No animals were harmed in the making of this yearbook.

Tonight, I will be submitting my 6th yearbook.  I hate to think of the first yearbook I submitted in Fosston years ago - Listen, if you ever have the chance to be yearbook advisor - walk away - run away!
  It's the one publication that everyone  finds every single mistake and then, tells you about it.  You thought you sent the best book ever made until ... it's in other people's hands.  And let me tell you this, kids aren't always very nice in their criticisms.  Parents neither. But as every year, I believe this is the best one ever!

If you are ever the yearbook advisor, I will tell you this - if there is a mistake - even a big mistake - say you forgot a senior in the yearbook - or the company puts the wrong school on the cover, it's not the end of the world.  Don't let anyone tell you it is either because no one got physically hurt making this yearbook.

You are human - and guess what? I tell kids that there are Obama problems and there are yearbook problems.  This works in many other instances - like curbing drama - and I mean drama with a small d - the kind of drama that shrinks your brain.  They tell me how awful there friend is and I say "Well, this is not an Obama problem, this is a small annoyance let's not go overboard."  They usually laugh.

You can call in your staff and remind them of the importance of proof reading.  Remember it as a life lesson - and maybe do a google search of famous typos and mistakes and remember how they moved on. 

Their Favorite Story - a Story About Sledding.

Today, I told my favorite story to my senior high school students.  Again.  The story of when I had my sledding accident. I know how to tell it just so - just so they know just how macho I am.

I was in seventh grade and had been missing the big hill at the elementary school when my friend, Melanie, gave me a call and asked me to go sledding.  She wanted to go down the hill by our home, the hill with all the trees.  I agreed and met her and her older sister at the top of the hill with the biggest clearing.  I followed Melanie down a few times and decided that this hill was even better than the elementary hill.

I remember looking down at the hill trying to find the best path, and I hopped onto my sled at full speed.  Wahoo!  Kerplunk!  I hit a pole and flew off the sled, landing face first in the snow with my right arm and my left arm by my side, and my right leg planted safely in the snow.  But, my right leg?  It landed on the top of the pole I had hit.

Yes it hurt, but Melanie's sister told me to shake it off and keep sledding.  I got up, brushed myself off, and zoomed down the hill a few more times.

Finally, when I looked down, I saw one red spot on my snowpants the size of a golf ball. I rolled up my snow pants and saw that my jeans were sopping with blood. I rolled up my jeans and saw the damaged jagged opening on my leg.

I showed my leg to Melanie's sister and she transported me on my sled to the arena which was the closest building in sight and called my mom. I should have gotten stitches that day.

For some reason, this story is their favorite.  They ask me to tell it over and over.  And so I do.

What We'll Be Reading part 1

These past months,  I've been reading books that I'm including my curriculum.  According to the expert who visits our school, the State of Minnesota expects 60%-70% of all reading to be nonfiction.
That means only 30%-40% of all reading should be literature.

I got cold feet about buying new curriculum for 7th and 8th grade all at once and decided to teach the same materials with varying rubrics for my junior high English classes.

This year,we will read Riding the Bus with My Sister by Rachel Simon.  We will pick and choose some key chapters for junior high and may even include this book for my senior high class.  In summary, Simon writes about how her sister Beth has centered her life around the bus schedule.  The book centers on how Simon must face growing up with a special needs sister with Down Syndrome.  Themes from this book include bullying, sisterhood, neglect, and family.


Our educational standards demand inclusiveness.  This book emphasizes another type of point of view. It's important to consider others' life view and mindset.  It's so easy to judge.  It's so easy to watch people from the sidelines and judge their lives.  This book forces us to consider the life of a woman with learning problems.  Also, the movie starring Rosie O'Donnell is a great way to compare the movie's actors' interpretations of Rachel Simon and her sister Beth; which is, yet, another standard!

Youth is not Wasted On the Young...

Recently, a young lady asked me if I was jealous of her because she was half my age.  It took all patience and God-Loving Control not to slap her.

