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My daughter teaches in Colorado. She is in her third year there with two years prior experience. (I could be long by a year). She is satisfied with the pay (Just bought a house that she loves). She likes her school, loves the students, but is very unhappy the administration. Also the atmosphere (back stabbing manipulating, etc.). The school district keeps teachers on the edge of their seat wondering whether they will have a job next month. She thinks the Union is pretty weak and not able to do much. Wile it is better than Arizona where she used to teach, it is a challenging place to teach.
I think disadvantaged students are pretty much everywhere, so a teacher can find challenges wherever they teach. However we need to move away form the silly concept that everyone needs to go to college. For many students College gives them nothing but debt (and sometimes a great learning experience). Because of this concept that not going to college = failure. Our colleges are churning out millions of students with massive debt and no marketable skills. The schools need to change their worldviews in this regard. They are doing kids a disservice.
You make very valid points. And just out of curiosity, what district does your daughter teach in? I'm thinking of applying to Denver Public Schools, Aurora Public Schools, and Adams 12/14- mostly districts on the front range because pay is a bit better than elsewhere in the state and I admittedly only want to live on the front range if I do make the move out there. However, I understand that many people have the same mentality I do, so competition for teaching positions out there is more competitive than elsewhere in the state I imagine.
Were they allowed to use their native language? Were they taught in a school they could relate to and not a boarding school?
Classes were taught in English, except for the Navajo language classes of course. Art and music classes recognized Navajo culture. It was a public school where Navajo culture was recognized and embraced.
The only boarding schools I knew of were managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, like the ones at Fort Wingate. Attending a boarding school was a choice, not a requirement, as public schools like the one my wife taught at were available. My opinion is some Navajos chose that their children attend boarding schools due to the commute distance, and while at boarding school their kids got fed three squares a day, had a warm place to sleep with showers and other amenities, etc. Most kids went home for the weekends. The curriculum was similar to that of public schools.
Have you been watching "The Education of Little Tree"?
Classes were taught in English, except for the Navajo language classes of course. Art and music classes recognized Navajo culture. It was a public school where Navajo culture was recognized and embraced.
The only boarding schools I knew of were managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, like the ones at Fort Wingate. Attending a boarding school was a choice, not a requirement, as public schools like the one my wife taught at were available. My opinion is some Navajos chose that their children attend boarding schools due to the commute distance, and while at boarding school their kids got fed three squares a day, had a warm place to sleep with showers and other amenities, etc. Most kids went home for the weekends. The curriculum was similar to that of public schools.
Have you been watching "The Education of Little Tree"?
Never saw that.
OTOH, here is a history of the Indian Boarding Schools. They were not benign and in the beginning, they were not a choice.
The late performer and Indian activist Floyd Red Crow Westerman was haunted by his memories of boarding school. As a child, he left his reservation in South Dakota for the Wahpeton Indian Boarding School in North Dakota. Sixty years later, he still remembers watching his mother through the window as he left.
At first, he thought he was on the bus because his mother didn't want him anymore. But then he noticed she was crying.
"It was hurting her, too. It was hurting me to see that," Westerman says. "I'll never forget. All the mothers were crying."
Quote:
In 1945, Bill Wright, a Pattwin Indian, was sent to the Stewart Indian School in Nevada. He was just 6 years old. Wright remembers matrons bathing him in kerosene and shaving his head. Students at federal boarding schools were forbidden to express their culture — everything from wearing long hair to speaking even a single Indian word. Wright said he lost not only his language, but also his American Indian name.
I’ve tried so hard to talk my daughter out of going to college to become a teacher. Unfortunately however, she is determined to finish and get her degree and then get her Masters before finding a job. Here in Florida, especially the county I live in, education is hardly near the top of anyone’s priority list when it comes to allocating funds.
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