Working as a tutor with the Seminole Indians on the reservation is a great experience. Some of the students I work with are doing virtual school, being home-schooled by me, or working on their GED. All are polite and motivated to learn which is a big difference from the many of the students I worked with in Massachusetts. Teaching is again enjoyable and rewarding, besides which, I am learning about the Seminole history and culture. This new knowledge has raised many questions for me about Native Americans in general. Having grown up in the 50s and 60s watching Westerns, I got a very negative view of our history regarding these indigenous people. And of course, history books all but ignored Native Americans. In literature, some Native American writings started to creep into what teachers could teach. Many of us chose to ignore these possible teaching materials because we knew we didn’t really have the background to explain and help students understand. There were so many “other” things to read and study on which we had been school ad nausium about all those dead white guys. Times have changed, I’m aware, in many of the states especially those with larger Native American populations. The Northeast hasn’t, which is where I spent all of my educational career, until now.
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