Tag: Bethel Regional High School

High School

My last two years of high school I attended Bethel Regional High School in Bethel, Alaska. It’s a bush town out on the tundra. The only way to get there is by plane, boat, or in winter, via snowmachine or the ice road. When I was living there the population was somewhere around six thousand. I moved from tropical Haiti to frozen Alaska and it was quite a shock to the system. I walked around in a heavy coat the first summer, but eventually I got used to it. It was the first time in my life that I did not have any tan lines. I’m sure my skin appreciated the break. 

I remember my senior year a girl I knew called me and asked me if I would be willing to tutor her in geometry. I was surprised and a little confused. Umm. I’ve never tutored before, I’m not sure how helpful I would be. Then the girl assured me that our math teacher, Mr. Guffin, had been the one who told her to call me. Oh. Ok. (Mr. Guffin thinks I can tutor someone??) Well, sure, I guess I could tutor you. 

The tutoring went well, she was able to get her grade where it needed to be, and the next semester another girl called and asked me to tutor her for Alegebra 2, also saying Mr Guffin had suggested she call me. I tutored her as well and she was able to pass her class too. 

I would have never thought that I could tutor someone in math. I would never have volunteered to do it. I would have never thought myself qualified to do it. But my teacher saw that I could, pushed me in that direction, and my confidence grew and I learned how to tutor math. 

I ended up writing for the school newspaper. Another thing I had no previous interest in and didn’t really think of it as something I would be capable of doing. A teacher pushed me in that direction and I ended up learning how to conduct interviews, and do layout on a computer. 

My gym teacher declared that everyone in his class would do calisthenics and running and become competent in a long list of sports. I did not think these were things I could do. But, it was required so I did it. And learned that I was actually capable of these things and could even semi-enjoy them. (Ok, maybe I didn’t quite become competent in all the sports, but I definitely made improvements!) 

I was not signed up for band class because I did not play any band instruments. But the band teacher learned very early on that I could play piano. He volunteered (voluntold) me to be the band accompanist. I accompanied several ensembles for their competitions and performances and I ended up accompanying every single student who performed a solo for band competition. And one time, when they were short somebody, I played the timpani. All things I did not think I could do. But the teacher said yes, you can do this, here’s the music, get busy. 

My best friend pushed me to be a class officer. Did I want to do this? No. Did I do it anyway? Yes. Did I learn a lot in the process? Yes. 

When I look back, I think of these last two years of high school as the golden years. I was learning who I was and what I was capable of doing. I made some great friends. My teachers were supportive and involved. My classmates were friendly enough. I was good friends with some, acquaintances with others, slightly nodding recognition with a handful. But no bullies. No kids that I felt the need to avoid at all costs. 

This is what I want for my own children. I want school to be a place where they are pushed to try new things, pushed to excel. Pushed to be more, do more. A safe environment with at least a handful of friends. 

We are looking at making some changes for next school year when we have a junior and freshman in high school. While our local high school was a great experience for our oldest daughter, a reasonable experience for our son and a decent experience for our other daughter, we’ve reached a place where it is not meeting the needs of our fourth daughter and we have concerns for our upcoming freshman. And while I struggle because I want to support our neighborhood school and I believe in their vision and I applaud the efforts of many of their staff, I can’t help wanting my kids to have the same thing I did. And right now it looks like we will have to branch out to find it. 

I’ll write more about this later. 

Fat Fridays: Memories

I’m going to tell you a story about my high school PE teacher (physical education). When I was fifteen years old, my family moved from the island country of Haiti to the tiny bush town of Bethel, Alaska, up in the freezing artic. I enrolled in the local high school as a junior. My previous two years of high school had been done through correspondence courses and a couple classes taught through a little mission school in the North of Haiti. I had not done well with correspondence courses and was significantly behind when I got to Bethel. Because of this, I had to enroll in a lot of freshman classes. Classes like Freshman World Geography, an Environmental science class, and PE. I had not taken any PE classes in years and for some reason, the counselor who made my schedule decided to just get it all over with. So, my first semester at a real high school I was enrolled in PE/health and in Teamsports. Because of the way they did the schedule, this meant that on Mondays I had two PE classes in one day, and the rest of the week I had PE every day one week, and then next week I would have PE alternating with health every day. This meant I was in the gym every day, under the mercy of Mr. Power. Yes. That was his name.

Mr. Power was one of those legendary teachers that everyone was a little afraid of and everyone behaved for. I don’t know if he was ex-military, but he LOOKED like he was ex-military and he ACTED like he was ex-military. Every PE class we did calisthenics, all of us in our assigned spots on the gym floor. Then we did running. Then we would learn, in great detail, how to play a certain sport, and then we would play. Very competitively. He graded on a winners/losers scale. When we did running tests, first place would get an A, second place got an A-, third place B+, etc. I ranked somewhere in the C- range. It was not easy to get a good grade in this class. It also didn’t help that half the girls basketball team happened to be in my Teamsports class, all of them very accomplished athletes. I was the one who was always picked last for teams, and occasionally, Mr Power would pull me aside and send me into the hallway with the top girl athlete from the class so she could give me extra practice on how to swing a bat or catch a ball. (I was not athletic, I was coordinately-challenged, and stuck out in the classes like a sore thumb). The only good thing about Mr. Power’s level of discipline in the class was that at least no one out-right mocked me or made fun of my extreme lack of skills. He didn’t tolerate that kind of behavior. 

Teamsports was a one-semester class and I ended up with a C in the class. Yikes. I was an A student. This was not good. I still had one more semester of PE/Health to get through, and my PE grade in that class was also a C. Finally, I found out about Mr. Power’s extra-credit program. If you stayed after school every day for two weeks and ran two miles every day, he would raise your grade an entire letter. But you had to run the full two miles. No walking. If he caught you walking then you had to start all over again at day one. (Ask me how I know this.) 

