Sacred Romance

I have been promising to tell you why my time last weekend in Pierre was so awesome, so I guess I’d better before I forget! I have to admit, that morning as I slowly got ready the sky was the limit. At the very least I was hoping to see some attractive men in Pierre. I may be a little more man-crazy than the average woman, but does it sound weird to you that being in Eagle Butte too long makes me go through a little withdrawal? I guess you can’t really understand unless you’ve lived in a semi-isolated place. It’s not like there are no good-looking men here... but there really aren’t many. Anyway, because of the increased likelihood of seeing attractive men in Pierre, I spent a little more time getting ready than usual, since I wanted to look cute. I sometimes forget that the most awesome guys don’t really care what I look like, and that the best One is both in Eagle Butte and Pierre. Oh, well.


I started out my day in Pierre in a lovely way doing something I’ve been longing to do: I finally got to visit the coffee shop, Pier 347, which is just as cool as I expected it to be. I got some cinnamon-sugar bagel bites and chai, and settled in to do some reading and grading. That was a fabulous way to spend a few hours, and it made me want a coffee shop in Eagle Butte so much!

After that I spent a space of time wandering up and down the little downtown strip, though by then only a few places were open, since it was around 4:30 PM or so. I went in to the Hobby shop, and after a brief walk-through, probably spent about half an hour talking to the guys surrounding the register. A few of them were kinda cute, but I think most of them were married. I didn’t really care, though--we just had a fun conversation about South Dakota, child-rearing, the women who frequent the leather shop across the street from them, and other things. The next store that was open was the Hollywood Shop, which has quite expensive (well, over $100) dresses. I visited with another guy there, who was probably in his seventies. I don't usually look too closely at dresses that expensive, so I needed conversation. We had a very fun chat--his wife grew up in Timber Lake, which is one of the smaller towns near to me. I asked around as I went to figure out where I should have supper, and got a tentative recommendation for the Chinese restaurant downtown, since I said I was in the mood for Chinese.


After that I washed my car and whipped through Walmart to pick up some other things, though my “whipping” got slower and slower as I figured out what I needed and wanted. About this time I smiled up at Jesus and asked Him if He wanted to go out to supper with me (facetiously, of course. I didn’t really have the option to leave Him behind!) I was still hankering for Chinese food, so I pulled up to the downtown Chinese restaurant at around 8:00 PM. I was totally overcome when I walked in the door, settled down into a booth, and immediately realized the restaurant was playing Christian music! God must have known I’d get distracted from our “date” otherwise! I know I would have. I can always distract myself, but it’s much easier to focus on your Jesus if you are surrounded by praise music. Plus, I loved pretty much every single song they played. The restaurant was almost empty, and by the time I finished my supper, I had been the only customer for about half an hour. Pretty sure I was singing along on at least a few of the songs. I just couldn’t help it! Who ever knew a Chinese restaurant to play a Christian radio station? I was in awe, as I always am when Jesus “shows up” in a way I don’t expect.


Despite the fact that the food itself was less than stellar, supper put me into a very romantic mood. Because of this, and because I was feeling very full of less-than-stellar Chinese, I decided I needed a walk, so I headed to the Capitol grounds at about 10:00 PM. There is a circular walk at the bottom of the hill that is very well lit, and I figured that would be the perfect place to wrap up my night before heading home. I would say it was. It was lovely, in fact. I read names on the monuments, found Dewey County on the list of county names, and tried mostly unsuccessfully to take some nighttime pictures. I kept singing to Jesus, because I wanted to hang onto the the wonder I had felt when I heard His gentle reminders. After that, I slid back into my car and started the relatively brief drive home, wishing that I had my computer to write on. When I retell this story it seems very inconsequential, but it was a big deal to me. God restored my soul.

