School days , school days
Dear old golden rule days

Years ago as a child, this was probably the only school song anybody knew. A ruler hit across the knuckles was the hickory stick. Once, one of the teachers shook a student so hard that the buttons on his shirt flew off. This type of abuse was rare but it did exist, and we all lived in fear that we might be next victim.

When we lived in Kivalina in 1964, the school was a one room classroom. The children attended the school until they finished grade eight. This was usually the end of any formal schooling, although some children went to the lower forty eight to further their education. I think about this tiny room and how difficult it must have been to teach children of varying ages. The teacher was firm but I never heard that she used any type of physical punishment to discipline her class.

My grandmother taught in a one room school house before she became a nurse and I wish I had asked her what it was like. In the ignorance of youth I never asked and I would love to have known how she managed. I did hear a lot from the teacher in Kivalina, however, and how demanding it was in that time to teach there. The children knew so little about the outside world.

It’s difficult to believe the first grade reader was the one I had grown up with — Dick and Jane. Even now the words are carved into my mind: See Spot run. Run Spot run. Dogs and cats were pets in the book and milkmen brought milk in bottles. I couldn’t help but think how ludicrous this was. In Kivalina, nobody had a cat for a pet; in fact I never saw a cat when I lived there. Dogs were trained to work and the children had only seen milk in cans. How could they possibly relate to this reader? Or was Dick and Jane the only reader available at that time?

In the modern world of today all this has changed. School will be opening for these children soon or perhaps it has already started. The school in Kivalina starts with pre-k and goes to grade 12. It now has a a total of eight teachers—so different from the small classroom I was familiar with in 1964. Internet is available to them as well as social media.

I look back on the little one room school house and remember the look of wonder as the children sat together, each with the common goal of absorbing as much as they could before their education ended. These students once confined to one room, now have the type of education they deserve — the type of education all children are entitled to.

Across the continental United States some schools are open; others will be opening soon. For many students the school of today will be very different from the school of last year. Some will be having hybrid learning but many will be studying virtually. Covid 19 has literally turned the education for most of our children into a whole new world— a world where they are forced to learn away from their peers, and one which isolates them from their friends and all the activities that a new year brings.
Without the internet this type of learning would be impossible and it remains to be seen whether schooling like this will have a beneficial effect on our children.

How do you like to go up in the swing —up in the air so blue ( Robert Louis Stevenson)

As a child, there was nothing I liked better than being on a swing. I could pump my legs and get so high that I felt I could see everything around me in the split second that I was at the highest point. When I arrived in Kivalina, Alaska in the spring of 1964, the school yard was barren. In the lower forty eight, the towns and cities were full of playgrounds where children could enjoy the magical moment of soaring into the air or balancing on a teeter totter. I thought the native children should experience this as well and asked Tiger about it. He had no answer to this. I wondered what they did in their free time. The girls helped their mothers with their chores and the boys learned to drive a dog team. Playing? This didn’t happen in Kivalina, with a population of 150 natives including the children, a one room school and a patch of play dirt.

Autumn of 1964, the cargo ship, the North Star, arrived in the village bringing food and other supplies. Looking out the window of our tiny home, I saw the barren area near the school had been transformed. The cargo ship was a Fairy Godmother to these children bringing them swings, slides and teeter totters. I will never forget the look of joy and wonder on the faces of these children as they played from dawn to dusk at the newly minted playground.

Fast forward: It is now 2020. The playground at the school in Kivalina is no longer there. There are 350 children attending the school and when the new school was built many years ago the playground had to be dismantled because of a lack of space. ( Aletha Duchene)

Our life here in the lower forty eight has changed as well. Although the parks are filled with playground equipment, these areas are all roped off due to covid 19. Someday our play areas will be reopened. Until Kivalina is relocated there will be no place where the children will have the joy of swinging up in the air so blue, or learning to balance on a teeter totter

I was a young woman when I lived in Kivalina — naive and accustomed to city life. Looking back on my life there, it was a quiet time — a way to enjoy the simple pleasures of life and not get caught up in the rush of our world today. Now, 55 years later, I reflect on the serenity of a simple life, oh so long ago. Soar in the wind and take pleasure in the magic moments life has to offer.