The end of Tôdoo Zaà

The Tåîchô (Dogrib) word for May is Tôdoo Zaà, which means “month of melted ice along the shore.” There couldn't be a better name / description for this time of year. I can't believe how the city has transformed over the course of these four weeks: when I first arrived, there was snow on the ground and ice on the lakes; today, people are wearing shorts, there are leaves on the trees and the ice has all but melted from the lakes. And of course, the sun keeps on shining later and later (or earlier and earlier)...

I wear my sunglasses at (mid)night. Seriously, this picture was taken at 12:30 a.m. people!

A shorter (because of the long weekend), and eventful, week at WMS: I continued with the grade 8 SmartFocus group, morning runs with the track and field team and after school track and field practice, and taught grade 7 and grade 8 poetry classes.

I also had the opportunity to spend a day with a couple of the grade 6 classes at Moose Camp. As part of the Dene Kede curriculum, WMS students participate in Learning on the Land district culture camps (through the Aboriginal Culture Experience, or ACE, program). Dene Kede facilitators organize these grade by grade camps, which are related to specific Dene Kede themes, follow the Dene seasonal calendar, and use elders as resource people.

This week, all YK1 grade 6 students participated in Moose Camp to learn about traditional preparation and uses of moose. Located just outside of Dettah (across the bay from Yellowknife), the camp was led by Bobby Drygeese, who is from Yellowknife Dene First Nation, was born and raised in Dettah and lives the traditional way of life.

After a half hour bus ride to the trail head, we were greeted by Sheila, the camp coordinator. After a quick review of what to do in the case of a bear sighting (gather together and make ourselves look as big as possible, no sudden movements) we hiked into camp.

Hiking into Moose Camp

Moose camp. The moose hide we'll help prepare is in the foreground.

Throughout the day, students participated in five activities or stations (making bannock, helping to prepare moose hide, preparation of a muskrat fur, taking a nature walk, and preparation of a beaver hide) led by elders.

I went with the first bannock group, because since coming to YK I have realized that I am in love with bannock and want to try making it myself.

The amazing Adeline makes baking bannock look easy. Her mother's trick: don't measure the ingredients.

Students also tried their hand at preparing a moose hide - and all came away realizing the amount it work that goes into it. 

WMS students work with elders to prepare the moose hide for tanning. It will take two weeks to prepare this hide.

On the nature trail Bobby showed students how to cut down a tree and...

Bobby explains how a tree can indicate which way is north and which way is south.

... gave the students the task of working together to carry the tree back to camp.

WMS students carry a tree back to camp.

Students also had the opportunity to see the first step of hide preparation.

Preparing the beaver hide.

It was great to spend time with the grade 6s outside of the classroom in such a beautiful place.

My hours for this week were:
Tuesday and Wednesday: 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 a.m.
Thursday: 8:15 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Friday: 8:15 a.m. to 3:15 a.m.

For my last weekend in YK, Claudine and I went on a tour of Buffalo Airways, which is also the set of Ice Pilots NWT. A friend from my old film and TV days is a writer and director on the show, and helped arrange the visit. For those unfamiliar with Ice Pilots, it's a reality documentary series that follows the happenings at Buffalo Airways, an airline based in YK. Buffalo flies vintage WW II-era propeller planes year round (including extreme conditions) to remote communities in the Canadian North.

In the hangar of Buffalo Airways.

Buffalo Airways was founded in 1970 by northern aviation legend "Buffalo" Joe McBryan, who began his career over 50 years ago as a bush pilot.

In the background: the DC-3 (c. 1930) - also known as the "Gooney Bird" - makes return flights from HayRiver to Yellowknife Monday through Friday.

The cockpit of the DC-4.

Inside the DC-4.

Joe's dog Sophie keeps guard (well... sort of... she may just be suntanning).

(And yes, we did meet Joe, who came up to us and asked, "Who are you?")

