Teaching in Rural Alaska: Part 3

Some of my favorite readings to inspire you. Hope you enjoy!

The Year of Miss Agnes by Kirkpatrick Hill
Summary: Teaching the children in an Athabascan village in a one-room schoolhouse on the Alaskan frontier in 1948 is not every educator's dream. Then one day, tall, skinny Agnes Sutterfield arrives and life is never the same for the community. Frederika (Fred), the 10-year-old narrator, discovers that unlike previous teachers, Miss Agnes doesn't mind the smell of fish that the children bring for lunch each day. She also stokes the fire to warm the schoolhouse before the students' arrival each morning, wears pants, and speaks with a strange accent. Miss Agnes immediately packs away the old textbooks, hangs up the children's brightly colored artwork, plays opera music, and reads them Robin Hood and Greek myths. She teaches them about their land and their culture, tutors both students and parents in her cabin in the evening, and even learns sign language along with her students so that Fred's deaf sister can attend school. Hill has created more than just an appealing cast of characters; she introduces readers to a whole community and makes a long-ago and faraway place seem real and very much alive.
(http://www.homeschoolshare.com/year_of_miss_agnes.php)


Tisha: The Story of a Young Teacher in the Wilderness of Alaska by Robert Specht and Anne Purdy
Summary: Tisha is the story of Anne Hobbs, who went to Alaska to teach in 1927 at the age of nineteen. Throughout the book she changes and matures greatly as a result of the conflicts with the people of Chicken. The story begins when she is leaving Eagle, which is in Alaska, and going to Chicken, a smaller settlement, where she was going to teach for one year, then go back to Eagle to teach. She goes with a pack train, led by a man named Mr. Strong, that also is taking the mail to Chicken. Set out for a four day trip, Anne was excited to set off on this adventure, and she was eager to see all the landscape that awaited her. She was a bit anxious though, for she was to ride atop a horse, Blossom, which towered over her and was very intimidating. Little did she know how tiring a four day trip would be through the wilderness though.
(http://annehobbspurdy.blogspot.com/2009/02/summary.html)


The Kids From Nowhere by George Guthridge
Summary: http://www.thekidsfromnowhere.com/aboutthekidsfromnowhere.html