although they sometimes needed coaxing out, were well-developed and engaged, especially on issues facing Nunavut and young Inuit today. My students showed up ready to learn, ready to tackle whatever challenges they faced in day-to-day life and to triumph, to be better, to strive for more. I leave inspired by their passion and their capabilities; I leave hopeful for their futures; and I leave so much richer for having known them. Young Nunavummiut make me excited for Nunavut's future!

In short, I'm going to miss a lot of things about Pond. There will be some things that I won't miss (these include primarily the internet speed, waiting-between-water-deliveries water-conservation mode, and also the fact that my wife is not up here with me, very much not in that order! I'd have to put wifelessness first on the list of things I will be glad to put an end to!). On the whole, however, this experience has been so remarkable that I'm not quite sure I can put it into words. It feels like something I'm hesitant to share, something I want to try to keep to myself -- which, of course, this blogging thing has made very much Not Possible (and that's for the best as Rebekah-in-5-Years will enjoy re-reading these very much, I imagine).

I'm going to miss this place and, because I'm leaving so soon and because my teaching has wrapped up, I'm already feeling the missing, even though I'm still here.

But I'll be back at some point to this incredible territory, this time with Kerstin in tow. After all, there are still a significant number of meats to try and I take my list of Arctic Meats to Eat very seriously indeed.

Decolonizing Education

So our internet has taken a turn for the extremely slow tonight, so I'm going to spare you any photographs of mountains and the neat-o picture I took of a caribou pelt and the snapshot I got of the snowmobile that I flipped yesterday and the wooden platform I splintered.

Instead, reader, you have me. Just me and my words.

And I'm afraid I don't even have a great deal to say! Today we headed on up the hill to have brunch with Abbas and Sherry, Dave and Pat's son and daughter-in-law. We came back. I wandered over to look at the leavings of that hunter's work on the ice (this time, having learned from how smelly I made my glove when I poked the seal fat last time and having just gotten said smell out, I used my toe to push it around). I headed back in, watched the weather go by, and thought about what I'm going to do with myself over the next few days.

Tomorrow, it's my continuing self-directed professional improvement programming and some fun events for students who are now on spring break (whether any show up is really the question at hand!). I've been reading Thomas King's The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America. I was fortunate enough to hear Thomas King speak while at St. Thomas University and have been a fan of his work since. And, after happening on an excellent article about decolonizing the education system (thanks, Emily!), I've been on a little personal and professional quest to really do my homework on colonization, education, hegemony, and First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples in Canada.

I've been fortunate enough, in my own education, to have been exposed to the parts of history that often get skipped in public school classrooms (the horrors of the residential schools, the way First Nations soldiers were treated during wartime in Canada, blatantly racist and systemically oppressive government policies, the High Arctic Exiles, among other events that characterize the government of Canada's historically problematic relationship with Aboriginal peoples) and later, in university, post-colonial theory and its place in Canada, Eurocentrism and hegemony, and the politics of social justice and how that framework can play out in the classroom.

And so I've launched my own little study program, building on the foundation I have cultivated throughout my own education. Teaching in Nunavut has helped cement my commitment to examining the politics that are implicit in the education system and that, of course, involves making sure that I've done my research and have solicited and listened to Indigenous voices and perspectives.

In saying that, I'll give today's final word to "Decolonizing Education: Not an Indian Problem" (ie., an summary of a talk given by Dr. Battiste, whose book I will be picking up very shortly):

Dr. Battiste outlined how her work focuses on helping Canadian citizens and pre-service teachers to understand the social context into which Indigenous peoples have been forced, and how this Eurocentric framework found within our educational institutions has created inequities and disparities amongst students and communities, even though out educational system prides itself on being an equitable one. The context within which Aboriginal people endure the educational system is an example of how the Eurocentric framework ensure the myth of superiority of one race at the expense of the well-being of another by creating false concepts of differences, deficiencies, and dependency in comparison to the 'white' defined 'norm.' 

... 

Decolonizing education, significantly not "decolonizing Aboriginal education," points to the fact that we need to reframe our current education system as a whole. It also implies that there is a significant problem with the education system, and it isn't an Indian problem. The Eurocentric framework of education will continue to be problematic: we will not solve inequities, nor injustices, by those means that are currently in practice in our institutions and educational systems.