Then is was off to a workshop at Old Town Glassworks, a workers run co-op that has been in operation since 1994. Founder Matthew Grogono started Glassworks as a way to remove waste glass from the landfill (in YK 300,000 glass bottles are put into recycling each week -  a lot for a town with a population of 19,000).

Inside Old Town Glassworks.

Old Town Glassworks cuts bottles, grinds rims and each piece (drinking vessels, vases, bowls, jewelry) is individually polished, stencilled and sandblasted by hand. In the workshops, members of the public can stencil and sandblast their own pieces of glass.

It was interesting to see how the vessels are made and that the machines that cut, grind and polish are also made of reused and recycled parts. For example, the machine that grinds the glass rims is constructed from a 1950s clothes washing machine.

Our glasses before...

Pretty, but boring.

... with the northern design stencils...

... being sandblasted....

I don't know why, but this kind of reminds me of the TV series Lost.

... and the finished product!

We made this! The blue one is mine.

Speaking of the finished product - I can't believe my internship at WMS is almost over and this is my last week in Yellowknife. I wish I could spend more time here, but there's more studying to be done... next week I'll be doing my Tribes training and studying and planning for my TA position on the Ancient World Odyssey trip to Turkey, Greece and Italy with MEI Academy, an international school based out of Caledon and part of the Upper Grand District School Board.

Where the bison roam....

In my last blog entry, I wrote that the WMS students had just written the DWW, a YK1 district wide writing assessment for students in grades 1 through 8. Friday afternoon was a SIP (School Improvement Planning) professional development day for teachers and this time was allotted to evaluate all of the WMS DWWs. I was a part of this process, working with an EA to assess the work of a grade 6 class - a great opportunity given my interest in research and assessment and as I've never had the opportunity to work on any sort of school wide or district wide assessment.

Although I did have a chance to read through the class writing before the Friday afternoon marking session, we still took the time to read each personal narrative out loud and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each piece before filling out the rubric. For the DWW rubric, we would mark students with a 1, 2, 3 or 4 (with 3 being at grade level) only. In my practicums, I'd been been marking with a + or -, and I found it challenging not to have this option. I like the process of moderated marking and it was valuable for me to see how the rubric was filled out in terms of being able to track student progress from September to January to May.

In my J/I English class at OISE, we (the teacher candidates) spent a lot of time discussing how to best assess student writing. What came out of these conversations with my classmates - who all love reading and writing and want to pass this love along to their students - was the challenges of evaluating writing, particularly creative writing. Is it possible to accurately assess writing with a rubric? Is it better to give descriptive feedback? Perhaps a little of both? If writing is about taking risks (which we all agreed it is) and a student takes a risk and does not succeed, should that student be penalized? My professor for that course once said that if we were unsure about what mark or grade to give (if we were struggling with whether to give a student a 2+ or a 3-, for example), we should give the student the benefit of the doubt. This really resonated with me and I think it is good advice for assessment (and other teacherly things as well). I love reading and talking about student writing. Although I think I can read a piece and quickly sumise its strengths and weaknesses, I find it difficult to mark with a rubric. I wonder if, with more experience and / or more exposure to student writing, I'll struggle less with this kind of assessment.

Speaking of writing, there were still more tests at WMS. Early this week, grade six teachers were busy preparing students to write the AATs - Alberta Achievement Tests (the Northwest Territories use the Alberta provincial tests). French immersion students wrote two versions of the AATs - one in English and one in French. I assisted with the English Language Arts portion of the test, in which students wrote two pieces - a fictional story and a functional (newspaper) article. I think there will be a team that assesses these tests, but I'm not sure if this will take place during my internship.

In between classes.