Evangelism... tangled in my heartstrings

As a member of the FLY 2011 Committee, there are several convention areas that I am responsible for. The first three areas weren’t necessarily chosen because of my interests or aptitude, though some fit better than others. Then there is Evangelism... Uff da. This is the one area that I really, really want to fit me.
If there is one thing I am learning about evangelism right now, it is that evangelism is a visceral, often painful process that might often seem to be absolutely fruitless. However, that hasn’t always been my experience.
Though it was a bit of a culture shock transferring from a conservative Bible School to a liberal university for college, I’d say my faith thrived there. As editor of the conservative student publication, each month I wrote an article from a Christian perspective that both atheists and Christians found highly thought-provoking, and as a student leader, I often had random members of the campus community approach me to get the “definitive” Christian perspective. Mixed in with that oh-so-human pride and that oh-so-divine humility was just plain elation that I had finally “gotten it,” had finally learned how to live out my faith in my daily life and reach close friends and acquaintances alike!
That was until God took me to my current location. When I knew God was calling me to be a teacher I expected it to be a ministry, especially when I got a job offer to come to the Cheyenne River reservation in South Dakota. Because of my unique position at an alternative school, I actually have tons of opportunities to share my faith. When kids ask me what I do on the weekends, I tell them. When they ask me why in the world I’m smiling while my broken-down car is in the shop, I tell them.
Regardless, I am learning that evangelism in some situations is much more painful than in my earlier experiences. Evangelism means “the act of sharing good news.” However, the good news can only come after the bad: that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) The meaning of law and gospel doctrine is that one message is empty without the other, but together, the two make a beautiful change inside someone’s life. Here’s the twist in my life on the reservation: my kids all know the bad news already. They all know that people are messed up and that they have no hope on their own. As the evangelist, I am the one being continually reminded of the bad news, and being continually overcome by the beauty of the good news. Now if only my kids would believe that second part, too!
Before you get pictures in your head of me (or any other Christian) being the conquering Christian warrior, I have one more thing to tell you: besides being gut-wrenchingly painful, I’ve also discovered that the rewards of evangelism are very rarely of this world. In all my seed-planting, I can’t tell you one story about someone coming personally to me and asking for help in giving his or her life to Christ. That’s OK, though. Jesus reminds us in Matthew 6:5 that those who pursue earthly goals receive their full rewards on earth. Think of the blessings we have waiting for us in Heaven, those treasures which we know will be utterly worthless to us there, compared to seeing His face!

Summary of NCTE trip!

I know this is lame, but here is my blog post for November, which doubled as my trip report to the tribe. I will report on December next. Maybe this weekend... And pictures will be up here soon!

From November 18th to November 20th, I had the privilege of attending the Annual Convention of the National Council of Teachers of English in Orlando, Florida at Walt Disney World’s Coronado Springs Resort. The theme of the convention was “Teachers and Students Together: Living Literate Lives.”

My travel day began at noon on November 17th, when I left the E.A.G.L.E. Center to drive to the Rapid City Regional Airport. Since my plane had been delayed I was put onto an earlier flight, and from then on my trip to Orlando, with stops in Denver and Dallas, was uneventful. I arrived in Orlando close to my 9:45 AM ETA, and had just enough time to check-in at the All-Star Sports Resort and receive my luggage before the shuttle departed for the first featured session at Coronado Springs. Disney provides shuttle service from the airport to all of their resorts, which was very convenient!

The program schedule was extremely full, with one general session per day and a long list of elective options throughout each day. Some sessions that I especially appreciated included “Using Books to Ban Racial Stereotypes,” “Taking Risks With ‘At Risk’ Learners,” and “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Censorship But Were Too Chilled To Ask.” There were approximately fifty options for most elective slots, which made my decisions quite a challenge, but every session I attended applied directly to my personal and professional interests. I took note of several new strategies and activities that I hope to use in the future, and may have uncovered some new ways to challenge and motivate my students.

The remainder of the time I had at the convention was mainly spent in the Exhibit Hall, where I gathered information about programs, curriculum, and assessments. I kept my eyes open for enrichment activities and for some practical help with our EC yearbook, finding a great “reader’s theatre” collection and two affordable student publishing programs. Some other things of interest were a Bible literacy curriculum and a few fun children's book merchants. I also spent some time at the book merchants, finding an anthology to use in seventh and eighth grade and other great literature on sale.

