“Miss Norman, what’s parasailing?”, “Miss Norman, where do you live again?”, “How many pets do you have Miss Norman?”, “Have you seen the Jersey Devil Miss Norman?”. These are just a few questions I get from my students throughout the day. They are so curious about life outside of the village. Granted, they had no clue what the Jersey Devil was until we started talking about legends and myths, but now it’s all they can talk about. There are many times when I mention things and my students get this look. It’s one that I’m honing in on and now I know it means that I’ve said something that they have never heard about or that they don’t know much about. Sometimes my kids will try to cover it up, but other times they will just come out with questions. In the middle of a lesson that has nothing to do with it…
Insert Miss Norman’s daily show-and-tell here. Recently, I’ve started showing my students one or two pictures a day from back home. Last Friday I showed them pictures from my OBX trip from this summer. I think I overloaded their brains when I showed them pictures from parasailing and from the lighthouse climb at the same time. I never knew that so many questions could stem from a picture of a lighthouse.. (You climbed that??, All the way to the top?, Who’s that girl? Your friends went with you? Who are they? Have they seen the Jersey Devil?, and so on).
There are so many times when I mention things that most kids in the lower 48 know about. I often forget that some of my students have never left the state. Most times when they leave PIP it’s to go to another village or to Anchorage. When I got here, the kids asked me if I could do a cartwheel and they were so incredibly proud that they knew how to do one. I’m guessing one of the old teachers taught them how to do it. So I spend my free time (all two seconds of it per day) thinking of things that I could introduce them to. I want to expose them to as many different things as possible during my time with them so they are more aware of what is out there in the world (and yes Jenna and Shawnee- they’ve already tried s’mores… I was excited about that one and bummed to know they’ve already had them).
From now on, I plan to get at least a picture a day ready for them to see. Of course I don’t tell them that I want to expose them to different things, I just tell them I want to share a bit of my life with them. I explain that since I live in their home-town that I get to see all the places they go and where they’ve grown up. Miss Norman lives 3,500 miles away (we’ve already looked at a map and I went through the 4 different planes it took to get me here) so I don’t get to show them around my home-town unless it’s through pictures. They seem happy enough with this:)
Today we looked at pictures of my brother and little cousin, Bud and Makenna, wearing the Pilot Point shirts they got. I waited until they noticed the shirts to say anything. Then of course came the questions; “Where do they live?”, “How old is she?”, “How did they get Pilot Point shirts?!”, and many more. I simply love their curiosity and watching the looks on their faces when the see new people and things that I’ve done.
However, I’m not the only one showing them new things. They take me around the village and show me where they’ve done all sorts of things. I am just as interested in learning about things they’ve done as they are to learn about my life. Also, there are things that they can do that Miss Norman can’t or hasn’t done before. The look my one student gave me when I told him I’ve never eaten goose, ptarmigan, or crane before was priceless (he promised me that his mom would make me some). Another thing they love is when I truly can’t do something they can all do; for example rolling my “r’s”. They love to make me try to do it, and I’m always guaranteed a giggle from them when I fail miserably (It’s one of my biggest pet peeves that I am unable to do it, and it will bother me until the day I die). We’re always learning here in Pilot Point; feel free to join us!
*Suggestions as to what I could show them would be greatly appreciated. Skype and FaceTime sessions in which you show off talents or fun things can also be added in, so please if you can do something cool let me know!
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