Inuktitut teacher in training

Thursday, August 23, 2012

There’s this new student in my class who is also new to the school. He is not from Hall Beach but he has lived in Nunavut, and other provinces in the past. Since the fourth graders are taught in Inuktitut in the first half of the day, it was a challenge when this student told the teacher he did not speak a word of Inuktitut. Since there isn’t a program at school that helped English speakers who are new to community to learn Inuktitut, it was going to be hard to immerse this student in a language he was not familiar with. He showed frustration and refused to listen (or “try to”) to anything that was happening in class. Even though I was physically present in the class, I was on my planning time and realized that their Inuktitut teacher (she was even hired for that position that same morning and had no time to prepare) needed some guidance. She had written his name in Inuktitut and told him to practice writing his name. For any of you may not know, the Inuktitut script, syllabic, has an alphabet system that uses symbols. Some symbols resembled a triangle, the letter “d” and a lightning bolt. Anyways, I told the teacher I would help him one-on-one while she continued her teaching. I helped him trace the symbols that made up his name and even referred to the alphabet diagrams posted in the classroom. After about 10 minutes, he was able to write his name in Inuktitut. I felt like that was the most foreign teaching experience ever. Makes me want to learn the language myself. 

I bought a fish today. Arctic char fresh from the Arctic Ocean. Being in a small community surrounded by water, I’m not use to men offering fish to me on the road or even in the school hall. Yesterday, I ran into a local outside of the Co-op. It’s hard to forget him since he only had 3 upper teeth. Jimmy, his name, asked me if I was interested in getting any fish. Having just had char the night before since Jennifer bought a fish from one of the custodians, I really wanted to buy a char for myself. $20 for a fish that would probably be good for at least 8 meals. How could you say no to freshly caught fish for $20 when it would be $20 for a small fillet at Red Lobster? Lol He said he caught one that was about 3 feet long too. I told him I was interested in buying a smaller one and suggested him to just come to my room in the school to drop it off. Sounds strange, right? Since its a small community, everyone seems to know each other and many locals visit the school to sell their fish or stone carvings (which I have yet to buy).

Jimmy didn’t come back until today. He told me he was busy yesterday day and sold all his fish. He remembered me and caught some more this morning and brought it to my class. Happens to be that his son is one of my students! Anyways, I loved how I was able to buy fresh food without having to leave my class.