As for the final purpose of professional conferences, while I did not take advantage of any extra recreational opportunities provided at Walt Disney World, I got what I wanted most: a nap in a hammock under swaying palm trees and a few opportunities to swim. I also had tasty, though very expensive, food, and had one particularly nice dinner out of my per diem allowance at Kouzzina by Cat Cora, a Mediterranean restaurant. The Convention was refreshing and reinvigorating in many ways, and I look forward to incorporating some of my new ideas and new materials into my instruction.

The biggest thing I learned is that next time I'm taking a buddy, so if you're an English teacher who wants to go to NCTE in a few years, let me know!

Love you all! Sorry I have gotten so far behind! Christina

If I wanted to...

Dear readers,
Let’s see, what is most pressing on my mind at this moment, or what is currently the most exciting thing in my life, or what is most likely to keep your interest for ten minutes as you read this post? I wish I knew! I’ve had several ideas come up in the last month since my most recent post, but I can’t recall all of them. If I were to pick something to rant about I would write about whatever genius thought it was possible that every school child in America would ever be proficient in both reading and math, let alone by a set deadline. I might also mention the hammer of professional development which is currently beating my district’s teachers into the ground while their oblivious students continue to deliberately or accidentally perform poorly on tests and behave or misbehave in exactly the same way as usual. However, I really don’t feel like ranting, and am appreciative of my principal’s OK to ditch a few of my responsibilities, even though the things I want most to ditch are non-negotiable.



If I wanted to tell you about the fun parts of my life, I would tell you about fun pizza and movie nights with Angie, Amanda, and Teri, and submit brilliant reviews of the last three movies we rented from Netflix. I would also dedicate at least four paragraphs to the Homecoming weekend that I just spent in Morris, specifically praising my excellent former roommate Kristine for her great job as hostess (she makes a mean Sunday brunch), thanking Jill and Andrea for the lovely walks, appreciating my friends Shauna, Ketsa, Tabitha, and Belle for being such wonderful ladies to spend any amount of time with, telling Jake how much I like seeing him and how cute his dog is, and rolling my eyes while being slightly nostalgic for my football players, Counterweight boys, and tenors. However, as fun as that would be, I guess I can deliver all of my praise to my wonderful friends individually, and if I wanted to fill you in on how Homecoming weekend was, I guess I could just call you, like I called my dad to report on my tour of the UMM biomass plant.


If I wanted to tell you about the humdrum details of my daily life, I could tell you about funny things my kids do, like the 8th graders who all decided to write stories in which Miss Osthus married one of their relatives or the 7th grader who makes all of the teachers laugh and drives his classmates crazy with his “clever” comments. I could tell you that we’ve gotten close to twenty new high school students within the last month, and that I haven’t been able to enter grades or information for any of them online because with a new clerk and without our lab manager the EC is a bit behind on clerical things. I could tell you some great stories from youth group, like how much Katie and Jacob make me laugh with their arguing and how great it is that Nico and James brought a friend when Pastor Del Palmer made a missions presentation last Wednesday. However, I’ve found that not everyone appreciates exhaustive accounts of my life, and it would probably take more time than I have to give.


If I wanted to give my readers things to pray about, I could give a list of concerns for my family, particularly that Michael and Marretta would continue to settle into their new surroundings and that Julia wouldn’t, so that she will come home from Brazil! I could also tell you about all my missionary friends, some of whom are facing challenges in ministry, some of whom are working to raise funds either to go to the field or to stay there (like Sigi, Richard, and John), and some of whom are in places that are lately unsafe, like the Pacchas and the Schierkolks. I could even tell you about a long list of friends back in Morris who need some heavy duty prayer, like Sarah, Ted, and Rachel. I guess I just gave you that list, didn’t I?

