My favorite 15
Things About Living in Nunapitchuk or
Why
I Have Stayed for 10 Years
By
Frank Cook (2004)
Personal freedom. Some
native communities will not allow teachers to use their land and
resources, but here I am free to travel the delta and share the
resources with everyone else ‚when I like, where I like. Very
important to me.
Friendly people. Everyone
in town always smiles and/or waves.
No Rush. No traffic. No
starting the car to go to work. No stop lights. No hurry. I feel
relaxed and unstressed compared to living in a
town.
Lunch with my family every
day.
Traveling by snow mobile,
boat, and small plane is much more interesting and fun than travel
by car.
Students that are polite,
unpretentious, modest, unassuming, and down to
earth.
Everyone knows who I am and
I feel respected and liked.
Classroom autonomy. I feel
like the king of my own classroom without anyone looking over my
shoulder or trying to tell me what to do all the
time.
Supplies and materials.
Everything I have ever requested for my classroom, and everything
that I need to do the best job of teaching that I can do is
provided.
Working environment. I have
a very nice, clean, and comfortable building to work
in.
Pay. My pay check is
excellent. Much better than I could expect in a town
school.
Professional Development
Opportunities. The district has been very generous with helping me
to improve my own education by paying for college
classes.
Housing. My apartment may
be small, but it is much bigger than what I moved from and the
price is still the same as when I moved in, a major
plus.
Coworkers. How could anyone
hope for a better group of coworkers? Everyone is positive,
helpful, enthusiastic, and obviously dedicated to
teaching.
Variety of teaching
subjects instead of repeating the same thing all day and Wednesday
night staff volley ball. How many town schools have
that?