Home Visits

I haven't really shared too much about my job as I work with special needs students and want to maintain their privacy. That having been said......

There are no typical days.

I can arrive about 7:30 and get the computer up and running with NPR in order to listen to what's happening abroad. As that's going, I usually start in on emails, or GoalView, the system that the district has for the Special Education paperwork. The doors open at 8:15 and students begin to trickle in for breakfast, quickly gobbling down the cereal, milk and juice provided. Or, occasionally pancakes, waffles and sausage are served; a real treat! I try to be in the gym for a "check in" as many of my students are in great need of one after a night at home. With a quick bite to eat, many students get in on a game of Bump until 8:45 when it is time to head into first period.

I started to keep mental notes of my different encounters with home visits, one of my favorite parts of the job......walking in the arctic entry, knocking, and waiting for an invite.

Most of the students I work with have varying degrees of behavioral issues. As the morning gets going, I may have one student in to work on assignments from his classroom teacher, or I may have a student who is unable to get through the morning and has blown out. That student may need to be escorted home as that happened awhile back. I had to walk him home in the dark of the morning with him shouting the whole way. By the time I got to his house, I'd lost him as he was walking so slow. I knocked on the door waking up the family. We couldn't open the door as it had frozen. Both mother and I, on opposite sides of the door, had to blow on the doorknob to thaw it as she couldn't open it to let him in. By the time the son had shown up, I put him in charge as my knees felt that they were frozen from kneeling on the floor of the porch. I yelled to mom that I had to get back as I had other students to take care of and walked back to school.

Not all families have phones, so with much of Special Ed paperwork, I often have to walk to someone's home to deliver a note, or get a signature. Many times I have walked across the village to find no one home. Or, I walk onto the porch and into the wrong home (knock, wait for the "yeah") only to find out it's the wrong house and no one speaks English that can help me. I turn around to head back as I am about out of time. It's a big bummer when the wind is blowing dropping the temp.

Sometimes, I need to go into a student's home to discuss their behavior with their parents. Today, I walked across high drifts onto a porch with about ten mink and three beaver. I knocked, heard the "yeah" and walked in. As I took off my boots I saw three different species of ducks on the floor and heard the mother sewing at the table. She had a 1912 hand cranked Singer that she was using to make a qaspeq. When I sat down to watch and give her some time, the husband grumbled and got up to leave. I began with, "I'm worried about....." but was cut off as she too got up and left the table to sit on the couch, turning her back to me. I went to sit with both of them, and started in. We all were able to talk and hear each others' concerns. Theirs centered around the school's not understanding how to work with their child, with me agreeing, but acknowledging, this is all we got, and how we needed to work together.

Another fun story was walking onto a porch looking for the mom to sign some papers. I ended up spending an hour there as she had just gotten a spotted seal from her cousin (brought in by sled from the coast). She'd traded dried white fish for it. She had it on a flattened cardboard box in the middle of the room and was beginning to cut it. She made a long slit down the belly exposing the two inches of fat which is highly sought after. It was to be put in jars eventually rendering down to oil. By the time I'd left she had skinned the animal and had planned to stretch the hide on the back of her house. She had birthday cake left over from the party the day before and I walked out with a big piece of cake with chocolate frosting, yum!

Last story for now is that I have learned some about professional wrestling. I have known nothing as to the big guys and gals that throw each other around with all kinds of fancy uniforms. I have sat on many a sofa watching these shows as I waited for my papers to get signed.

Pretty cool job I have....