If I wanted to tell you what God is teaching me lately… I’m never very good at encapsulating that, but I might take you on a walk through Ephesians or Malachi, where I’ve been reading lately. I might tell you that He’s teaching me a whole lot about love, and that I’m trying to find different ways of showing my love toward Him. I might say that I’m finding different ways both to value and to evaluate love, and that I’m trying to remember the One who chose me must always be first in my heart. The book of Malachi is all a conversation between God and His very confused people, who really are hurting God and don’t have a clue what they are doing. He tells them all of their offenses one by one, and they ask Him, “How have we done these things?” I am examining myself to look for any areas of my life in which I forget that God is touched. Have I robbed God by holding back too much of the wealth He has given me? Have I been unfaithful by investing in an earthly relationship more than I have invested in Him? Have I rejected God by ignoring a beggar on the street? I know I have all done all of these things before. Anyway, like I said, I’m not very good at giving a little tidbit of what God is teaching me at the moment.


Those are all options that I suppose I have when I blog. I usually do a little mixture of all of these things, and I guess this post was no exception. I continue to keep my goal in mind to write more often and more pithily! According to spell check, that adverb works, so I guess I’ll keep using it. I love you all, and I am signing off to go to sleep! Pray for Ecuador, my students, and the other requests that I gave you earlier! Showers of blessings be upon you! Christina

Some philosophical musings for the beginning of the year

I have successfully finished my second week back at school, or third week if you count in-service training. Last year I had to push most philosophical questions out of the way to maintain my sanity, but now I am slowly pulling them out again to ponder. Our keynote speaker for in-services was a friend of our superintendent, and his message was based on the song “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” As I’m sure you can guess, it was interesting and entertaining. However, there were some really fascinating questions that he brought to light for me: first, what are teachers really trying to do (not to mention what is possible for us to do), and second, what are the dominant philosophies of education in today’s political climate?

Our speaker told us that we should know ourselves as educators, as opposed to teachers. Sounds great, but why? He says being a teacher carries with it the denotation of instructing someone else in how to do something. On the other hand, being an educator etymologically has the idea of “bringing out something that was within.” The latter definition sounds warm, fuzzy, and humanistic, but I can’t quite buy it, for several reasons, some ideological and some practical. Ideologically, I know that there’s plenty of lousy stuff within my kids, and that without instruction the lousy will trump the good every time. I love my students very much, but they are not naturally well-behaved or brilliant. I also know that constantly teaching that way would be ludicrous. As a language arts teacher, I often do leave something to my students’ opinions, ask for their first reactions, or ask them to dig deeper than I have. However, I do not expect them to have my expectations for behavior implanted in their hearts or to create their own coherent ways to categorize parts of speech. Of course, any philosophy can be taken too far, and I would assume that Dr. Ed would not expect us to take his ideas of education to these lengths.

Another thing that really interested me was Dr. Ed’s commentary on “self-esteem training,” and I think I agree with him on this, but I would be fascinated to talk with him more on the subject. He talked about the popular cause of building kids’ self-esteem that took over education and other public sectors in the early 90’s, and how everyone was sure that it was the key to eliciting better performance and behavior from kids. He says it didn’t happen that way. This goes along with what Olweus, our school’s bullying prevention program, says about bullies: for so long, the conventional wisdom has said that the typical bully has low self-esteem and is very insecure. However, according to the body of research on bullying, this is not true. Many bullies have very high self-esteem and believe that they have many friends (though of course, they may only be their friends out of fear). We see the same thing at my school. Our counselor asks new students questions of their self-concepts and how they see others, and most of our bullies and our most resistant students have very high opinions of themselves, or at least they claim to. I know there is a difference, and that self-reporting is very tricky. Taking a test like that is quite a quandary for me, as a realistic person and a Christian. How in the world am I supposed to rate myself as a person on a scale from one to ten? Who made the scale anyway? The only scale that matters is God’s, and I guess without Jesus’ righteousness I’m weighing in at zero. So maybe the tests are ridiculous to begin with.