Some other highlights and thoughts:

• Music concert at Sir John Franklin High School. This year I've only been in elementary or middle schools, so it was great to be able to visit a high school - the students seem so grown up! One of the things that struck me during the concert was that one music teacher led all three bands that performed that day (the concert band, the rock band and the jazz band). Each band practices for 90 minutes each week and this drove home the point of how much time and dedication it takes for teachers to run extra-curricular activities or groups, but also how essential and valuable these are to students and the student experience. 
• I had set up a couple of math and science classes to observe, but the teacher was sick and with the AATs things got switched around a bit. I'll try again this week.
• My morning runs and afternoon practices continued for the track and field team despite a week of  wind and rain (it actually snowed one day)!

WMS hours this week:
Monday and Friday: 8:15 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Tuesday: 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Wednesday: 8:15 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Thursday: 8:15 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Around town: armed with advice from the WMS Social Studies teacher and the front page of the Yellowknifer, the Victoria Day weekend included several outings / activities:

First, it was over to Fred Henne Territorial Park, one of the amazing territorial parks in the Yellowknife region, to cheer on the brave folks taking part in the Polar Plunge - an annual event that raises funds in support of the Special Olympics NWT. While Claudine and I were safely and dryly ensconced on the dock, teams of people dove and swam into the icy waters (and when I say icy I mean it - most of the lake was still covered in ice). Below a video... and please excuse my sniffling throughout - it was cold out there!

Taking the plunge!

Claudine takes photos of the Polar Plunge... and yes, that's ice covering the lake.

Then, it was on to search for bison. Despite all of the promising road signs along Highway 3....

we had to get close to Behchoko before...

Beautiful and amazing.

I finally had dinner at Bullock's Bistro in Old Town. This "fish shack" is famous for its generous portions, laid back atmosphere (people write their names on the walls) and terrible service (although the service was pretty good the night we went... must have been an off night). I had the arctic char. Grilled. So very very delicious.

I'm not one to take pictures of my meals, but just look at this!

I made another visit to the amazing Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, this time for a lesson in beadwork, where I learned that I need to take more lessons in beadwork. Some people were really fast at beading... me, not at all. Such challenging and intricate work!

I also checked out the Sapsucker Birch Syrup Sugar Shack Open House and partook in birch butter, birch syrup, birch tea, bannock and apple fritters.

The trail to the Sapsucker Birch Syrup Sugar Shack.

Enjoying the Sugar Shack!

Collecting birch sap.

Bannock on a stick: baking bannock over an open fire and then smothering it in birch butter is the bomb.

Finished off the long weekend hiking the Cameron Falls Trail in Hidden Lake Territorial Park. The trail takes you over rocks of the Canadian Shield that were shaped by glaciers around 10,000 years ago.

It doesn't look like it here, but this part of the trail is quite steep.

Inukshuk on the trail to Cameron Falls.

Beautiful Cameron Falls.

In other news, I can now make my way around town quite easily and have been able to get to the Co-op grocery store without assistance. Regarding the issue of sleep or lack thereof, my newest strategy is making myself as physically tired as possible (this usually involves the Morning Wake Up run, a run with the track and field team after school and then off to the gym to jump rope, take a class or run on some sort of gym machine) so I fall asleep in spite of what I consider to be a daytime sky at night.

Here comes the sun...

Another busy week at WMS!

I started running with the track team during Morning Wake Ups - a great program which gets students active and focused before the start of classes through 20 minutes of daily physical activity at the beginning of each day. Since I have the "sweeper" role for this activity, it's more of a run / walk situation than a run proper, but it's fun to be outside in the morning with the kids. I'm helping out with the track and field team after school on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Doing As, Bs and Cs with the WMS track team. It may not look like it here,
but there was a biting northern wind blowing through YK on this day. Brrr.

This week, the students worked on the District Wide Write (DWW) - a Yellowknife Education District No. 1 (YK1) writing assessment for students from grades 1 to 8. Written three times a year (the May assessment is the third and final instalment) the DWW provides a diagnostic tool for teachers to help target instruction, as well as a means to track student growth and improvement. This year, the genre for the DWW is personal narrative. I feel fortunate to be able to see this roll out while I'm at WMS. Next week, I'll be part of a team of teachers who will work together to evaluate the DWWs through moderated marking.

