Tuesday!

Tuesday started just as Monday had; students and teachers begin filtering in at about 8:00 and 8:30 for breakfast. Some parents swing by and drop their kids off via sno-go. In the Inupiaq room I came across the Pledge of Allegiance the students are taught throughout their schooling. We even had the opportunity to hear it read by the second grade class later that day during the assembly. I spent some time helping kids with silent letters for a bit in the elementary school wing. These students were charmers; they would swarm you at lunch and outside after school they would call us out by name to see where we were going and what we were up to. It was great. In a high school "Read 180" English class students worked silently under the supervision of their teacher/basketball coach, Mike Zibel seen sitting in close proximity to the chattiest of the students.

A pep assembly in the gym recognized those students with birthdays this week as well as recent participants in the Native Youth Olympics (NYO) held in Selawik this past weekend.

Rod Eakin, the assistant principal and coach (above far right) introduces all the athletes. Tim Fields (far right student) won 5 of the 20 events and will travel to states later in the year. One event he excels at is the high kick where you have to hit a suspended ball with your foot and then land on that same foot. This mini video was taken of him the night before they left to compete.

The ball was set at the world record and he barely missed it. The pep rally was also to get students excited about the huge adult basketball tournament being held in Noorvik that week. Teams from other villages had already started to show up and the games would continue until Sunday.

After school we skipped over to the post office to send out some letters. Its so nice to be able to walk everywhere.

Later that evening high schoolers and parents met back again at the school for the much anticipated 'Roll-out'. High school students would each be given a Mac Book computer to borrow for the rest of the school year and next year; one they could take home to work on their assignments and hopefully research future careers and bring economic benefit to their community- or so the advertisement read.White boxes lined the cafeteria as students patiently listened to whatever was required of them-anything for a new computer!Video clips were shown of other villages already using the technology to their benefit. It was actually a very nice presentation and pleasing to see the videos were filmed in the northwest arctic so both students and parents could relate.

The computer roll-up wrapped up with the Mac representative introducing the students to 'photo booth' a built in camera in their laptop that has the ability to distort their faces any way they like. The official roll out may have ended, but many students stayed behind to play with their new 'tool'.