Anyway, the point is that filling kids’ heads with news of how terrific they are is only good if you have something solid backing it up. It seems like some of the gurus in education are getting that, but I know some of them are still missing the boat, because I still hear plenty of “rah-rah-rah go me” mumbo-jumbo out of my kids and my fellow teachers. So what is going on in education today? In my first education class I learned about different public education models and different philosophies that have been prominent through the last decades, but how will those in the future look back at these years? The National Education Association (NEA) is ridiculously liberal as a whole, from what I can see, but there seem to be some conservative voices in education that are very strong right now. I still haven’t quite gotten over the choice for keynote speaker when I attended the Education Minnesota Convention in the fall of 2008: Ron Clark, who wrote 55 Essential Rules, and whom my sister has decided to emulate in her future teaching career. My sister is pretty old school when it comes to her philosophy, and this guy really is, too, though he finds many very creative ways to get his point across. I need to read his book, and though I’ve been thinking about it for the last few years, now that my sister’s found him I know she won’t let me forget!
Of course, when I talk about “liberalism” and “conservatism” within education, I know I need to watch what I say, particularly because I found out during some of my college classes that certain methods of mine are labeled “liberal,” since they haven’t all been used for the last hundred years. During my class on writing and writing pedagogy, a classmate and I had some great conversations and were hugely entertained when we realized that she, who is a card-carrying liberal and pretty much a hippie, preferred many conservative methods of teaching, while I was the exact opposite. I’d never hated being put in a box so much before that moment. There are negative connotations that we carry along with every label, of course, but political terms probably make me go “hmmm” the most. Nowadays, the running conservative joke about me at work is that being conservative is the reason I don’t like spending money. I’d always thought that instinct came from my hippie side… my very closeted hippie side… There now, was that a bit more bloggish? Are you slightly more intrigued than by my typical post? : ) I love you either way! Blessings, Christina

Brief reflection of the summer, prayer preview into the future!

Dear cherished readers! I have a few goals for blogging this year: first, to blog slightly more often, perhaps twice a month, and second, to make my posts, somewhat shorter and pithier. Can I hear an amen? Yes, I’ve been made fun of enough for my long blog posts that I can take the hint! The reason I cherish you is because you read anyway!

Having said that, allow me to give you a window (not a door) into my summer of 2010. At the end of my previous post, I was on my way home for “vacation” with my family in the Twin Cities. We found plenty of ways to amuse ourselves, including the Mill City Museum, the U of MN Arboretum, the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Science Museum, and several movie nights. We even took some pictures!

Then I headed back to SD to teach summer school, which was good, but pushed me a little bit further into exhaustion than I really wanted to go. I wondered several times what I had been thinking when I had signed up to teach back in April, but the kids and I survived barely the worse for wear. After that I headed back to Minnesota to spend about five days with family and friends. I met up with Shauna Rosen and Becca Hjermstad + Casey at Music in Plymouth, had a lovely day in Edina with Miss Jenna Temte, a fabulous adventure with Seth De Penning in Minneapolis (and Shauna and Bethany when they eventually joined us), and a bit of quality time with Marretta and my parents as we marched in the 4th of July parade and then went to the pizza buffet at CiCi’s.

It would be easy to characterize the whole month of July as Vacation Bible School, but it was a lot more than that, and didn’t feel like school at all, trust me! I got back to Eagle Butte on the fourth of July, and then had my first year as a bona fide “church lady” during Emmanuel’s VBS. My responsibilities consisted of hosting the girls from AFLBS, Audrey Nash and Erin Harris, leading crafts one day, feeding kids at snack time, keeping the Timothy team (the girls + Caleb Fugleberg and Ben Dahl) up late at night, and trying to make little Shawn Anderson smile! We had a pretty small crowd, but it was great fun!


Shoot, this post is already getting long, but you didn’t you just long to know every single thing I did this whole summer? I might as well keep going. The next week was basically travel time, hanging out with my mom and my uncles and stopping at Pickerel Lake Bible Camp! Of course, I already missed the Timothy team, so it was very convenient that they were at PLLBC that week for middle school camp. When I arrived back in MN it was almost time for VBS at Minnesota Valley, and I was teaching preschool, so I was a bit apprehensive, as always. That ended up being a great week, of course, and my little sister was once again my comrade-at-arms down in the church basement!