Jobmatics' Smart Focusing, an initiative supported by Northwest Territories Education, Culture and Employment (ECE), also started this week. It's another one of the programs at WMS geared to adolescent learners and it looks like I'll be able to see this program run in its entirety during my internship. The program helps grade 8 students reflect on their own skills and provides tools, skills and strategies for work and learning. I'm particularly interested in how the program will position the current work environment to students (where most people will work at, or in, more than one career over the course of their working lives).

I always think of education and creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson's excellent 2006 TED talk, "School is Killing our Creativity," in which he observes that educators and education specialists do not know what jobs will look like in five years, let alone 50. We cannot predict how work, culture and technology, the environment and the economy will change. Sir Robinson suggests that, in this ever and quickly changing world, what we can do is give students the tools and models for comprehending and navigating change. This means cultivating our student's inherent sense of creativity and curiosity.

I'm probably sounding like a broken record, but there's a lot going on at WMS! Highlights from this week include: 

• teaching a review of figures of speech (hyperbole and personification) to a grade 8 class who are in the middle of a poetry unit and about to embark on writing their own poetry.
• learning how to play Dene Hand Games in physical education class. The grade 8 and grade 6 students were very patient with me as they tried to teach me this game. 
• connecting with the school's guidance person about my interest in counselling. Our conversation is an ongoing one, as students often stop by to speak with him while we are chatting. 
• meeting with the librarian about the school's library and helping out here by going through all of the English language books and pulling all of the old and / or damaged books and flagging all of the books for a classics section and a picture book section.
• attending the information night for the grade 5 parents and students who will be attending the school in the fall.
• Greaser Day. Grade 8 students are reading S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders for their novel study. This week they screened the film and showed great school spirit by dressing up as greasers and socs.

My hours for this week:

Monday and Friday - 8:15 a.m. to 3:30 p..m

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday - 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

I continue to explore Yellowknife - I feel like I have so much to do and see and not much time left! This weekend I walked around Old Town, which is part of YK's waterfront on Great Slave Lake.

View of Great Slave Lake from Old Town. The lake has started to melt but people still feel comfortable biking
and snowmobiling across it. Me? Not so much. I continue to admire the lake from the shore.

Yellowknife Cultural Crossroads decorates a stone hill along the road that leads into Old Town. The project is a collaborative work of Metis, Dene, Inuvialuit, English and French participants and is
dedicated to all peoples of the North.

Old Town, now home to some galleries, restaurants and several historical buildings, has a colourful past. It was a bustling boomtown (tents and log cabins) of suppliers and outfitters that supported the gold trade. This is also where you'll find Ragged Ass Road (as immortalized as the title of Tom Cochrane's second solo album).

I attended the 30th annual Yellowknife Trade Show, a huge community event with an estimated attendance of 11,000 people... pretty good considering the population of Yellowknife is 19,000. I also participated in a Zumba fundraiser for the BHP Billiton Relay for Life team (for the Canadian Cancer Society).

Zumba fundraiser. (And yes, we're in the WMS gymnasium - go Wildcats!) 

The days are getting longer - there's almost 19 hours of sunlight now. During the "nighttime" hours (11:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.) it's still not completely dark. (!) My sense of time is completely off... I'll think it's 3:30 in the afternoon and it's already 8:30 p.m. and I find myself wide awake at 2:30 a.m. A quick aside: when my sister first moved to Yellowknife, we would often tease her that she would get Midnight Sun mania because of all of the sunlight in YK in the summer. I don't think it ever affected her in a major way, but it sure has affected me. (We're going to put a couple of blankets over the window blinds tonight.) However, save for the dark circles under my eyes, I think it's pretty amazing and cool how long the sun shines here.

Finding my way

For this first week of my internship, I've been finding my way around Yellowknife and École William McDonald Middle School.
________

I've arrived in Yellowknife for my OISE internship!

