An Introduction: Who and Where I Teach
Behne! Ne naniha Bailey. Ne Sosoni dease Panakwate. Ne Newe Daigwape’ha Daigwani’wappi.
Hello! My name is Bailey and I am a Shoshoni and Bannock person. I am also a Shoshoni language teacher at a language immersion charter school on my people’s reservation in Idaho. I recently began my third year of teaching. I teach two English classes, four Shoshoni language classes, an English/Math Support class, and a social studies class. The students all range from 3rd to 7th grades. When I first began my teaching journey, I wrote my curriculum in a hallway, shared with another staff member and a bathroom. I recall toting piles of papers and materials back and forth from the hallway to the classroom—and a couple of times I dropped those papers into the snow. Today I am grateful to have my own classroom filled with generous donations from my college alumni community and contemporary Indigenous art prints. I am also grateful to work with my husband, Jose, who is the Science teacher for 3rd to 7th grades. We met in over fours years ago in college and now you can find us chaperoning field trips and taking turns on recess duty.
The school doesn’t have a formal building yet, so we all teach in separate pods shown here.
I am beginning to write my story, and my career as a second language learner/educator is a huge part of that story. To begin, I plan to address and explore themes on colonialization, the violent history of Indigenous education, and language revitalization. I would also like to utilize this space as a way to also write about my experience in the classroom as an educator and student: my successes, failures, and the thoughts that come in between the two. As an educator, I recognize that I will always be a student—I’m committed to continually learn how to be the softest, justice-oriented teacher and human I can be.
I am passionate about my work and community. I have a deep love for my students and our language. It’s time to finally talk about it.
Thanks for reading—I hope you’ll join me in future conversations!
Em Buinuhi,
Bailey
My husband Jose and I both work at CTEA as teachers—we have one rule to keep us sane: No work talk once we get home unless something monumental happened and we need to debrief. We break this rule a lot because we’re so passionate about our jobs, but it’s all good! We continually work on our work & life boundaries to keep us in check.