Working outside the Valley...

One of my student teachers that I am supervising this quarter teaches a little over 3 hours North from the Valley in a part of the state that I hadn't visited until this placement. When a location is that distance from your home, the University pays for an overnight which I definitely opt to do since I am not a big driver. The town's only listed hotel had poor reviews so I opted to stay in the next closest town that has more than one hotel choice, Rice Lake.

Anyhow, like the name implies this is a Lake region. In 1864 a company Knapp, Stout and Company  built a storage dam on what was an Indian village and rice bed. The first permanent settler to move his family here in 1871 had the first store, hotel and blacksmith shop making this the settlement for the company's northern operations until the area's white pines were exhausted.

Rice Lake has about 8500 inhabitants and at this time of the year  I noticed has increased with all the road construction crews finishing up projects before winter gets here. I also met some Fishermen who are mainly catching Muskies since it's fall.

My visitation actually takes place in the town of Cumberland, within the beautiful northwoods of Northwest Wisconsin.You may have seen some of those 'fall' pics from my last visit but if you didn't here's the link.  http://chaseburg.blogspot.com/2012/10/fall-no-words-needed.html
Unspoiled open spaces, clean lakes and streams, parks and forests abound. It is called the Island City as the central part of the community is located on an island. Dang I missed the Rutabaga Festival.

Upon entering town sits the main industry, a canning factory.  Last visit trucks were dumping green beans onto conveyers. This answered my question of what industry would bring migrant workers to the area besides agricultural work.

This student teacher intern has limited English speakers in the Spanish classes she is teaching. The idea is that this class resolves a placement issue to provide these students a class where they can  work on their English when their classmates are doing their Spanish.
Reality is that many times although the language at home may be Spanish, they may have had limited education in their native countries if at all and still need to learn to read and write their family's native tongue. And yes this does create more work for the teacher but if bilingualism is the end result, this is a necessary part of the educational process.



Cumberland being larger than Chaseburg actually has a  main street  with shops for its inhabitants and tourists from the Cities. Shopping possibilities surprised me as artists have also made this area their homes. I enjoyed perusing a gallery and dress shops during my lunch break last visit and am looking forward to some seasonal sale
possibilities this time.  Inside the world market is a coffee shop amidst the general store and connected gallery.

The library is housed in this terrific building and if it's too cold to  spend free time discovering Main Street finds, I will be housed here inbetween conference times. I don't think I'll have a problem hanging out.

Even though I had to leave the End of the Rainbow Valley for this job, it is reassuring to know that there are like minded people no matter where you go in this state... 

 I just hope that they remember to VOTE.