United in Celebration sculpture by Frame Lake

The week leading up to getting here is a bit of a blur – literally and figuratively. I handed in my final OISE paper the morning of April 19th and we were in the car on the road to Calgary that afternoon. We made the drive in record time – two days! – arriving in Calgary on Saturday afternoon. This left some time to get a proper night's sleep, vote in the Alberta provincial election, move our Toronto belongings into storage with our Calgary belongings, and visit with family before leaving for the north on the 23rd. 

I arrived in Yellowknife a couple of days before the start of my internship at École William McDonald Middle School (WMS) and was able to explore the city a little bit – my sister took me around to the Yellowknife Public Library, Old Town, and to WMS – so I'm not exactly sure how I managed to get lost on the way to school one day this week. And I still haven't been able to find the Co-op grocery store on my own.... Clearly, I have a terrible sense of direction. (There are actually other incidences where I got lost this week, but I'm too embarrassed to reveal them here.) 

On 50th Avenue

The first weekend in Yellowknife I had to opportunity to visit, with my sister and her friend, Frozen Rock Studio. 

On the way to Frozen Rock Studio (the Yellowknife Islamic Centre is the building in the background).

We met with local artist Jamie Look, who creates beautiful sculptural jewellery from muskox and buffalo horn and sterling silver. 

Local artist Jamie Look makes jewellery from muskox and buffalo horn.

Jamie's work table featuring some of her latest jewelry designs.

Jamie shares the studio with several other artists, so also we had the opportunity to visit and speak with Derrald Taylor, a wonderful carver originally from Tuktoyaktuk. He was working on a polar carving made out of alabaster. It was such a special experience to speak with Jamie and Derrald about their work.


My sister and I also visited the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre (PWNHC), the government of the Northwest Territories' museum and archives. I think this is an fantastic place for a lot of reasons – the centre has exhibits, collections, conservation programs, archives, provides financial support to artists and cultural organizations and authorizes archeological studies in the Northwest Territories and you can go there for FREE. Amazing. The day we were visiting, the centre was hosting a Queen's Diamond Jubilee Tea. 

Celebrating the Queen's Diamond Jubilee at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre.

On Sunday, I met with my internship site supervisor, the principal of WMS, for a tour and a discussion of my interests and opportunities at the school. This week served as STEP / observation days, where I was busy making connections with teachers, observing classes, getting a sense of the culture of the school and getting to know the students. Faculty have been welcoming and generous with their time and school administrators have provided me with a work space in the office, for which I am ever so grateful.

Ecole William McDonald Middle School - where I'll be for the next five weeks!

There are several highlights from my first week, some of which include:

• helping out with the Morning Wake Up activities (who knew middle school students would love jumping rope so much?!)
• conferencing with grade 6 students about their writing (newspaper articles)
• participating in moderated marking
• viewing grade 8 video assignments where students created television shows for teens through a specific lens / genre (they were terrific!)

This internship is going to be a fantastic experience because I'll be able to explore several interests – language arts, social studies, guidance, library services, and assessment – while I'm at WMS. There is a lot happening at the school, so this first week of observations and conversations has been incredibly valuable. I'm also looking forward to being at WMS because I'll get a good sense of the challenges and rewards of teaching the adolescent learner. Grades 6, 7 and 8 can be such an intense time for young people and I've been thinking a lot about the kinds of support that they need during this time. WMS has several great programs that support adolescent learners, which will be the topic of next week's blog.

Speaking of next week, I'm hoping to create some sort of structure or schedule for my next four weeks at WMS so that I can pinpoint some language or social studies lessons I can help with or teach, to continue my conversation with the school’s guidance counselor and to connect with the librarian. I'll start helping out with the track and field team this week and hope to start taking some photos so I can include them in my next post. Should be a fun week!

(This week, my daily school hours were 8:15 am – 3:30 pm.)