It is absolutely beautiful outside today: cloudless skies, bright sunshine, a picture-perfect summer's day. If it were summer. However, it remains well below zero, and the wind has picked up quite a bit from this morning. Venturing outside calls for a number of layers, a facemask, a warm hat, and goggles. Being so equipped, I found it to be a pretty comfortable walk to the post office and back a short time ago. The dogs are very brisk and businesslike about their bathroom breaks, and it is just generally much nicer to watch from inside than it is to watch it from outside.
We finished another long PD session today. For some reason, I believe that this will be the last such session here this year. We will still have Friday afternoon sessions, but no Friday-Saturday combinations if I have it correctly. As a first-year teacher in the district, I still have an obligation for one more Saturday, that to be at the end of March, up in Bethel. It will correspond with the annual Camai dance festival, and could prove to be pretty interesting.
Both the boys' high school team and the junior high basketball team are stranded for the moment at the sites to which they have traveled. The district forbids student travel if the windchill temperature is below -35. Seems sensible to me. The current conditions may persist through Monday afternoon. Windchill is one of those terms that gets kind of abused in the lower 48, in my opinion. However, when you get into the -35 range, skin can freeze in a minute, and chances of developing hypothermia increase markedly. It just gets truly dangerous.
Our PD sessions were actually personally inspiring. Yesterday morning, the junior high kids were all excited about getting off for their b-ball tournament. Despite that, they managed to control their excitement enough so that we could get some things done in the classroom. Some of the kids were actually pretty productive. It was a good morning oveall. In the afternoon, we had a very good presentation on positive behavior management. I had to do a lot of thinking about the way in which I approach some of the classroom situations. It was a good opportunity for self-evaluations.
I know that a lot of teachers swear that they will never teach junior high, but I actually find it to be a fascinating challenge. It's not easy, and some days it just sucks, but the kids are worth the strain, and the mental stretch is invigorating. It is a cool job with some intense ups and downs. Never boring.
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