Start of 2017/ 2018 School Year

By Mrs. Koops

I spent all summer thinking about how this new year was going to work. Yesterday, I came to the classroom and got the four areas all planned out: the living room with couches; the kitchen with table, dishes and sinks; the office with desks and chairs; and the floor space for traditional activities. This morning I got here early and laid my classroom blankets onto the floor for our talking circles.

 

One by one my new students arrived. Taiven was first, followed by Lacey and Bailey. Then Raven, Michael and Calen came in. Everyone joined me on the floor to sit in a circle and participate in a first day interview.

I asked for help in writing the questions when Taiven said, “It depends. Who are we writing for?” I told him that was a great point, and we talking about the importance of knowing who our audience is. We decided that our audience will be the people who follow our blog. It could be our friends or university professors. Our audience could be teachers or our families. We wrote the questions together and then went around the circle answering only three of our eight questions.

Question #1 How’s it going? How was your summer? Any fun times?

Raven Cook: Kind of nervous. I’m new here so I don’t know anyone

Michael Starr-Desnomie: Welcome to Bert Fox, by the way.

Raven: Thank you.

Michael: Stay away from Drama. Everything will be good.  

Lacey Missens: Good. I’m happy to be here.

Taiven Hipke: Pretty tired right now. Pretty slow. Need to get the blood pumping.

Michael: It’s going pretty good. I woke up really early this morning, got ready. I’m just feeling like myself today, all smiley. Some things peeved me off, but I don’t let that stuff get to me.

Calen Whiteman: Fantastic. I got up, I got ready. Brushed my teeth, had breakfast, missed my bus. Came to school at 9:30 because I started walking and then got a ride.

Cheyenne Sinclair: It’s good. It’s been good even though I hurt my hand from skateboarding.

Leslie Maple: It’s going fine.

Bailey Kahanapace: Good.    

Question #2 What brings you to this class?

Raven: I’m just trying to finish school. I came to register and they told me about this program and put me in this program.

Lacey: I got put in it. I want to be in this class because I’ll learn a lot.

Bailey: I’m glad to be here. I want to get stuff done.

Calen: I want to graduate, get grade 12 out of the way, move on in life, go to SIAST or something. To be continued.

Michael: I’m a young adult, just wanting to finish my grade 12, get out of high school and find me a decent job. I want to get all my credits, get caught up on everything. I want to accomplish my goal, a promise that I made to my Uncle John and I’m going to finish for him.

Taiven: My feet and my shoes. That’s how I got here and my long board, too. Might want to write that down. I applied for this program last semester, but I was refused, but I’m here now to get my ed-ju-ma-ca-tion. Like am-inals instead of animals.

Question #3 What are your future goals?

Raven: To finish school, then maybe go to college and study psychology and then, maybe after that, get a job, save up and then travel places. Some of my dream destinations are Greece, Japan, Australia, Paris and all around Europe. Maybe I’ll be someone who works in mental health.

Lacey: To graduate high school and then I don’t know. I’m interested in being a hair dresser or an education assistant.

Bailey: I want to graduate. I want to be Mrs. Koops’ personal secretary (she made me write that.)

Calen: Carpentry or welding. My brother just went to SIAST for eight months for Carpentry and he has all his stuff, and can go back for upgrading, if he wants. It’s an option.

Michael: Well, first construction or welding or something like that. I’m pretty good with my hands and work like that. I’m going to try and go join the army, after high school. I tried joining Bold Eagle last year, but I was too late.

Taiven: There are a lot of answers to that question. Offensive Security Penetration Tester. You get paid to “hack” stuff. You find information to get into a system. The employer pays you to find vulnerability and then you fix it or their networking can fix it. Another one of my goals is to be a certified dispensary tech which is to help people get their medicine. Most people don’t know about this CBD, CBDA, THC, THCA, CBC, CGB and more.

Cheyenne: I want to graduate and get court over and get a job and go anywhere I want and travel. Settle down and get a good job.

Leslie: I just need to finish school first and then get the heck out of here.

We got a lot done on our first day of class. We started the day with a Bison Welcome Assembly for the entire school in the gym. Then we put chairs away from the assembly. Some of us carried one chair at a time; others carried six or seven at once. We finished off our gym time with some table tennis lessons, including holding the racquet in the shake hand grip, how to serve and how to keep score in a game to 11 points. We looked over the Kairos Blanket Exercise bulletin board, getting ready to learn how to facilitate this exercise tomorrow. Finally, we came back to the classroom and started working on this blog.