 Instead, I bit my tongue for five seconds and said,  "No, I'm in the best part of my life"


 I know my husband loves me.
  I have two lovely daughters.
 Never again will I have to worry about morning sickness, first job interviews, or what I want to be when I grow up. 
I have my dream job, dream man, and dream home.
 I've lived through my mother's cancer, my sister's cancer, and my daughter's broken neck.
And I never want to live through that again...
I have the confidence of a forty-year-old woman,
and I'm not foolish enough to think I know it all.
I have read enough teen journal entries in my life to know
that I don't want to go back there.
And I'm honored to know that I can be a comfort to these students.

"Am I jealous that I'm old enough to be your mother?  No.  I'm a forty-year old woman.  I'm proud."

Boarding Schools - Not as fun as you'd think

What finally hooked the kids on this book, Ojibwe in Minnesota, was the boarding schools.

They were mortified.  They quoted Anton Treuer's writing in outrage -

 - Mrs. Aakhus,' Kill the Indian in him and save the man'. They said that

"I know"

-  They didn't even know their parents when they came home.

I know.

- They wouldn't even send them home if they had died.

I know.

- They didn't even know the same language as their parents.

I know.

- They didn't have a role model, Mrs. Aakhus, they didn't have their parents.

I know.

My students' compassion is awakening. Maybe they will learn with more compassion and see the young boy (from my previous post) patting the book in the far off corner, too.

On Powwows and Birch Bark Canoes

For the past two weeks, we've read 40 pages of Ojibwe in Minnesota.

It's been slow rowing....

This book has a lot of dense information.  Most of the kids were having a hard time getting into powwows and birch canoes.They were struggling with the fact that they were gong to have to re-read the information and build new knowledge.

I heard complaining from some of the most dedicated students.

But what keeps me going...

is that one kid who hides his book on the top of my book shelf.  He takes it down at the beginning of the class and pats it and looks at the pictures over and over.  He is coming home.  We are learning about his history.  He doesn't add to the conversation much, but he sits and smiles quietly and discreetly.  

A Clue

Last week, I decided to give my 8th graders a day off reading and a day to play Clue - They were pumped!

A DAY OFF READING!!!

The next few class periods were filled with learning and insight, but not for the kids.  I'm  the one who did the learning that day.

The State of Minnesota has spent millions of dollars testing students every April to be sure schools are cutting the mustard, but I say why not take a look at Colonial Mustard to get "A Clue" at students' reading and perseverance. Reading rules to a game is a "real life" application of why it's important to read and read well.


Some students just dug into their work, maybe they didn't want to read the instructions for a board game, but they realized that they needed to get the task at hand done in order to play the game.  On the other hand, some students looked at me with blank looks on their faces and hollered out; "I don't get it".  These kids were waiting for someone else to explain the rules to them.

As we started to play the game on various spots on the floor, I noticed some students taking charge.  Some students would skim the rules again to be sure they were doing it right.  Some students had never played the game before and even though they had a hard time with the directions of the game, they watched what everyone else was doing and asked questions. I was proud of these kids, because even though Clue can be a difficult game filled with higher levels of thinking, it was these kids who decided that they were up to the challenge. I was most frustrated with the frustrated kids.  Students who didn't try because they were scared to try.  Students who hollered out "I don't get it" without reading the instructions.  Some of these kids just sprawled on the floor with their cards showing and complaining that the game was too hard.

Next year, I will requisition 6 or 8 Clue games.  On the first days of school, I will assign 4 kids to a game and watch how they play the game.  I will be able to learn their learning styles and levels of perseverance.  I will see which kids have parents who take the time to play board games with their kids.  I will see which kids need coaching through their reading assignments.

I will know more about my students and abilities from this than any test anyone could give them.

Big Ideas

For the past months, Senior High English has had an interesting mix of ups and downs.  I find it interesting how kids can vary their maturity.  Some days, they're spot on, and I'm amazed at their abilities.  Others days, they get the cold-steely-eyed stare of a pessimistic literature teacher wondering what she did to deserve them.

