Author: Karen

“Aaaarrrttt! Art is obviously one of the Three R’s”

–artist Peter William Brown

Stebbins School was host to many visitors this year, the most welcome of which were the visiting artists Barb Short and Deland Anderson. Both artists were part of the New Visions grant, from the Alaska State Council on the Arts, which is designed to increase arts education across the district. The three year project will focus on professional development for staff, curriculum writing, leadership training and bringing Alaskan Teaching Artists to work with students.

Barb Short instructed the Stebbins young artists on elements of the color wheel and media through lessons designed by Project ARTiculate. Students revealed their artistic prowess through zen doodling, water color resist projects, and color wheel stories.  Deland Anderson explained elements of aboriginal art from New Zealand, and showed students how to work with an adaptation  of this dot art.  Art projects revealed the students’ interpretation of their own landscapes of Steven’s Hill and the tundra alive with berries. Mr. Anderson even entertained the classes with performances on a digeridoo.

Greg Johnson, District Director of Curriculum and Instruction, states that,
“ Research and common sense have shown that the arts can inspire and motivate students like no other subject, and teach them critical and creative thinking, problem solving, and expressive communication skills.”

Reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic—and now ARRRRRT!. Thank you, Bering Strait School District, for giving us that all important fourth “r”!

by c. odinzoff

Dinner. What a happy family. All gathered around the table celebrating one of the U.S’s oldest traditions.  Thanksgiving. Mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, corn, cranberry sauce, yummy blueberry and apple pie and my good friend Bert the Turkey! Poor old Bert. He wasn’t even twenty yet in turkey years. Please don’t eat me! I’m too young to taste good! And if you do decide to eat me, remember, you are what you eat.

Even though turkeys may seem healthy because grain and plants, you never know if I’m sick or not. I could have the bird flu! Or, I could have some type of lice on my feathers when you pluck me. So maybe you should pick a different turkey to smother and serve on the table. You know, I often do have a lot of gas, especially when I’m unconscious.  I might look like a perfect, juicy, very delicious turkey, but on the inside it’s a whole different story.

Did you know that the turkey population is endangered? Yes, that’s why you shouldn’t eat us any more.  That’s one less turkey in the U.S. for you.  My people (the Turkeys) are the ones that help to reproduce. It’s like biting the hand that feeds you.  You should take pity on the turkeys. The turkeys have always been nice to the humans. The humans have been nice to us, until it was judgment day. Take your madness out on the chickens!

How will you feel if a group of turkeys came to your house and killed you and got you ready for thanksgiving dinner hundreds of years ago?  You would probably be the one writing this paper right now, not me. You wouldn’t like getting killed just to be eaten.  I might taste good, but maybe so do you.  You people call it tradition, but I call it hunger.

People say this tradition has been around for hundreds of years cine the pilgrims Well, I say start a new tradition.  Kill chickens for turkey’s sake! Roosters, swans, I don’t care! Anything but turkeys.  The tradition is getting too old. I miss Bert. Why?! Bert was the turkeyest friend that you could ever have. He was the best. But, back to my point.  No more turkey slaughter!

Please don’t eat me! or any other turkey for that matter.  Turkeys can be a good pet—they don’t have to be a good tasty main dish for a family dinner. I’m asking nicely.  Please don’t eat turkeys anymore.

by d. katcheak

It was on christmas-last year-when I experienced my first holiday gathering. In my world we only take time away from harvesting once a year to celebrate a holiday, and that is christmas. We don’t celebrate thanksgiving because that is your holiday. On your holiday you humans eat my kind and that scares me. If my relatives and I were to celebrate thanksgiving, we would be thankful that you’re there for me to eat. But no! You’re too huge to kill and besides, you look like you taste bad. I know I may be delicious, but I’m alive! I breath, eat, and sleep just like you, but of course—in a very different way.

My best friend was shipped off to one of the men that are working here. When you’re putting my best friends dead body into your oven, I wonder if he made you very tired after you had your last bite? You’re thinking “OH! That was so good!” Then 20 minutes later you’re too lazy to come to work and take care of me and my fellow turkey relatives. You find yourself comfortable sitting at the couch watching some television. You soon came to a point when you realized that you sat too long—your butt is twice as big. My friend Harry was always a lazy person. I’m glad that you got his laziness for a  moment, and actually got what you deserved afterwards.

