In 1965 we were living in Moscow, Idaho and we bought a small lot at Black Lake, about 90 miles north. It was undeveloped and beautiful, and we really had no plans for it in the near future other than occasionally picnicking and camping on it. In 1967 I was transferred to Newport, Rhode Island for Destroyer School and the next 15 years of my Navy career had me and my family bouncing back and forth from west coast to east coast. Every time my family and I were moving coast to coast we managed to stop at Black Lake for a couple of days to enjoy our little plot of land. When I retired in 1982 we decided to return to Moscow and I returned to school (at WSU) to work on a PhD in math. When I completed my degree I took a position teaching math at Lewis Clark State College (LCSC). The salary was in the lower range but my Navy retirement was enough to allow me to forego summer teaching and I could have enough time to start building a cabin on our lake property. As often as possible we could spend a week at the lake with about 3 days of cabin building and then a few days of fishing and swimming.
Then at some time when we were getting permits and so on we discovered that our lot was on the Coeur d’Alene Reservation - we were at the south end of the lake and the reservation boundary was just about through the middle of the lake, a few hundred yards north of us. We never thought that we might be living on an Indian Reservation some day, but things have turned out very well. We own our little plot of land and we pay our property taxes to the county, but the Coeur d’Alene tribal government owns the water in the south end of the lake and they are the best possible stewards of the water.
About 30 or more years ago the Coeur d’Alene casino was beginning to make money, and I was impressed that the tribal government was using the money for health and education; tribal members could have their college costs paid for so long as they studied in areas such as teaching, law, engineering and so on. When I discovered that LCSC was looking for a Math Professor who would teach a course such as “Teaching Math in elementary school” for Coeur d’Alene tribal members, I was ready to try. I had three years teaching college level math at the Naval Academy in Annapolis and I had been been teaching the same level at LCSC for about five years, so why not go right down to elementary arithmetic? Of course I found out that even though the math itself was very easy, teaching it to young children was a whole other world! Anyway I took that job for a year.
I was continuing to teach my college courses at LCSC, and I added a course which met at the tribal educational headquarters at DeSmet, which is very roughly halfway between the LCSC campus and Black Lake. We met twice a week, Wednesday evenings and Saturdays. The class had about 20 students; a few were typical college age but most were older, 40 or more. I learned much from the students: in a typical class for typical prospective teachers the “prof” would frequently ask a student to come to the blackboard to illustrate how to solve a problem. Of course it was important for that student to learn how to address the class because before very long he or she could be the teacher. The typical prospective teachers would very often suffer from stage fright at first, but before long they become more comfortable in front of the class. But these Coeur d’Alene students were different. They clearly did not want to stand in front and to appear to know more than their colleagues, and the class would then become a bit tense.
As soon as I had a chance to discuss this situation with other professors who had much more experience, I learned from them that the tribal members, from very young, would never hold themselves above their colleagues. But when I changed the classroom seating so that there were about 4 or 5 tables with 4 or 5 students randomly assigned to each table - the class became more interesting and lively. I would assign a problem for each table to work on. Then each table would demonstrate to the class how they had solved the problem, and it was clear that there was friendly competition and a more lively classroom.
So the class was going along nicely. Each meeting was 2 hours, so about half way we would take a few minutes for a coffee break. One day a student came to class with a 2 year old in her arms and explained to me that this was her granddaughter and that she was taking care of the baby because her daughter was sick. She asked if it was possible for her to attend class with the baby, so I told her yes, but only if the other students would not be bothered. I was also a new grandfather; our first grandchild was born in 1988 and was close enough to us that I had been learning how to play with 2 year olds. The baby was quiet until we took a coffee break and for some reason she was becoming fussy and loud. Many in the class consisted of women who had children or grandchildren of their own, so they began to pass the baby around. However nothing seemed to please her. I stood at the end of the line and took my turn at holding the baby. I gave her a piece of chalk and held her up to the blackboard, and she started scribbling with the chalk. She was delighted and had a great time, and after a few minutes I gave her back to her grandmother where she settled down.
At the end of the class the students got together as I was gathering up my papers and so on, and they had something to say to me. They decided to appoint me an Honorary Schitsu’umsh Grandmother!
I graciously accepted: Schitsu’umsh is the name of the people who are called Coeur d’Alene, and that name was given them by the French traders in the 1700s. I am happy to think of them as Schitsu’umsh, but I or most other people cannot pronounce their proper name so I continue to call them Coeur d’Alenes.
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