Luckily, that literature teacher forgives and forgets and remembers that they are just kids.

Yesterday, we circled up and had a discussion of big ideas.  It always surprises me how deep these kids are and how some of them are really interested on what others think.

Is there destiny? Are we fools to think we have any control over our futures?

Is true-love predestined?

How did people first start talking about aliens?

I loved that the paraprofessional in our room opened up and started talking about her big questions. 

 I love this job.

Hooray!

We just finished reading The Giver in 8th grade. 

And Hooray!

Of course - not everyone cheered and the best parts - but those kids,  you know the ones...

The ones who yell out "I hate reading."

Those were who cheered at the best part ever in the book -

and even read ahead -

They even knew not to give the best part away - and definitely not the ending -  They did not give away the ending.

Now - I hope the next things we read hooks them just as much!

On helping ...

Tina decided we were going to be in the Uff Da Mud Run in Grand Forks, ND.  I'm not quite sure how she talked me into it - but she did.

I'm not sure I knew what I was in for until I paid the registration fee and starting reading about the different obstacles. I was scared to death.

Caron, Tina, and I trained.  We ran. And then, we ran some more.  We army crawled.  We swam.

Eventually...   they put the course map out.


View UFF DA mud run (public) in a larger map


In the back of my mind, I figured I would do some of the obstacles and support Tina and Caron as they managed the course.




 Every Thursday, we met at the park and ran the hills of Red Lake Falls.  I always knew they were faster than I was, but I plugged away.  I did what I could.

Friday night, Caron and Tina picked me up.  We registered for the race and went for supper.  We scanned the course took a big gulp went home and tried to sleep.

Jason brought  me and the girls to the starting line the next morning.  Natalie and I stood at the riverbank looking at the final swim when she turned to me and said "Mom, it's just sad."

"What?"

"I wonder how many people will drown today."

 IF that didn't comfort my anxiety for the day, I'm not sure what would.

Tina, Caron, and I started at the finish line pumped and ready to go!

We started over the first few obstacles of muddy rocks, hay bales, and increasing wall heights, and looked at each other and knew we were going to try them all.

I wasn't the fastest runner, but I had heart and determination, and I did things that day that I never thought I'd do.

What sticks in my mind the most is when I stood in line to climb a cliff and thinking that there was no way I'd do that.  In the back of my mind, I wondered how I was going to get out of it.  I watched Tina go, and then, Caron.  I decided that if they could do it, I could do it too.  I grabbed the rope and wrapped the rope around my wrist.  I climbed up  about 4/5 of the way and looked down.  I did not want to fall. I was so tired.  I looked up - it seemed so far.  I looked down.  I didn't want to go down either.  And, at the top my friends yelled "You can do it. You can do it."  And I went a bit further.. and then, arms hugged on to me, and they lifted me up the rest of the way.  I did it. 

In every day's struggles, I think of  reaching the top with someone's help.  I think of helping kids get to the top.  I'm more determined. 

Hiroshima

This spring, I requisitioned 30 copies of Hiroshima by John Hersey. Personally, I had never heard of the book until five years ago when I assigned a journal asking students what book they would recommend for me to read.  At the end of class, one of my students went to my book shelf and came back with the classroom copy.

Japan has always pulled at my heartstrings.  There were a few exchange students from Japan in my high school, and I was always drawn to be their friend.  I even took a year of Japanese in high school.

 I read the book within a few weeks of the recommendation.

I decided we would read Hiroshima this Spring. As I researched the book, I learned the the book was originally published within The New Yorker published a year after the bombing of Hiroshima.  What fascinates me is the cover.

Never would a reader suspect what the story enfolded within the magazine. The irony of the cover floors me.  I wonder if I could make this bigger and make it a book cover to give students the effect that readers had had 67 years ago.  They would get the book thinking it was entitled The New Yorker with a picture of Americans in Central Park having the time of their lives, but when they read, they would realize what the Japanese were encountering at the same time.

