Christmas Festivities (2016)

Hard work and dedication is what got me through the remaining days of the semester.  I administered and corrected all the Social Studies exams without difficulty.  Answer keys were my "secret weapons."  I spent the weekend of December 10 & 11 writing all my report card comments.  I breathed a sigh of relief when all was done.  But I didn't have time to relax because the annual Christmas Concert was just around the snow bank.  The date had been set for December 15.  The community was made aware of the upcoming event through local radio announcements and posters that were placed in the Northern & Co-op stores.

            

This year's Christmas Concert had a longer program, with a total of 15 acts.  Each class was asked to prepare a short performance for parents and community members.  Classes began planning, practicing, and perfecting their routines weeks in advance.  They also worked on Christmas decorations that would be taped all over the community hall.  My drummers & I were hard at work, reviewing the selected pieces and perfecting our drum solos.  The concert committee recruited two high school students to act as Inuktitut & English emcees. 

            

An afternoon dress rehearsal was held at the community hall the day before the concert.  My drummers helped me move all our instruments and equipment to the community hall.  I also thanked Frank for letting me borrow his pickup truck.  Every class practiced their routines on stage to the delight of the student body and the high school emcees got comfortable speaking in front of a large crowd.  My drummers were nervous playing on stage for the first time but they survived the first challenge.  The biggest challenge would be performing at the actual concert. 

            

I was glad the dress rehearsal was the day before the concert.  A good night's rest would lead to better performances.

            

The high school students helped me decorate the community hall on the morning of December 15.  We went through several rolls of masking tape putting up all the decorations.  The hall was ready.  Ryan printed and folded the bilingual concert programs.

            

The concert began at 6:30pm.  The students and teachers were formally dressed for the occasion.  I gave the two emcees one last pep talk backstage before sending them out to introduce themselves & the program to the excited audience.  The curtain rose and the first act began.                 

            

Since it will take too long to explain each act in detail, I'm going to give you the Coles Notes version.

            

Grade 5

Grade 6

Preschool started the festivities with a Christmas Dance.  They danced to prerecorded music.  Kindergarten sang two Christmas songs, a cappella.  The Grade 1 class sang Silent Night in Inuktitut and English.  Grade 2 did a Christmas prayer and sang Jingle Bells in Inuktitut & English.  Grade 3 reenacted the Nativity scene and wished everyone a Merry Christmas.  The Grade 4 class performed Robert Munsch's Mortimer in Inuktitut.  The student who played Mortimer was a really good actor.  Grade 5s presented a skit titled, "Santa at Taqqut Co-op" where he gives out gifts to the people of Arctic Bay.  Grade 6 followed with a skit of their own called, "Arctic Bay Committee".  The Grade 7 class performed a comedic skit where Santa is confused and doesn't know what presents to give to the people of Arctic Bay.

            

Grade 8

The concert took on a brief political tone when the Grade 8s came on stage to perform their skit titled, "Nunavut's Got 'Santa' Talent".  Arctic Bay holds a talent contest and the contestants are Barack Obama, Justin Trudeau, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump.  The skit ended with Donald Trump being left behind because there was not enough seats on the First Air plane.  He had to travel back to the USA on a dogsled.

            

Middle school French Club.

JF's middle school French Club sang "Vive le vent," the French version of "Jingle Bells".  The Grade 9 class sang a rendition of Hedley's "Anything" but with Christmas themed lyrics.

            

Grade 9

The moment had finally arrived.  It was time for the high school drumline to perform for the audience.  When the children saw my drummers going backstage with their instruments, they immediately sat as close as they could in front of the stage.  We quickly set everything up and did one final check to make sure we had all our music.  I signaled for the curtains to be drawn.  I raised my sticks and clicked them 4 times.  Our performance began. 

            

High school drumline

My female students and I played three pieces: Beat Cafe, Sub-Sonic, and Bacon & Eggs.  All three pieces were composed by Cassidy Byars.  I continued our act with my solo.  I was glad I didn't mess up the stick tricks.  Several of my students followed suit by playing their own solos.  My quad player added a visual effect to her solo by pouring baby powder on the toms.  The powder shot up into the air every time she hit the four toms.  Our performance was well received by everyone.  We breathed a collective sigh of relief after the curtains were drawn together. 

            

The high school Inuit culture class continued the concert by singing & performing an Inuit western dance.  The students & teacher wore specially made purple vests.  The teacher led the students by singing and playing a large Inuit drum.

            

The Inuujaq School staff were the last act of the concert.  They played a game of Christmas Charades.  A teacher picked a piece of paper from a bag and had to act the Christmas song without using any words.  The audience liked watching the staff act out several well-known Christmas songs.     

My drummers helped me load all the drums & equipment into Frank's truck after the concert.  Several went with me to the school and place everything back in my classroom.  Another Christmas Concert was done.    

            

Friday, December 16 was the last day of school for the fall semester.  The student body assembled in the gym before lunch to sing Christmas carols in English & Inuktitut.  Elders and parents attended the event.

            

Santa in Kindergarten

Santa & a Grade 1 student.

Santa visited Inuujaq School after lunch to hand out gifts to the K-8 students.  He also had his picture taken with them.  (Students in the higher grades received gift certificates from the Co-op store).  High school students picked up their report cards at the main office.  When the dismissal bell rang, I wished my students a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

            

Staff in the staff room.

