Tisha: The Story of a Young Teacher in the Alaskan Wilderness

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It was 1927 in the small town of Eagle, Alaska, when the story of Anne Hobbs took place. Anne was a nineteen-year-old elementary teacher from Colorado and by her attendance to a lecture at her school by the territorial commissioner of education, she found that there was an open position to teach children in Chicken, Alaska. Anne was convinced that going to Alaska sounded “exciting and adventurous” so she signed up and she went off. Author, Robert Specht, and Anne herself, tell the story of Tisha, the story of Anne’s struggles and adventures in Alaska, and how she went from a cheechako to a “true-blue” Alaskan.
In the story, the reader discovers the hard truth that equality wasn’t the norm during the 1920’s--even in untamed, unsettled Alaska. There was hatred amongst the white people towards the Alaska Natives, and the kindhearted person Anne was didn’t understand that. Anne saw all children and adults as equal to their peers and didn’t see any reason why anybody couldn’t be included with everyone else, especially in the schoolhouse. Anne even invited uneducated adults into her schoolhouse to join her young students because she felt that anyone that wanted to learn should be allowed to. Something interesting about this was how much trouble Anne got herself into by doing this. The school board of Chicken was furious with Anne for letting the natives be in the same room as their caucasian children. There were several quarrels between Anne and the school board throughout the story, but Anne never let the board win.
The school board tried to tell Anne the way things should be ran in the school, even when they were desperate for her to teach their kids in the secluded town they all found themselves in. The school board needed an educati...

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... of Balto, the heroic lead dog of the 1925 Serum Run to Nome, was erected in New York City's Central Park. Also, a year after Anne left Chicken, a court case resolved the right for native children to attend public school with white children. It would be believeable that Anne’s story had something to do with that. Two surviving boarding schools from that time period are Mt. Edgecumbe High School and Galena City School.
Tisha: The Story of a Young Teacher in the Alaskan Wilderness is a book I would definitely recommend or encourage anyone to read. The story will connect with you on any level from swooning over Anne and Fred’s forbidden love, or enjoying the adventures that took place in the Alaskan wild. Anne’s story is full of insights into Alaska’s history, learning how people used to act, and how they were able to learn kindness from a young cheechako from Colorado.

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