Short Weeks are common

Indeed after arriving at school spending 15 minutes in the main hall doing the smudge and informing students about our field trip this week in Fort Frances, the Native Language teacher also notes that there will be no school on Friday in commemoration of the signing of Treaty #3.

So then I ask myself, do I want to go back to town again this weekend and next weekend????? Oh the pondering but I have firmly decided i can best use this extra day off to get my classroom back in order. There will be other short weeks here in the community, and I will be able to take the opportunities to head home then.

I think the teaching staff was more excited about the news than the kids. Honestly these guys love being at school. 2 students are actually saying that we should not go on the field trip as we would miss too much class work....ahhh precious.

I believe these students are thrown off when school is closed  for different reasons power outages, broken water pipes, -50 C weather or after a death in the community. The latter of these is a bit more disruptive because of the time lost and the emotions of those affected. The school closes for 2 days the wake and the funeral day, but the students need to understand that this time is used to honour the deceased community member and show respect for the family.

We find this odd in our large communities, as we are not as close and connected to those that live around us, our families are often far flung and we are disconnected from some, but here the entire family lives here or in the neighbouring towns of Fort Frances and Atikokan, the loss of one person is felt by everyone.

Although it makes it a challenge to get kids back on track when we have short weeks for whatever reason, its all apart of teaching here in the bush!