Au Nord Du Quebec

Week 1 has flown by. My students are getting more comfortable with me every day, and I with them. The most important lesson I learned this week is: LET THEM PLAY! In my first few days, I was trying to have them do too much without a break, so now I give them free play time as a transition between activities. So far it is working very well, hopefully my success continues. The most interesting part of my week was on Thursday night to celebrate Mistissini Day. Another fun tradition in the town is fiddle dancing. Unfortunately there weren't any live fiddle players, but there were live dancers! I got to watch many different groups, both youth and adult, dance to fiddle music throughout the night. Lucky for me, the host of the night asked all doctors and teachers to come out and dance to a song, so I, along with 25 other teachers and doctors, went to the middle of the plywood dance floor and danced my butt off to fiddle music for 5 minutes straight. It was the most fun I had in a long ...

This past week has been full of firsts! I started my teacher training on Monday at the High School where we had breakfast as a full staff. The Chief welcomed us and wished us a very successful school year. The next three days were full of planning, meetings and classroom set-up. At last came Thursday aka The First Day of School! My classroom was all set up and ready! I was as prepared as I could be for the students that were about to come my way and be my first students ever. I have ten students on my class list and five of them came on the first day! You may think that's not a lot of students, but the first day of school here does not have the best attendance record. I was able to meet my students and spend most of the day with them, showing them the class and the school and making sure they were comfortable with me and with each other. Since Thursday was such a draining and exciting day, a few friends of mine (also teachers) and I went blueberry picking on the other side ...

Welcome to my blog! I am very excited to be sharing my experiences as a first-year teacher, an American in Quebec and as a resident of a remote community. For those of you who do not know me, I am a recent graduate of Bishop's University in Lennoxville, Quebec, where I graduated with my Bachelor of Arts in Education and Bachelor of Education in Primary Studies. I am originally from a small suburb outside of Boston, Massachusetts and am now teaching Grade 1 in the Cree Nation of Mistissini in Quebec. Needless to say that I am very far from home, 776 miles or 1250 kilometers to be exact.  Check out the route I took  here .  My journey North was done in two legs, one 5.5 hour drive to Sherbrooke, Quebec to stay overnight then a 10 hour drive to Mistissini. There were many stops along the way, stopping for food, gas and bathroom breaks as often as I could. The most north I had been before now was Quebec City, but I passed Quebec City only 3 hours into the second part of m...