Reflections

There are trees here. Birch and spruce, crowded along the highway. Even as the road to town switches from paved to gravel and back, the trees remain constant, a wall of green broken only by lakes, rivers, and occasional patches of sand.

And  there are geese. Huge -massive!- flocks of geese, stretching across the sky by the hundreds, their honks announcing their presence while the birds themselves are little more than specks somewhere above the horizon.

There are dogs on the reserve. All dogs are descended from wolves, but these ones have not forgotten it. They roam across the neighbourhood, these big, furry, toothy mutts and mongrels who still come running at a simple whistle or hand clap. They have collars, these dogs, but still wander freely in their posses, streaks of black, brown and grey running by the baseball diamond and past the houses, around the school and down to the lake.

I taught for the first time this week. My class. My own classroom. With posters that I've put up, and chalkboards that only I and my students will write on, and walls on which we'll put up finished work, and so on. My students. I am their teacher. When they walk through the community, people will ask them who their teacher is, and they will say my name.

They are young, my students (my! students!). They're children. They have enthusiasm, and shyness, and a reluctance to open up in front of their peers. Some of them love math, others hate it. Some find Cree class boring; for their friends, it's one of their favourite subjects. They're children. I too was a child once, but mine was a city childhood, growing up in a land of subway trains and tall buildings, a childhood of libraries and museums and Spanish lessons after school. Theirs is a childhood of another colour. They've seen the Northern lights. They know what it's like to live in a world where -30 degree day isn't worth commenting on

But some of my students? Some of my students will have seen things I can't begin to imagine. When their parents or grandparents were the age my students are now, they were taken away from their families, stripped of their culture, robbed of their heritage. Residential schools. The very name conjures horrors of neglect and abuse, of violence and hatred, a legacy which makes itself felt to this day. I don't know my students very well yet. I don't know who will need what from me, and what I'll be able to give them. I don't know how many of my students will be coming to school regularly a month from now, at Christmas, in April. It's going to be an interesting year.

However, I've decided not to blog about my teaching this year, for a number of reasons. This will, obviously, limit the amount of blogging I'll be doing, for the simple reason that I won't be doing a lot of non-teaching related stuff. So I'm not sure just what format the blog will take. I may use it for random thoughts, or anecdotes from years gone by, or I may let it sleep for months at a time.  Time will tell. So will I, once I figure it out.

There is no word in Cree for goodbye, only see you later.


This place is beautiful.