Another family was happily spending time with their relatives. It was time to eat and the grandfather had to get the first cut of my cousin. “Give me some of that delicious, tasty turkey.” A piece of my cooked cousin dropped onto his plate, then he took a bite, “My gums hurt from that dry turkey. How did  you cook the turkey? Maybe my 7 year old granddaughter could cook it better. I’m out of here.” The grandparents loved each others very much, but the old lady just didn’t know how to cook. She just wanted to make everybody happy. Instead she cooked my cousin Rose too long she took away her great taste, and on top of that she made my cousin too dry. She also had to apologize to her husband for cooking my cousin too long.

My uncle Tom was captured, killed, thrown in a box, and sent off to a rich family in Rhode Island. The family had a great thanksgiving, and sad to say, but he was cooked so well. The one thing that the butcher didn’t know was that my uncle was diagnosed with some type of bird flu. One of the family members happened to get real sick. They had to miss out on the fun family activities for the past week. Luckily the family was rich enough to take care of the sick family member—otherwise the person could have been killed.

You humans should realize that if things keep happening, maybe you should switch your holiday dish to pizza or popcorn. They’re very tasty and tend to make your mouth water more than I do. They also don’t be too dry or have some type of virus in them. Oh, and they’re not alive—they don’t have a life—they’re bought at the local store—which are sold in boxes. So they don’t have to be killed to satisfy your tummy. Once again I still haven’t been captured yet. I know when they think that its time for a turkey to be taken, I’m always trying to be on the far side of the barn—which is very safe for me. My name is Clarence and I want many years to live.

by f. pete

As a chick growing up, I watched my elders get shot- I thought we were at war with the humans. But no, they kill and eat us every year around the same time. thats not war, it’s slaughter! I am old enough to get eaten now, but I don’t want to get eaten, I want to live!

I lived through the Bird Flu era, but I don’t know if i have the bird flu. I had headache symptoms these past four years. And with all this disaster going on in the world, I think I can get the best of it and live to be the oldest turkey there is.

My feathers are too beautiful to be plucked! Right now I’m in my prime condition as a turkey. I command all the young turkey to stay away from any suspicious looking objects and no to go to any turkey calls. I seen this trick too many times. I see it coming up the drive way.

This year, I’m the last of my kind. All my kids and other family members got killed on the same day. How can I repopulate the field if I don’t have a mate. I’m glad I’m the last turkey because I can get saved by the government. i can get saved but I’ll be pretty lonely.     I can hear you humans already: “Eat him! He’s too delicious to waste!” I say “No, actually I’m too stringy, my meat is too spoiled.

I did it! I’m the last turkey in the world. Also the oldest. Todays date: June 15, 2089. I am 99 years old. I lived so long that the people don’t eat turkey anymore, they would rather eat canadian geese for Thanksgiving. I’m glad they’re eating canadian geese, because there is a heck of a lot of geese. Bye bye humans! I’m going to live at Hawaii.

by staff

Patrick Henry, one of your founding fathers, proclaimed, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”  Well, I’ll forgo the liberty and the death, if you don’t mind. I just want life! Give me something to be thankful for this Thanksgiving and don’t carve me up for your feast. Let me live!

Bird flu—yeah, it’s still around. That’s how people get it, you know—from handling—and that includes EATING—birds. I’m a bird. Maybe I have bird flu. Maybe I don’t. Like Clint Eastwood says, “Do you feel lucky?” So think of your loved ones, and spare them the risk of touching and eating my possibly diseased carcass.  I’m not saying I know for sure I’m infected, but in the words of Jim Hickerson, our superintendent, “Anything is possible.” Why take the risk? Spare me.

Al Quaida, suicide bombings, cyber bullying, road rage…there’s too much violence in the world, so let’s start off the holiday season with one less homicide—mine. You’ll feel better for it, and I know I will.

Another reason you’ll feel better about sparing my life is that you won’t be loaded up with trytophan.  That’s the stuff that makes you sleepy. Me—I’m loaded—but loaded—with it. This is the ingredient that causes you to pass out on the floor or in the chair after eating me. You neglect everyone else, all the people who came over to visit, heck—flew over to visit.  Just lying there on the floor like a big fat lump of useless dough, snoring so loud the women can’t hear themselves talk and the kids strain to hear the sound effects on their new xbox game. All because of tryptophan coursing through your digestive system causing you to become comatose. That’s why those toddlers shoved those salmon berries up your nostrils last time—because they could! So be alert this Thanksgiving—don’t eat me.