After that, we went up to St. Cloud to see my little cousins who are hardly little anymore! Even though they aren’t that little, they sure are cute, aren’t they? Though I did many delightful things this summer, I must say the highlight was probably going to Bear Trap Ranch again for family camp! I went there once during college to volunteer during another region’s chapter camp, but ever since then I’ve been hankering to go back, and now that I am a teacher and no longer a broke student who needs to make gas money every summer, timing worked out! I rode out and back with George and Sharon, my InterVarsity parents, and I even got in on house-hunting with them for a bit in Manhattan, Kansas. It was so good to be with them again, though they have stopped in Eagle Butte to visit a few times this year!

I helped the camp director’s wife with the four and five year olds for the week, and I adored our class! We had seven little kids the whole week, and two extras came to visit the last day. I fell in love with all of them, and we had our share of adventures together. Who takes four and five year olds rock climbing and camping out without their parents for the night? Well, we did, and miraculously it all turned out all right. I got to do some very fun things that week—I went to a coffee-tasting and managed to slug down taster cup after taster cup of black coffee, paired with the perfect food item, I went on three longer hikes, two of them for the sunrise, I went to a square dance, which my family camp growing up never had, and I got to hang out with some cool people.

I already mentioned how much I enjoyed being with George and Sharon again, and besides that I got to see my friend Will Michaloski again and meet his amazing wife Beth and their kids, I got to spend time with my friend Richard and finally caught him long enough at the end of the week to hear a tiny bit about the work he’s doing with One Challenge International, I met some really sweet kids, as I have already mentioned, and I made some good buddies who were on the summer crew. I especially had fun hanging out with my roommate Mary, the talented musician Emily, and my fellow “adult” CiCi! What a lovely place Bear Trap is… methinks I will not be able to wait so long to revisit this time!

While I was buzzing through Fargo on my way back I caught up briefly with Krista, Luke, and Elise, then with the rest of my spare time until school I set Andrew Olson off on his roadtrip west, caught coffee with Therese, and attended two weddings of friends from Bible School. Wonderful, wonderful summer! Shoot, not so much pith to this post! I’ll keep working on it!

As I start the school year, with kids returning this Monday, I would love prayer for…

• Productivity and creativity on my part as I plan
• My students, that they would be motivated to work hard and that they would see Jesus in me and be drawn to Him
• The new teachers in our district, particularly the two brand-new college grads that we have at the EAGLE Center teaching special education and social studies
• Our youth group at Emmanuel—we’re having a back-to-school party tomorrow and then doing some graffiti removal this Wednesday, so pray that we get off to a strong start!
• My sister as she is student-teaching in Brazil this semester
• My brother as he is applying for parish building ministry for this year
• My younger sister as she is starting Bible School
• My parents as they are probably missing us all… probably!

Thank you for being my support as I try to love like crazy here on the reservation… and without reservations! Love, Christina

Summer post number one: End of school!

Dear family and friends who have no doubt been waiting on pins and needles for my next update,

Here I am, still alive at the end of my first year of teaching! Shortly after my last post, life got rather crazy. At the beginning of April, right after Easter, my grandma on my mom’s side, Helen Engevik, died suddenly in the nursing home in Sisseton. I mention that it was right after Easter because I can’t imagine a better time to go home and be with Jesus. Grandma had been pretty healthy most of her life and never lost any of her mental capacity. We never exactly found out what caused her death, but I had so much peace knowing that she was with my grandpa and her two babies that she had lost, as well as her older sister who had just died weeks before. My sister Marretta and I sang “It Is Well With My Soul” at her funeral, and we didn’t cry too much. I did better while we were singing than I did while I was speaking beforehand. Besides the fact that Julia and Michael both couldn’t be there, the funeral was beautiful. Many people in Eagle Butte seem to look at death so differently, even Christians, so being at a funeral where there was so much hope was refreshing. So far in my life, I have never felt more sure of God’s presence than during times of sadness. I know that the comfort He gives is nothing that the world or my own imagination could come up with. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted. Praise God.



