Teaching in the Dark by Genét Simone
What's It About?
In a remote Alaskan village, a young teacher relies on her courage, resilience and wit while enduring freezing temperatures, power outages, loneliness, and first-year teacher anxieties and missteps, but eventually realizes that those challenges pale in comparison to the life lessons she learns about the heart of teaching.When I finished reading Teaching in the Dark by Genét Simone, I felt as if I had just spent months living in the small remote village of Shishmaref, Alaska right along with her. That’s how thoroughly entrancing the author’s writing is. I could completely envision the village, the scenery, the weather, the culture, her experiences, and her thoughts and feelings. What a totally immersive experience it was.
Genét was a 24-year-old college graduate with a teaching degree in hand but no teaching experience (apart from her few months of student teaching) and in need of a job. When the opportunity arose to take a teaching job in Alaska, it seemed like a great adventure. But she didn’t know exactly what she had signed up for.
Culture Shock
Shishmaref, Alaska is a remote village located on a small island in the Chukchi Sea, just north of the Bering Strait and 5 miles from the mainland. (Google it when you have a moment and check out where it is in relation to everything else… its closeness to the Arctic and to the eastern edge of Russia).
When Genét first accepted the job, she didn’t even know Shishmaref was an island until the small bush plane she was on came in for a landing over a “misshapen lima bean” sitting in the middle of the ocean. Her sense of isolation began creeping in almost immediately.
Genét’s story has so many levels to it … the experience of being a first-year teacher, total culture shock, actual physical survival, and personal growth. This book interested me from the start because I was a teacher myself for 7 years and I also have a fascination with Alaska. Anyone who has ever faced a personal challenge or has an interest in reading a poignant memoir about learning life’s most important lessons will love it — so, really, anyone!
Insecurities and Challanges
As I well know, the first year of teaching is hard no matter where you are teaching. Despite all the classes Genét took to get her teaching degree, there was little to no training in classroom management, discipline, how to relate to her students, or the emotional side of teaching. As Genét says, no classes or professors offered “assignments to help me get to know myself as a teacher, must less as a young female teaching kids only a few years younger than I was.”
I know that I personally felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants that first year. Add to that trying to teach high school students who live in a very different culture.
Genét did a great job of describing her insecurities and challenges. She often questioned her ability to teach and whether teaching was really the career for her (spoiler alert… Genét is still a teacher today, more than 30 years later). She started her teaching adventure with excitement, anticipation and hope for what lay ahead, which quickly changed to dread. As she said, “This was typical of me, being caught unawares, leaping before I looked. And this time, I had leaped big time…”
Genét questioned what she could possibly teach in Shishmaref that would matter in the long run. “I would never truly understand my students’ lives. I would always be looking through the lens of my own experience. My own kaleidoscope.”
A Lifetime of Lessons
Genét’s description of her time in Shishmaref includes such unique experiences as skinning seals, using a Honey Bucket (and getting rid of it!… I’ll let you think on that one), spring reindeer herding, eating Eskimo “ice cream” (definitely not as good as it sounds!), and more.
Her language truly brings the landscape and culture to life: “Vapor from everyone’s breath escaped from our cluster of tunnel-vison hoods and mingled in ethereal conversation”; “The sun peeked at us from the eastern horizon, then slipped out of sight as if it had better places to go.”
This was a life-changing journey that Genét found herself on and we are along for the ride. At the end of the school year, she faces the agonizing decision of whether to stay or to go home. I’ll let you read the book to find out what she decides, but one thing that she learned is that “Teaching was about connection … not writing, not reading, not tests. Just a meeting of hearts.” That’s a lot for a teacher to learn in her first year and a valuable lesson to take along with her throughout her career. This book is a great journey and a wonderful read!
About Genét Simone:
Genét Simone, PhD, has been a teacher and teacher educator for over 30 years. Her pedagogy highlights the importance of tending to the emotional and psychological aspects of the teaching profession. Dr. Simone has published articles in academic journals and contributed chapters to Getting Ready for Benjamin: Preparing Teachers for Sexual Diversity; Exploring Possibility through Education; and the Handbook of Mindfulness in Education. She is the owner of Genét Simone Educational Consulting and creator of the B.E.S.T. Formula, a system of strategies to help teachers be Brave, Effective, Self-Caring, and Transformative, so they can stay in the profession they love. She lives in Seattle, Washington. Teaching in the Dark is her first book.