Sure, I can hear the traditionalists whining, “But we’ve always had turkey for Thanksgiving, ever since the first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims and the Native Americans…” Well, let me tell you something about tradition, pal: just because you’ve always done something doesn’t mean it’s not stupid. Look at those Salem witchcraft trials—it was practically a tradition with them to accuse and hang innocent people for being witches, but that didn’t make it right. Why be a homicidal maniac on this joyous day of thankfulness? For goodness’ sake, your relative are here—behave! Eat some soy bean cake molded into the shape of a turkey, or some of that Vegan stuff—you’ll thank me for it, and I’ll thank you for it.

This holiday is all about ideals, right? People coming together to show their gratitude for cooperation and community spirit in hard times. Being left alive would make this the ideal holiday for me. So,  please, let me live.

by D. Milligrock

I love the days when the snow melts and everything comes to life. When all of the cold white stuff is completely gone, food is plentiful and life is filled with meaning. But then comes the cold, long, dark days. Those are the days that I am most afraid of. It’s not the cold, long, or dark part that makes me scared: it’s the days when mankind—your kind—comes to retrieve our kind, turkey’s, and eat us. Over the past few autumns, I’ve seen at least six of my cousins get caught and taken away. They never came back. Of course, it’s only necessary of me to think that they were eaten. So, when the dark days come, I am aware and cautious to protect myself from getting caught by your kind. I most certainly do not want to die in such a horrible manner.

There is many things your species can do to help us turkeys live in the wilderness—or sadly, captivity—without paranoia. One way is to become a vegetarian. In doing so, every other animal that you plan to kill and eat can go on living their lives—that‘s assuming you do kill other animals to eat then. Well, why wouldn’t you? You kill turkeys, so why not kill cows, pigs, and even marine mammals? I am aware that meat has proteins. You can substitute those proteins. I mean, we, turkeys, are herbivores and we get along pretty well.

My aunties brother-in-laws cousin twice removed once told us that you humans celebrate “Thanksgiving” and “Christmas” and “holidays”.  He also said that it’s just a big gathering of people who eat one big meal. I don’t understand your ways. You just gather around, eat one meal—which consists of my cousin as the main course and who know what else—then just…do it over and over again without any real reason. It’s just pointless. We do it almost every other day. It’s like a cliché. When you guys are done, you store the leftovers away and eat them another day. Why gather so much food when you know you are not going to finish it in one day? Without your frivolous holidays, my six cousins would’ve been here with me and we would’ve been having a great time. They weren’t even elderly yet.

There are other substitutes for us, turkeys. I mean, I understand that we would mix together great with mashed potatoes and gravy with a little bit of corn on the side, but we have lives to live. Geese, duck, even my close relative—the hen—could make the part. The closer the relative, the closer they taste like us. I’m sure they taste just about as good and they’re probably more abundant since they lay eggs and all that. Instead of using them for one thing—laying eggs—they could be useful for “Thanksgiving, Christmas, or holidays”.

We may be delicious and a tradition but we have lives that we want to live. I cannot stress that enough. Being killed and eaten is not the way we want to end our lives. Would you want to end your life that way? It’s a pretty graphic, disturbing image if I say so myself. I mean I picture it every day of my life. There are better, healthier options like becoming a vegetarian so you won’t kill any living animal, or—for my sake as well as other turkey’s—as another option, switch over to hen.  Leave it up to nature to balance out the ecosystem, since it’s only in their—specifically carnivores—instinct to hunt and kill to survive. What I an trying to say on behalf of my fellow species, don’t kill me!

By: Fabian Pete

Getting the biggest batch
of take downs and near falls
in one match.
My opponent stalls.
Gasping for air in a defeated manner
because he’s out of shape.
The ref raising my hand like a victory banner.
My opponent hears my crowd jeering
when I pin him, they start cheering.
They hear the wrong moves of the crowd.
They think it’s alright to sit down
and wait for their match
Whether you think you can fight
or think you can’t –you’re right.