You can imagine the reason why life continued to get more stressful after that, given the season we were in. About that time we really started to push seniors to get work done in preparation for graduation, and those who were still working on a class from freshman or sophomore year started to panic a bit. I was always a bit of a procrastinator as a student, so I can sometimes relate to my students, but many of them pushed procrastination to a limit that I didn’t even know existed. Nevertheless, we had a month left before graduation, and at that point I’d say I had one student scooting to the end of his freshman exercises with junior and senior English work barely started, probably five kids who had the majority of junior and senior English to do, and two who had senior English and the fine arts requirement left. Those were just the classes they had for me—many of them also had some math and two or three textbooks in progress for social studies. At that point two of the girls decided they wouldn’t be able to pull it off, and another quit about a week later when she moved down to Pierre with her boyfriend and enrolled in a GED program. Everyone else, about twenty-four seniors, kept plugging away, and to my consternation, many of them kept up their routines of randomly skipping school just because they didn’t feel like coming in. Most frustrating to me was that my two advisees, two of the brightest seniors, acted as though they were trying not to graduate, either by skipping or by playing solitaire all afternoon. I really didn’t know what would happen, but older teachers assured me that we would graduate the vast majority of them, because they themselves would kick into higher gear the closer graduation got, and we would all work hard enough to help them.



Seniors kind of took over my life for that month, and I apologized to many underclassmen for any neglect I felt I was displaying. Because of the urgency, seniors’ essays got graded first and I would sometimes focus more of my attention on them. The ethics of that really nagged at me, because most of our seniors who really needed the help were those who had refused to work or accept help earlier in the year. One thing that I learned from my first year at the EAGLE Center was to push the seniors much harder during fall semester, though I may not be very successful and may just get a bunch of crabby students. Maybe I can bring in one of this year’s seniors to talk to their successors about the pain they will avoid if they front-load their work. Being on an independent study program has its challenges, as I have learned from being homeschooled and taking online classes.



Despite the overwhelming need I felt to help seniors, many of my other students made great achievements during that last month. One of my sophomore/juniors worked to finish all his junior English, and though he has quite a bit of old math and science left to do, I really think he can graduate next year if he stays in the groove he got going this past semester. All of my seventh grade girls finished their book reports, though they didn’t have a lot of time to spare, and one of my freshman/sophomores quietly finished half of his freshman English, which I had not really expected. He recently told me that English has become his favorite class this semester, and believe me, I am not about to let him forget that he said that! On the other hand, one of my juniors handed in a question packet for a novel that was copied word-for-word from one of the seniors, even though from talking with him I know that he read and understood the book! He didn’t even copy the corrections that I had made on the senior’s packet, which I told the other teachers was either supreme laziness or the weirdest form of honesty I had ever encountered. : )

One of my favorite stories from this whole first year of teaching involved another one of my juniors. He lives with a woman who works for the school, and though he is quite intelligent, he has somehow convinced her that he cannot write, to the point that she will write his essays for him. Other teachers asked me if I knew for sure that she had and whether or not I had reported it to the principal, and I responded that yes, I knew for sure, and that I didn’t have the heart to report a writer who had honesty to tell me about “When I was a little girl.” I got a good laugh out of that one, and that student will be starting that essay over this fall.



One bright spot for me at the beginning of May was prom. I was told that as the youngest teacher at the EAGLE Center I was stuck chaperoning post-prom, and I had to take pictures at Grand March for yearbook, so I thought the best plan would be to go to Grand March, go home for supper and a nap, and then head straight to the Upper Elementary gym for post-prom. How do you think that worked out? : ) Well, I went to Grand March, then I went to the gym to take some group pictures and check out the party, then I stayed for supper, then I danced, then I danced some more, then I took more pictures, then I danced some more… then I went home to change for post-prom. I was pretty zoned out at post-prom, but not too much to beat one of my students on the obstacle course and get a whole ton of grading done. That’s right! What kind of teacher enjoys prom? Probably one who never went to prom in high school!



Crunch time really was the last full week of school, when we still had about eight students who had not yet completed all their work. Once our students complete all their work, they can exit the EAGLE Center after having a mock job interview and getting each teacher to sign that their work is done. On Monday we took inventory and reminded each senior what he or she had left. I asked one of the guys what his plan was to get it all done, and he said, “Well, I haven’t thought about it too much, because I’m trying not to get too overwhelmed.” He is a very relaxed kid, and a very likable one that could have been done weeks earlier if he had not been absent so much. On Tuesday I bluntly told one student that if he didn’t turn in at least four drafts of essays to me that day he wouldn’t be able to graduate, and though the two of us had to stay two hours late that day, he got them done! The students who had a lot of English left had an especially hard time, because I was going out of town on Friday to attend my sister’s graduation in the Twin Cities, which meant they had to finish all their English work by Thursday. They were supposed to finish everything by Friday at 1:00 or so anyway, though.