The staff of Inuujaq School assembled in the staff room for one final meeting.  The meeting was more of a social gathering, with a variety of snacks & desserts laid out on two coffee tables.  The principal congratulated everyone for their hard work throughout the semester and wished everyone the best during the holiday season.

            

I cleaned my classroom before heading home to pack for my trip down south.  My flight was leaving the following morning and I needed to be ready.  It was hard to believe that another semester had come and gone.  Time certainly flies fast.          

See you all in the new year!

*All photos provided by Ryan. Thank you.

Early December (2016)

The arrival of December marked the beginning of the last two weeks of school.  The hallways were covered with Christmas decorations.  In the elementary wing, a large decorated tree stood in a corner.  The wall behind the tree was converted into a display: green stockings, each labeled with a staff member's name, were pasted around a brown fireplace.  A brief message from the staff in Inuktitut & English occupied the top half of the wall.  Two small Santa dolls stood on a nearby window ledge.

            

The last Attendance Awards Assembly of 2016 was held on December 6th.  Everyone gathered in the gym to applaud the winners for the month of November.  However, the first part of the assembly focused on last year's high school graduates.  For the last several years, high school graduates receive free laptops from the Baffinland mining company.  Unfortunately, the laptops were unavailable at the time of the graduation ceremony in June.  They finally arrived and would be presented to the grads in front of the entire student body.  Better late than never.

           

Each high school graduate was called up individually to receive their Lenovo laptop and external DVD drive.  The laptops don't have internal disc drives.  (I'm not sure why, but for some time now, computer companies have been selling laptops without internal disc drives.  Personally, the removal of these drives is a terrible decision.  Customers should not be forced to buy external disc drives.  Hopefully, the companies will reverse this bad trend in the very near future).

            

All the high school teachers were called up to the front of the gym to pose for photos with the grads.

            

Kindergarten Perfect Attenders.

Me with the HS perfect attenders.

The assembly continued with the awarding of certificates to the students who achieved perfect attendance for the previous month.  I think Grade 5 had the most perfect attenders.  The lucky winners posed with their respective teachers.  I had the honour of calling out, awarding, and posing for a photograph with the four high school students.  I was glad I wore my sealskin tie that day.       

            

With only two weeks left in the fall semester, the high school teachers, and hopefully students, knew that final exams were right around the corner.  We got to work on preparing our exams and reviewing all the relevant material with our students.  Exam schedules were posted in all high school classrooms, hallway, and washroom doors.  I only had two final exams to prepare because my drummers had a final performance test.  We were also preparing for the upcoming Christmas concert. (More on that in a future post).

            

The final exam for my Grade 10 Social Studies class would mainly focus on the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, but also briefly touch upon the three other agreements in northern Quebec, Northwest Territories, and Labrador.  The final exam for Grade 11 Social Studies would focus on Women's Suffrage and the First World War.

            

The last week of school will be quite challenging because: all exams & class work need to be marked, final marks & comments have to be inputted into the school's computer database, and I am in charge of directing the Christmas concert this year.

            

The first full week of December ended on a humourous tone for me and JF.  He was cleaning out the storage room in the high school science classroom and found a very old binder.  The binder was an educational resource from the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium, dated February 15, 1981.  The binder included a large, 5.25-inch floppy disk, containing information about aestheometry.  At least, that's what we could gather from reading the stickers.  None of us had a computer with a 5.25-inch floppy drive to verify the information.  In fact, I don't think anyone uses 5.25-inch floppy disks nowadays.  They are beyond obsolete. 

            

JF & the floppy disk.

I asked JF what he was going to do with the floppy disk and binder.  He said he would dispose it because there was no need to keep it.  We wondered if the resource was ever used at the school.

            

The year-end Christmas Pot Luck Dinner for Inuujaq School staff was held on the evening of December 9th.  Staff were encouraged to write what they would bring on a large paper in the main office, thus avoiding two of the same dishes.  Staff were allowed to bring two guests.  JF's classroom was converted into a dining hall, with long tables, chairs, and Christmas decorations.  The Christmas tree in the elementary wing was brought in to serve as the centrepiece.  Kraft paper was used as table cloth, enabling everyone to write & draw on them with crayons.  (Just like in family restaurants!) 

            

Desserts

My contributions to the pot luck were different this year.  I brought two large blocks of mild & smoked Gouda cheeses, Polish Kielbasa, and crackers.  (I was the "Shrimp Man" for 2015 & 2014).  The rest of the menu consisted of: turkey, arctic char, bannock, salads, stuffing, mashed potatoes, desserts, juice, tea, coffee, and other foods that I can't name.  JF made a large chocolate log cake. 

            

Cooked arctic char.

The pot luck began at 6:30pm.  An elder blessed the food before we all lined up to fill our plates.  I was glad to see people sampling the Gouda cheeses I brought.  Such cheeses aren't readily available in Arctic Bay.  I brought them from down south.  I was able to taste most of the foods that were brought.  Unfortunately, the arctic char was gone by the time I got through the line.

            

The principal congratulated everyone for a successful fall semester.  He wished everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  Secret Santa gifts were exchanged between staff members.  We all went home with satisfied appetites.