Alumni & Student Stories

She Was Destined to Teach at Muckleshoot Tribal School

Sherri Foreman
First Peoples' program
Graduate Teacher Preparation, 2003
Current M.A. Education student

When she was just 16 and a youth worker, Sherri Foreman interviewed elders of the Muckleshoot Tribe to collect their stories and their visions for a tribal school.

"I remember my grandfather sitting in his chair near the wood stove," she recalls. "He picked up an eagle feather, handed it to me and told me I was half way to where I was going to be in life." At the time, his comment puzzled her.

Sixteen years later, Foreman walked into the principal's office at the Muckleshoot Tribal School where she was handed an envelope with her maiden name on it. Inside were all her notes from those interviews with the elders. Tucked in among her notes, she also found a list of future teachers the elders had recommended 16 years earlier.

"My name was on that list," she says proudly as she sits at her desk in her 6th grade classroom at the Muckleshoot Tribal School in Auburn. "I think it's my destiny to teach the children here. They are my relatives." She is now in her second year of teaching at the school.

She examines that eagle feather her grandfather gave her as a teen-ager. She attached it like a tassel to a weaved cedar bark mortarboard she made and wore at her graduation from the Evergreen State College. She went on to complete her teacher preparation and is now studying for her master's degree in education, both with the First Peoples' program offered at the Muckleshoot Tribal College.

As she talks about Antioch and the First Peoples' program, a couple of her students pop into the classroom with a surprise. One of them holds the tiniest frog, which, very gingerly, is added to a tank that's home to other frogs they are studying. The classroom has a lizard, hermit crabs, fish, Amazon frogs and more.

"They learn much by being caretakers of animals," Foreman says. "There is always great comfort in learning something new, too." 

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