We'll see what happens here - I'd like to have students look at many opinions and try to grasp an opinion of their own.  Personally, it's awesome when an junior high student picks it up and places it in his teacher's hand.  Then, that teacher takes that book and passes it out five years later to a Senior High English class. 

Macbeth

I'm here to tell you I have never read Macbeth.

And bam!  Here it is in next year's book for my eleventh and twelfth graders.

I'm liking it.  I've never taught Shakespeare.

In five years of teaching, I've never had a Shakespeare play put in my curriculum.

In five years of teaching, I've had to renew my license without ever teaching Shakespeare....

So, my palms are a little sweaty.  I'm looking down at the dirt and tilting one foot.  I'm a little shy on the idea.

So, I take out my text and read.  I find resources online and consider which resources are useful to the kids and which resources sound like a thirty-nine year old chubby lady trying to make Shakespeare cool and hip. Maybe I'll go for the meaningful.

And I take out my text and read again.

And I remember my Shakespeare 314 and Brit Lit 200.  This is why I became an English teacher.  I remember sitting across from Tina Mar and Kurt in our tiny classroom and trying to figure it out while Dr. Drake asked just the right questions.  

And even so, this is the first time I've ever read Macbeth.  But alas, it will be the second time I read Macbeth when I read it with my senior high this fall!

G is Grandma

Grandma taught me many things.  She taught me how to sew, crochet, and stand up for myself.  Grandma tried to teach me to knit, but for some reason, I still haven't gotten the hang of it.

I loved to listen to my grandma's stories.  She had so many bits of wisdom.  She wasn't the flowery kind, and she swore like a sailor.  That was part of her charm.

I was with grandma when she died.  We were lucky enough to remember all of her stories and songs.  I sang "Yellow Bird" to her like she sang to me.  Two months before grandma passed, my daughter was born and was baptized.  My pastor put the sign of the cross on Allison's head and said "Allison Ann, child of God, welcome to "Family of God"  When grandma died, her pastor made the sign of the cross on her head and said, "Shirley June, Child of God, welcome to the "Kingdom of God".  That always brings me peace.

F is for Family

I love my family.  I'm so lucky to have such kind daughters and a funny husband.  We love to go places together.  I love to have them around me.

One of my favorite things is to overhear my daughters talking.  The eldest giving the youngest advice, and most of the time, the advice is pretty good. 

When I graduated college, my mom and dad, my mother-in-law, my girls, and Jason all came to see me walk across the stage.  I wanted my daughters to see me achieve my dream.  I wanted that to be embedded in their brains.  Work and  your dreams can come true!

E is for Eggs

Never in my life did I expect that we would have chickens.  I never thought I would be collecting eggs in the spring and chasing chickens out of my garage.  Never in my life did I think I would wake up to the sound of a rooster crowing in the morning.

I still can't believe that I live in the country.  I grew up in town.  We had neighbors I cut across their lawns.  We played "Kick-the-Can-Alley" and "Tag".  Of course, I was the weird kid who always started newspapers and circuses, parades and lemondade stands.

I'm sure my girls long for town and playing "Kick-the-Can".  I'm sure they'd like to hang with their friends instead of collecting eggs.  To tell you the truth, I'm glad that they live out in the country.  I'm glad they can be by themselves once in awhile and skip down the driveway if they want.  And, I never have to worry about lemonade stands.

D is for Dreams

I couldn't decide if I was going to chose D for Dad or dreaming.  I figured dreaming covered both concepts!  My dad is the wisest man I know.  He always cheered my dreaming on.  I am where I am today because of my dad.

Dreams are only dreams until you work hard to achieve them.  My dad didn't go to college because he and mom started a family at such a young age.  Dad worked hard at his job and eventually got a promotion as a Line Superintendent at Red Lake Electric.

When I went back to school, I would call dad to tell him about my struggles and triumphs.  He was there to remind me to learn from my mistakes.  He kept me going. 

