The Neverending Math Equation

So starting tomorrow, myself and a colleague will be the acting administration for the next four days. Our admin is gone out of town for their divisional admin meetings and I have been selected to be acting vice-principal for grades 6-12. Barb will be the acting VP for K-5. I know it sounds nuts but, the current administration figure I am the person for the job.... so keep your fingers crossed that it is a good week.

Roger and Rob out on Barrier Lake

So on the weekend my Bro( friend in SB talk), Roger and I headed out to Barrier Lake, for some relaxation and ice fishing. Well the fishing was slow but the relaxing was very nice. Rob our fellow teacher who resides out in this expanse of paradise, has lived in the area off and on since 1972 and we heard many a tale of his life and times up here. It was fairly uneventful, but a very enjoyable time. What is cool about Rob's place is he has a computer with internet as well as satellite tv and a telephone, all in the middle of basically nowhere. He runs everything on a small powerplant and really lives very comfortably. Pretty cool to say the least, I will be making more trips out there in the future....

Camp Shukin

OK, so how is the community doing? This is a difficult question to answer, and I feel that things are basically unchanged. Last week we had the media and provincial government in to discuss the community issues and according to a couple of attendees I spoke with, it was an emotional time with much fingerpointing, and little was accomplished...

My take... if it is worth anything.
1. There is nothing for young people to do in Sandy Bay
In many ways I agree with this statement. However, when the average of of this community is 18, and I am consistently getting 4 or 5 students in classes with enrollments of 27, I disagree. There are many school age individuals not even registered for school. To move forward education must be valued, or this cycle will continue.
It has been determined that the best way to give young people something to do is to build a youth centre, getting youth involved in the design and construction. This is a great idea but the resources for this type of project will take time, what do we do in the mean time? I see kids outside playing road hockey, sliding and using the gym in the evenings. This seems like they have things to do; the same things young people have done for generations
I think the major problems in Sandy Bay are social issues, like, unemployment/unemployability, alcohol, drugs, domestic abuse, sexual abuse, neglect. The same problems faced by people in virtually every community in Canada, but it seems to be magnified here.
There is no quick fix but we must value our youth, and help them to realize their value. I don't know how we can heal these wounds and combat these problems but it must be in our minds everyday. My collaborating teacher last year said something to the students that stuck with me, it is sort of "Bill and Ted"ish but it is a good place to start:
"BE DECENT TO EACH OTHER"


I uploaded some more pictures to the photo album
G