The First Week

With the first day under my belt, I was ready for the next challenge; getting through the first week. It would be a little easier because I now knew what kind of students I would have in each class. However, I still had to plan out the semester for each course, and come up with a way of settling the troublemakers and get them to focus on their studies.

In Nunavut, the teachers follow the Alberta curriculum, a large collection of documents that outline the expectations that teachers & students need to meet for each grade. Unfortunately, the curriculum is vague on what topics teachers can teach. For example, in music, there isn't a list of pieces that students must learn in each grade; choice of repertoire is left to the music teacher. This can be difficult for first time teachers because you're given a huge amount of freedom to teach an infinite amount of topics and yet, you don't know where to begin. For the music classes, I asked Mary which topics I should begin with? For Grade 11 English, I spoke with Verna after school and she showed me her resources and we both planned the semester together. With plans in place, my confidence was now higher than before.

My time at the hotel was up on Tuesday morning but the bigger problem was that a bachelor pad hadn't been found for me. When I arrived on Friday, there was only a smoking apartment available, but I politely declined and opted for a non-smoking unit. Thankfully, one of the guidance counselors had informed Terry that she had a spare room in her house and didn't mind renting it out. I accepted the offer and moved all my stuff over to her place in Apex, a small community located just 5km southeast of Iqaluit. I would now carpool with her & her kids to and from the high school.

When it comes to shopping, there are a wide variety of stores available in town. For food and clothing, there is North Mart and Arctic Ventures. North Mart is like Wal-Mart and Arctic Ventures is like . . . Produce Depot with a pinch of Farm Boy. The food selection is exactly the same as in the rest of Canada. You can buy anything up here; domestic & international. Air transportation makes it possible. It also explains where First Air makes most of its money. In the spring, goods can be sea lifted to the town via Montreal. If you don't want to carry everything you've bought, you can get a taxi ride for just $6! Anywhere! There are Tim Horton'sbut they are all self-serve. The Source is the place to go for all electronics including cell phones. I'm pondering on getting a cell phone but I'm hesitant because the phone market up here is dominated by Bell and I've already had one bad experience with them. Because of transportation costs, goods & services can cost up to double than they would in the rest of Canada.

With each passing day, I learned how the students behaved and how things worked at Inuksuk. When a student doesn't want to do the work and not sit in class, they'll ask to go to the washroom or to get a drink of water. They'll use that time to text or visit a friend in another class. Thankfully, most of my students came back when I gave them permission. Like all schools, the first week is also the time when students decide whether they want to change a class. I recall having to change my attendances at least twice because students were coming and going.

In total, I have four Grade 9 guitar classes, spread over 4 days. The two classes near the end of the week are a lower level and need more attention and direction but overall, their behaviour was alright. In all classes, there is at least one student that doesn't like taking guitar and resists trying. In those cases, I use as much positive reinforcement and demonstrations as possible.

The Inuit students in my English class were shy when it came to reading out loud, forcing me to read several passages of the chosen short story until someone volunteered. I know many feel that reading out loud doesn't accomplish much but it is more effective than letting the students read to themselves, because at their level, they'll read it but it'll go in one ear and out the other. The loud gentleman was still skeptical of me and would make an occasional snappy comment or remark, but I didn't let them get to me. He wasn't getting the negative reactions he wanted to see.

My Grade 10 musicians were still proving to be a challenge because they too were testing my boundaries. The girls seemed to be the more focused of the lot while the boys were just being lippy boys. They said they could play the notes but when I pulled them aside, it was pretty obvious that they didn't and that they were just wasting time. Throughout the week, I had to speak to several of them after class and tell them that their attitude needed to improve or else I'd refer them to the guidance counselor. Up here, the guidance counselors, with the support of the teacher, can permanently remove a student from a class.

Another tactic I tried was keeping the boys separated from each other. One no longer wanted to play trombone so I put him in the female dominated clarinet section. Now he was flirting with the girls but focused on learning his new instrument because he wanted to 'show off' his skills to the ladies. I put the two boys who talked back the most on percussion, an area of expertise of mine, meaning I could handle any challenge they could come up with, and I could give them as much attention as they needed. The only hard part now was walking around and making sure everyone was practicing. Getting them to play together was still possible . . . but at least 30 seconds was still required for them to quiet down.

My last weapon in my arsenal proved to be the deadliest: theory. It's the one thing that a lot of beginner & (some) advanced musicians hate. They prefer to play music and learn things by ear rather than learning to sight read. As the difficult students reluctantly completed the handouts, it suddenly dawned on them that passing Grade 10 music wouldn't be easy after all. Some decided to transfer out of the class.

Overall, the first week was productive but ssssllllowwww. At times, it felt like the weekend would never arrive. By the end, I had met the entire staff, knew where all the computer labs were located, and where to get supplies and photocopies. I successfully memorized a lot of names and faces but I needed more time to memorize the rest. I also got used to seeing my students outside of school, particularly at the grocery stores, because several of them work there part time and there isn't a lot of places to congregate. Iqaluit is not like the big Canadian cities where you'd rarely, if ever, see your teachers outside of school. Here, everyone knows & sees everyone else.