Warm Springs, Oregon
June 4. 1998 9
Spilyay Tysioo
Simnasho School students share their knowledge of Indian culture and say thank you
All students learned to drum and
The
Warm Springs
Harry Phillips, Carol Bailey and
Nancy Smith, with nearly 50 years
accumulative service at Warm
Springs Elementary, will be retiring
at the end of the 1997-1998 school
year. All anticipate returning to Warm
Springs to work part-time in the fu
ture as substitutes.
Phillips began his career at Warm
Springs in 1963 as a sixth grade
teacher. After eight years, he moved
to Simnasho and taught third and
fourth grades for three years. He re
turned to Warm Springs and taught
the fifth and fourth grades.
Longevity for Phillips has its ad
vantages. He is now teaching the
children of kids he taught earlier in
his career.
In 1967 or 1968, Phillips began
working for Fire Control as a book
Harry Phillips
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sing songs using the big drum.
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boys sang songs as the girls danced the butterly dance.
Elementary teachers say "so
keeper. "I spent 16 years up there,
dispatching, time keeping and fire
fighting." Some of the more memo
rable fires were the Seekseequa Fire,
Mutton Mountain Fire and a number
of range fires.
j
Carol Bailey
At 58-years-of-age, Phillips is re
tiring because "maybe 35 years is
long enough at one thing." He enjoys
hunting and looks forward to hunt
ing this fall. In addition, his folks are
"getting older and that may require a
little more help and time."
"I've enjoyed all the years here. I
would do it over again. Like any job,
you wonder if you're doing a good
job, but most of the time, I felt we
made some progress."
Concluding, Phillips is apprecia
tive of the people of Warm Springs.
'Evervone has been nice to me. I
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have some real fond memories at
school and at fire control." He ad
vises kids and parents to "realize
they have a wonderful land here with
lots of resources. I'd like to see kids
get out more so they can learn about
it and learn to take care of it and
maybe have more pride in what they
have."
Carol Bailey has been the Title I
reading teacher in Warm Springs for
the past 13 years. She works half
days in Warm Springs and half-days
in Madras with approximately 40
fourth grade students who have a
difficult time with reading.
Bailey promotes the use of com
puters as a tool to increase reading
skills. "I do a lot of work with com
puters with the kids in teaching them
to read better. When you get inter
ested in working on the computer,
there's a lot of learning that goes on.
The kids do more than play games.
There's composing stories and draw
ing pictures." The kids' pieces were
video taped so they could share their
work with their parents.
Parental involvement in a child's
education is important, says Bailey.
"Sometimes parents are having prob
lems at home and those problems are
reflected at school. I think parents
always care about their kids, but
sometimes they don't have an oppor
tunity to help them very much be
cause they're working very hard on
just living. I think parents really care
that their kids learn to read."
Bailey will continue to work part
time at Juniper Trael as a travel
agent. She also plans to get in a few
trips to visit her sons in AKa and
Man land.
Rewards of a reading teacher are
great. One day on a isit to the
9
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long" to school
Nancy Smith
Jefferson County Library, Bailey
encountered one of her former stu
dents checking out some books to
read.
One of the things Bailey discov
ered early on after coming to Warm
Springs was that the kids needed
more work in their vocabulary and
help in knowing what words meant.
A study revealed that even though
Indian language rrlay not be preva
lent at home, kids were still influ
enced by it. Out of the study came the
need for full-day kindergarten, w hich
has proven to be very successful for
reservation students.
Nancy Smith has been a special
education teacher at Warm Springs
for the past nine years. Smith was
one of the founders of the Oregon
Literacy program. After moving east.
Smith taught in New York City for
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Anton Moody shared his story about the bear using the Indian words.
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Susie received a hug and a
special card from each student.
and "hello" to
quite a few years and did administra
tion work for the New York superin
tendent of schools. She attained her
degree and got into special educa
tion. "I've been at it ever since."
At 65, "it's time to stay home and
do some projects I'd like to get in
volved with." Retirement' also will
include traveling with her husband
Bruce, a computer consultant. Her
retirement will also include promot
ing the Three Sisters Reading Coun
cil, Oregon Reading Association, of
which she is chair. "We want to have
more author's presentations, semi
nars and workshops in our area to
promote good reading instruction."
Smith's caseload is now 45 stu
dents. It's a demanding load and she
regrets not being able to spend as
much time with the students as she
would like, "especially with ones
with the problems. I have a great
deal of expertise in that area and I've
END OF SC HOOL
BAR-B-CUE
AND PLAY DAY
UPPER CAMPUS NEAR THE
SCHOOL
THURSDAY, JUNE 4
JOIN THE FUN!
Simnasho school honored Susie
Slockish for teaching the Indian
language to them throughout the
school year. At that time students
showed off what they learned to j
, their parents.,,.. , , . .
. Each student introduced themself ,
using their Indian name, which is
an animal name they chose for
class.
The class then read their stories
they made up using Indian
words. Tamara Moody was given
an award by the Language
Program for using mostly Indian
words in her story.
The students showed some of
the dances and songs that they
learned during the year.
Each student made a special
card to thank Susie and she
received a hug of appreciation by
each student during the eating of
a wonderful cake.
retirement
not been able to spend the time doing
that kind of changing behaviors and
teaching new behaviors as I would
like to."
Smith is particularly proud of her
successes. "It's a great thrill to see
those kids going on into the middle
school, knowing they can read."
"I would like our special educa
tion students to know that they can
learn to read and do math on grade
level. Just because they have trouble
with these subjects, they need to know
they learn differently. Some students
have a poor self-image and think
they are dumb because they have
these learning problems. They need
to realize because they learn differ
ently, it may take them a little longer
to process information, or they may
need to have instructions or direc
tions repeated until it makes sense to
them. They can learn and be as suc
cessful as any other student."
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