The U.P.’s best teacher: Susan Solomon finds her calling at JKL Bahweting Anishnabe PSA

By Buddy Moorehouse

Susan Solomon – who was recently named the best teacher in the Upper Peninsula by the Michigan Department of Education – had a life-changing moment in college when she read the book “Indian School Days,” by Basil H. Johnston. It was a first-person account of an Ojibwa boy who was taken from his family at the age of 10 and placed in an Indian boarding school.

Indian boarding schools were part of the federal government’s horrific mission to destroy Native cultures and assimilate tribal members into American society. Throughout the 1800s and much of the 1900s, young tribal members were taken from their families and forced to live at the boarding schools. The schools cut their hair, told them they couldn’t speak their Native language anymore and forcibly converted them to Christianity.

Indian boarding schools stripped away every shred of their identity.

“I’m not a tribal member, but I was attending Bay Mills Community College (a tribal community college) and that’s when I started to learn about Native Studies,” Susan said. “I was reading the book ‘Indian School Days’ and my friend, who would later become by husband, said, ‘That’s my town, where that boarding school, that’s where I grew up.’ ”

That began Susan’s journey to become a teacher at the Joseph K. Lumsden Bahweting Anishnabe Public School Academy, a K-8 charter school in Sault Ste. Marie that serves the local community by teaching and preserving the Anishnaabe language and culture. Susan’s husband is an Anishnaabe tribal member, as are their children.

Susan started at the school in 2006 as the fifth-grade teacher, and in 2016, she became JKL Bahweting’s gifted and talented coordinator.

Earlier this year, she was named the Michigan Regional Teacher of the Year for Region 1, which includes the entire Upper Peninsula. That effectively signifies her as the best teacher in the U.P. – although Susan doesn’t see it that way.

“I work at a great school and I work alongside incredible teachers, so I'm certainly not comfortable saying that I'm a better teacher than any of them because I don't believe that I am,” she said. “I'm just afforded an opportunity to be in a place where to be recognized for it.”

On May 6, she was honored in Lansing as one of the guest speakers at Charter Day at the Capitol. She also received a tribute from Sen. John Damoose.

There’s no question that she’s accomplished some remarkable things at JKL Bahweting, all while serving the children of the tribal community and the other students at the school.

A lifelong Yooper, Susan said she grew up rural poor in Newberry and became the first person in her family to go to college when she enrolled at Bay Mills Community College. From there, she went to Ferris State University and decided to become a teacher.

“I’m a product of rural education in Michigan,” she said. “I grew up in the UP and I've lived here my whole life. All kids deserve to have a world-class education. And the playing field isn’t always as even as it should be.”

Since taking over as the gifted and talented coordinator at JKL Bahweting, Susan has spearheaded some remarkable programs, launching both the Future Cities program and Odyssey of the Mind team at the school.

Future Cities is a competition in which students have to look to the future and design cities that will be sustainable, environmentally conscious and livable. Under Susan’s leadership, the school’s team has won the Future Cities state championship two years in a row.

That qualified them for the national competition, where they’ve been in the top 10 both years – sixth place last year and seventh place this year.

Susan also launched a partnership with Purdue University in Indiana, in which she takes 30 or so students every summer to their campus. For many of her students, it’s the first time in their lives they’ve been outside the U.P.

“It gets them thinking about going to college,” she said. “It exposes them to life on a college campus, and they can really see themselves there.”

Through all these programs, Susan’s middle-school students learn leadership skills in a hands-on way, and she’s starting to see tangible results. Her students recently proposed launching a high school program at JKL Bahweting, and were able to convince the school board to move ahead with plans.

“Middle schoolers are incredible,” she said. “They are so incredible. They're stepping away from being their parents' kids and being just identified that way. I love teaching middle school.”

She also loves teaching at JKL Bahweting.

“So instead of a school that caused harm and damage (the Indian boarding schools), now our school here is repairing that as best as we can,” she said. “We're recognizing it. I like to give my kids space to be who they are, especially my Anishinaabe kids. All kids really, but especially the kids who have come from that background. It’s not like this is something that happened a long time ago. There are still lasting effects. That’s why this school is so wonderful.”