The Trash Can Incident

First of all, I'm sorry for being absent for, evidently, 8 months!

You may be asking yourself, what was a big enough incident that would encourage to come back to blogging? The answer? A trash can. For two years, my roommate and I have been using a kitty litter bucket as a trash can. A few weeks ago, I went to Anchorage for a workshop. My roomie and I decided I needed to pick up a trash can. Like many things up here, it was more of an adventure than it should have been.

It started out that I trekked in about a foot of snow from my hotel in Midtown Anchorage to Fred Meyer; it was about two blocks. I picked up supplies: pasta, honey, nail polish remover (with acetone which is unavailable in my neck of the woods), and coffee among other things. Then, I went to the trash can section and found a very nice 13 gallon kitchen trash can for only $15.99 which is half the price of the ones in Bethel.

After I paid for my goods, I tried to call a cab. No luck. Finally, I stopped at the customer service desk and asked for a cab. Evidently, the cab company I called was too busy. I went outside to wait for the cab. I started unloading my groceries and packing them inside the trash can. People walked by me looking at me oddly. I couldn't figure out why. Then, it occurred to me, that in Anchorage people don't often have the need to pack groceries in a trash can. Finally, the cab arrived and I went back to the hotel.

I checked out of the hotel and headed to the airport. I then had to figure out how to carry/pull my suitcase and the trash can and my carry-on. I ended up balancing the trash can on top of my suitcase and rolling both of them.

I walked up to the check-in counter for Alaska Airlines. Unlike at Fred Meyer, nobody looked at me funny for having a trash can filled with groceries. That's probably because Alaska Airlines checks in bush residents all the time who would travel with their food from Anchorage to their village. However, I had to identify it. I had to write "Schalk, Teacher Housing, Eek, AK 99578" on the side.

By the time I reached Bethel and got my trash can back, it was covered in much more tape and had been inspected by TSA.





Despite the trouble and hassle, my roomie and I are happy that we have a normal sized trash can in our apartment. And, more importantly, there will forever be a trash can in Apartment 2B that has my name plastered on the side.

The Benefit of a Small School

As I’m writing this I’ve just left a site inservice. Here in Eek we have several days of site or district wide inservices. We spent much of the afternoon discussing our at-risk students and how we as a staff can help them. The students ranged in ages across the school. This brings me to my topic for today- the benefit of small schools.

I taught for five years at a traditional middle school in Ohio. We had grades 6-8 with about 500 students. Now, at Eek School, we have grades K-12 with about 85 students. I’m responsible for 31 students in grades 7-12. I grew up in a small school, but it was mammoth compared to this school. I thought when I first came here that this must be extremely annoying for the students and the staff. For instance, if Bobby is being a brat one day, then, in Ohio, I only had to have him in class for 50 minutes. Here, I also have him for 50 minutes, but I teach that group 2-3 times a day for different classes. While the above situation can be true, the benefits of a small school far outweigh the negative.

My first success story is that of Billy (obviously not his real name). Billy has been academically unsuccessful for years. As a staff, we thought maybe he would do better with a smaller class size. Keep in mind that our classes only have about 12-15 students in general. So, Billy’s schedule has been switched to be with a teacher and only one other student or no other students for most of the day. His academic tasks and social behavior have completely changed for the better. Some of you who are not involved in education might wonder why this was such a big achievement. I mean we simply did what was best for the student, right? But, in most schools, moving a student’s schedule is a huge issue due to staffing problems. Why could we do this? Because we have a small school, and we’re able to move schedules without disrupting a lot of people’s schedules.

Teachers know almost every student in K-12 by his/her first name. In fact, we often sub for one another in order to let people go to the health clinic, chaperone athletic teams, and help out where needed.

Students also benefit from having a small school. If a kindergarten student is misbehaving or crying, one of the most effective strategies is to call the high school room (me) and ask for the student’s older sibling to come help. Imagine the embarrassment if instead of the principal coming, it was your older brother! This is a strategy we generally only have to employ once or twice.

Small schools are something that we don’t see much in the Lower 48. However, it’s something that perhaps we need to think more about. What exactly are we getting from these 1,000+ student schools? At what point does the value of a child’s education outweigh that of the taxpayers’ protestations?