Frankly, it sounded too hard. Not feasible. But, I had a friend who was running to get her grade up and somehow I got roped in to running with her. (Thank you Terry Murphy!) 

Let me stop and explain for a minute. We were in Bush Alaska, on the tundra, in winter. We ran inside the school building, through the halls. This was acceptable. We knew how many laps we had to make to get our two miles. We were not the only ones running. The wrestling team would be running through the halls, other sports teams, kids who just wanted to run to keep in shape, other kids trying to get their extra credit as well. The high school was a pseudo-community center. Kids stayed late for clubs and tutoring and a bunch of other reasons. I think when I was a senior I never left the high school before five pm every day. 

So, I ran for two weeks. Got my grade up to a B. I needed an A. I ran another two weeks, but somewhere around day seven or eight, Mr Power caught me walking for a second. So, then I had to start all over again and run another two weeks. And then, my friends were still running after school, and I ended up running more. One day, in the spring, I happened to be in the gym, getting ready to run (just for fun) and Mr. Power walked in and saw me. “Esther Picazo! Are you running? Just because?” and then he smirked at me and walked off in a very self-satisfied manner. And I was mad, cause I still didn’t like him or his teaching methods, and it was embarrassing to admit that he had caused me to take up a healthy habit. But he had. The only reason I started running was because he basically forced me to. 

I continued to run after high school. I took a running class in college where I had to run three miles a day. I was never a star athlete or competitive at any level, but it was a form of exercise I had learned that I could do, and I enjoyed it. 

Looking back, years later, I have had an off-and-on relationship with exercise. But, there was always that knowledge in the back of my head that I COULD exercise, and once upon a time, I had enjoyed it. And I have to admit that I owe that completely to Mr. Power, the teacher that made me run. And I am grudgingly happy that I was able to have him as a teacher. 

My Newest Challenge

This past week I started something new. Something that has my whole family scratching their heads in bewilderment. My husband commented, “that is a really weird way to relax.” My kids keep coming up to me and wanting to know, WHY? I will tell you, and probably all my friends that knew me in high school will start laughing. I am taking high school Alegebra 1 via Khan Academy, online. 

I zipped through Unit 1, and I am on the last quiz and Unit test for Unit 2. There are 15 units. I have no idea how long this is going to take. I hope that I will stick with it though. 

So, a little background. Yes, I have taken high school algebra before. In high school. Actually, freshman year I was doing correspondence high school courses and finished Algebra 1 with an A, and no teachers on hand for daily help. I went to a little mission school and there were 5 highschoolers that year, and each of us worked independently on our own courses. There was a volunteer in the class to kind of keep us on task and answer questions if they were able. I think Aunt Bernice, the principal of the school, might have sat down a couple times with me to get me over a hump, and I think they once tried to get one of the doctors who worked at the mission hospital to give me a tutoring session, but they were unable to explain things on a beginners’ level. But, however I did it, I did pass the class and got an A. But, that was in 1992-93. I really don’t remember a whole lot of what I learned. Especially since, I HAVEN’T USED ALEGEBRA for my ENTIRE GROWN UP LIFE. (Something all my teenagers have constantly pointed out when bemoaning their math classes.) 

I later took Geometry and Algebra 2 at Bethel Regional High School, up in Bush Alaska. I had an awesome teacher whose teaching style consisted of showing us how to do something at the beginning of class, giving us an assignment with lots of practice problems, then sitting down at his desk and allowing us to all work in groups and do all the problems. If our group couldn’t figure out how to do a problem, we would go ask another group. If none of the groups could figure out how to do the problem, an emissary would be sent back to the teacher’s desk. The teacher would explain how to do the problem to that One student, then that one student would come back and start showing all the other groups how to do it. It really taught us how to figure things out on our own, brainstorm, and work together. I grumbled a lot about those classes, but I think I secretly really enjoyed them. But again, I can’t remember a thing that I learned. 

Anyway, back to why I am taking Algebra 1, again. I enjoy math puzzles. I love sudoku, even though I’m not a genius at it. (My mother-in-law is genius level.) But, I was starting to get bored with sudoku and I really wanted something numberish to do. When I do math puzzles the worrying, fretting, stressed part of my brain turns off for a while. The problem solving part of my brain gets turned on, and it actually becomes quite relaxing. 

My kids have used khan academy some over the years and it occurred to me that this would be something free and interesting to do. I would not recommend the algebra course as a stand-alone course for someone who has never taken Algebra before. Mostly because they don’t give a lot of practice exercises. But, for someone who needs extra review, or who, like me, just needs a refresher, it’s a great format. 

My long time, high school math partner, Sara, will be amused to learn that I am still making stupid mistakes, like forgetting the negative signs, or copying the problem down wrong. I am also struggling with writing the letters down neatly enough that I don’t mistake them for numbers. And I am currently stuck on the last quiz in Unit 2 because the silly thing only has 5 problems, but you have to get ALL 5 correct to move on with high marks (and I’m being a stickler, not letting myself get anything but 100%). And I keep missing ONE problem because of some silly mistake, then I have to start all over again. My kids think this is pretty funny. 

I think what probably really got this whole ball rolling, was my mom making a comment a while back that she was trying new things that were challenging in order to keep her brain stimulated. And I liked that image of keeping my brain stimulated, not letting it get stagnant. And since I am such a book and history and writing kind of person, math is actually really challenging. And it feels good to challenge myself. Wish me luck on my quiz!