C is for Cancer

I could have picked many words for C, but I chose cancer.  Once cancer enters your life, your life is never the same.  When my mom and sister were diagnosed, our lives would forever be rocked.  Looking at this picture, I can see how exhausted I was at the time.  My life revolved around cancer, and I was exhausted.  My life still revolves around cancer.  I'm constantly checking my blood levels and making sure my fiber intake is acceptable.  I took a special cancer insurance policy out on my family to be sure that we would be financially secure if cancer reared its ugly head within my household.

Even though it's been a year and a half since my sister came home from Rochester, she is still healing.  Her eyesight had always been perfect, and now, she is legally blind in one eye.  With the bone marrow transplant, side effects can be very devastating.  Missi had Graft V. Host disease in her eyes, mouth, and sinuses.  She still struggles with her eyesight and platelet levels.  She's tired all the time, but she's here.  My sister survived.  Thank God she survived.

At the same time, my mom had Colon Cancer.  Luckily, her cancer was diagnosed at an early enough stage that we never doubted her survival.  Colon Cancer can be very deadly if it's not caught in time.  My mom struggled a lot with the side effects, but we never doubted her strength or survival. 

B is for Bobby

My nephew Bobby is one of the joys of my life.  Although he wasn't named for me, we have a special connection because really there are only about three Bobby(i) Aakhuses in the world.  We are a rare commodity.

Bobby is so full of life and is always getting into trouble.  He's loud but kind. He's the center of his dad's world.  One day we celebrated his fourth birthday at a waterpark near Detroit Lakes.  We couldn't find him when it was time for pictures.  When we finally found him, he was with another family as they were taking family pictures.  Bobby photo-bombed their family pictures.  I love that a  four-year old could do that.  I wonder what they think about when they see the little brown -haired kid in their family pictures.

Bobby makes friends where ever he goes.  He wears a fedora.  He calls out to the pretty,  teenage girls; "Hey girlfriend, give me a kiss."  That is our Bobby.  What a guy!

Autobiography A - Z: A is for Allison

My Practical English class is writing their Autobiography -- an Alphabetic Biography - This will be something they can put out at their graduations and think about what's important to their lives.  Maybe it'll be one last chance for  me to get to know them even better.  As they write their autobiographies, I will write mine.

A is for Allison

Allison  Ann is my second born.   One of the first things I noticed about her is that she is very smiley, and she likes to snuggle.  When the nurses and daddy took her away to bathe, she cried and cried until she was returned to momma.  She hasn't liked to bathe ever since!

Allison is very flexible.  Yesterday, she called out to me; "Mom look!"  She was doing the splits up against the wall.  You read that right.  One foot was on the floor, and the other pointed to the ceiling.  Crazy girl.  Allie's dream is to go to the Olympics as a gymnast.  Well, that has been what she has talked nonstop about since last summer when she met the neighbor-lady's granddaughter who is in gymnastics in Fargo.  She and her cousin have set up a gym in her aunt's basement. They have beanbags and sleeping bags to cushion their falls.

Allison loves apple pie and Chicken Belden.  She loves fashion, and her favorite store is Justice. My Allie is a dreamer.  She is full of love.  She is confident and won't let anyone bully anyone else in her presence.  She has been rumored to stick up to the big kids on the playground.  No one gets in her way. She sticks up for the underdog.  She is my Allie.

Soundtrack to My Life

While at Fosston, one of my favorite assignments is "The Soundtrack to My Life". I'm hoping it's one of the Mustang's favorite assignments, too. 

When I passed out my assignment sheet on that Tuesday, I saw a couple of jaws drop.  I couldn't read if they were excited to have another writing assignment that was so original and fantastic that they were speechless, or if they just thought it was another one of Aakhus' crazy ideas.


When I read their papers, I found some students were able to share their lives like they had never shared before. I found that the students who went beyond their usual genre of music had more interesting papers.   I also found that some students don't equate music to their lives and would rather take a 0 than finish the assignment. 

Meanwhile here is my soundtrack.