Just Go With It

One of the fundamental skills needed by a teacher is to be able to go with the flow.  Within any given day or week you are never sure what might occur within the school, community or with the weather.  Therefore you plan for a regular or average week, then plan some back up activities and lessons to keep in your back pocket for any situations that might occur.

This has never been more true or necessary for myself until I came to Cape Dorset.  Daily schedule interruptions or changes seem to be more common as the community and weather have a greater effect on schools than they do down south.  For example, when there is a funeral or other significant event within the community everything shuts down for a few hours or the whole day, including the schools and stores.   Also, as Cape Dorset is a fly in community, weather has a direct affect on travel to and from other communities.

Today was the epitome of being able to go with the flow, not only within my own classroom schedule, but as an entire school.  Our school has an assembly planned for tomorrow and then winter carnival friday.  Both of these events involves community wide planning - volunteers and parents/guardians. We also have guests coming from out of town to participate in both.  The weather was not good throughout the day and no one was sure if the plane, with the guests, would be able to touch down.  There was also a death within the community last week and we were informed today that the funeral will be tomorrow (if family from out of town arrive) or friday.  All of these changes had and may still have significant affects on school and business scheduling for the next two days, as things may still change and you need to be able to roll with it.

Examples like this bring to light just how much events within a small community, like Cape Dorset, have a greater affect on your daily life than within a larger town or city.  Although you may not be directly involved in a situation, just by being a member of the community you are affected and are thus drawn into the situation.