One very exciting thing that happened that week was that we finished our EAGLE Center yearbook, the first that had ever been published for just our school. I would never have been able to do it without a few of the seniors, particularly one who had finished all of her work and started helping me while she brought her attendance up to the NCLB-mandated 94%. After she made up her attendance she kept finding time to come help between her Dairy Queen shifts, and she was such an encouragement to me. The yearbook definitely could not have gotten done without her! Let me know if you would like to see it—I can send a pdf to anyone who wants to check it out!



We had our awards day on Thursday, which was terrible timing for a few students who were right under the gun. It was fun, though—I rather enjoyed it. One of my favorite seniors, who had decided to quit and taken off in a huff just the previous week, finished his last assignment right before lunch, and then right after lunch his very relieved mother came to the awards ceremony. One of my brilliant advisees was furiously working on his current events class right before lunch, and then wrote his résumé with me right after lunch as the awards were getting set up. I had sat with him at lunch and tried to figure out how he was going to finish, since he still had three books left for social studies, and we had come to the conclusion that he would need to stay up all night and read through his shift at the gas station. Then as soon as we printed off his résumé, the ceremony started, and even though he got several awards, I could just see him wilt the longer the ceremony got. I finally couldn’t take it anymore, and passed off my job as school photographer in order to take the poor guy over to my computer room so that he could get some current events done before he had to leave for work. I really didn’t know if he had enough desire to stay awake all night, but I said many prayers for him that night, and subsequently didn’t get that much sleep myself! My student who had written four essay drafts on Tuesday finished his final draft for his senior research essay at about 5:30 that evening, and I’d never seen anyone so excited to graduate! He kept saying, “Oh, Miss Osthus, I’m graduating!”

I stayed up late that night grading a handful of essays that couldn’t wait, and then packed and tossed and turned, wondering if any of my students were still awake studying. Early the next morning I left, having no clue what would happen with the three students we had yet to exit, two of whom were my highly intelligent advisees. My sister’s graduation and party were wonderful, and I was so proud of her, my baby sister. However, part of my heart was still in Eagle Butte, so I left her party at 5:00 PM on Saturday so that I could be at C-EB’s graduation at 1:00 on Sunday. The drive was uneventful until I got pulled over for sleepily drifting over the median right outside of Eagle Butte, and as soon as the tribal officer was convinced I wasn’t drunk he sent me home to bed.



Right after church on Sunday I drove to school and looked for new memos, and was overcome with delight when I found that every one of the students who had been working that week had finished! I spent the next few hours writing on cards and attaching them to the yearbooks that one of the juniors had assembled while I was gone. Graduation was fantastic. I knew that everything I had done was worth it when I saw how excited they all were to graduate. I wonder about the ethics of the ridiculous sacrifices I made a few times for those seniors (mostly sleep!), but those questions didn’t cross my mind when I was actually at graduation. At least a few of our seniors were first generation high school graduates, which is an amazing experience. Most of our students had actually worked really hard for their accomplishments, even though some of them should have started working several years sooner. Two of our girls were graduating a year early, and at least four students were graduating a year late and had barely expected to graduate at all. My heart was so full, and when I hung out with Amanda and Nicky that night I couldn’t contain the contented sighs that occasionally slipped from me. They probably thought I was crazy. I really think I am… at least crazy about my Master who planted me here to love these students, and about these students that I’ve been given to love.

After that we had three days left with underclassmen, but very few of them came in. Then we had two days full of shredding, cleaning, and meetings, and I checked out Friday morning and headed out for my week off with my family in Minnesota. There was a fall and there was spring, my first year of teaching! Uff da! I’ll fill you all in on my summer in Eagle Butte later! Love, Christina