Reviews for Year Of Miss Agnes

The average rating for Year Of Miss Agnes based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-10-22 00:00:00 Scott Bezio When I read Kirkpatrick Hill's The Year of Miss Agnes early this morning (I could not sleep and the novel was indeed a very fast and delightfully easy read), I felt both uplifted and also inexplicably much frustrated if not actually majorly annoyed (and managed to realise pretty quickly that MOST of my emerging issues and worries with regard to this generally well-written and engaging Middle Grade novel about a special and supportive teacher have to do with the double edged blade of cross-cultural education). Set in 1948 rural Alaska, and told as a first person narrative by ten year old Fred, an Athabaskan schoolgirl who does not much like being called by her given name of Frederika (which kind of tickles my fancy as Frederike is my middle name), The Year of Miss Agnes basically presents how Miss Agnes, an eccentric but lovingly dedicated British teacher, comes to the Alaskan frontier and opens the door to education and the joy of learning not only for Fred and her classmates, but also for many of the local adults (some of whom have always tended to consider school and book leaning as impractical, as useless for those who live off the land, who hunt, fish and forage in the woods). Now Miss Agnes introduces Fred and the other students to the Greek myths, to geography, to European literature, music and science (and I do so much love how Miss Agnes teaches Fred's deaf sister Bokko sign language and how everyone in class learns to sign along with Bokko). However, while on the surface, exposing the students to and familiarising them with Western culture, with standard education and showing them the joys of learning is most definitely and of course to be seen as positive and laudable, and although Miss Agnes herself is indeed and in fact strongly described as an almost perfect type of teacher, as someone both progressive, supportive, and with an inherently positive, cheering attitude and disposition (who also teaches, who imparts knowledge through engagement, through encouragement and never through punishment), there are (at least for and to me) some rather potentially worrisome issues with paternalism and a seeming acceptance by the author, by Kirkpatrick Hill (and by extension, also by her literary creation of Miss Agnes, the perfect teacher) lurking below the surface that European culture is somehow inherently and by nature superior to Native Alaskan culture. For while Miss Agnes' teaching her students about classic mythology, about British heroes such as Robin Hood, exposing them to the joys of listening to classical music, to the pleasure and importance of using microscopes for scientific research are always and intensely (and yes even with ample justification) narratively feted and cheered in The Year of Miss Agnes, Native Alaskan culture, lore and spirituality, the traditional, hunting and fishing based Athabaskan ways and means of life are, while not ever actively condemned or painted as in any manner evil or vile, nevertheless still mostly rather deliberately ignored, and there certainly does seem to be an unspoken but definitely strongly and with personal conviction presented authorial attitude that Native culture is really not inherently positive or praiseworthy, that Fred's home and native Athabaskan culture is at best peasant-like and vegetating, simply existing, whilst European culture is global, creative, philosophical, and as such to be imitated and emulated (and even if this is inadvertent, I did and do notice it in The Year of Miss Agnes and it bothers and troubles me). Still I probably would be ranking The Year of Miss Agnes with three stars instead of the high two and a half star ranking I am considering (as even with my personal annoyances and issues regarding possible paternalism and implied European cultural superiority, I did for the most part rather enjoy the story and have found both Fred and Miss Agnes engaging and lovable characters, very much after my own heart), had Kirkpatrick Hill not have made such a point of trying to show that Fred's and her classmates' Native American Athabaskan language is somehow not the right, not the educated and appropriate way to communicate in an urban setting or at school. Sorry, but considering how historically (and in reality), how in almost all of the so-called American and Canadian residential schools, Native American and Native Canadian children were often severely and physically punished (caned and strapped, in other words viciously abused) for speaking their native tongues, their native languages (which were often even labeled by the teachers, by the residential school wardens and gatekeepers as being the Devil's speech), this type of attitude makes me both uncomfortable and massively disgusted, livid (and while I do admit that in The Year of Miss Agnes, Miss Agnes does in fact not ever seem to consider Athabaskan as a somehow evil and vile type of language that should not be used, period, the fact remains that Miss Agnes and in my opinion therefore also author Kirkpatrick Hill still only consider Athabaskan as an acceptable and appropriate language with family and friends on a limited and local level, and sorry, but this type of mindset is definitely and indeed still rather majorly problematic and disrespectful, as it continues to portray Athabaskan as a for all intents and purposes type of lower class and uneducated vernacular).

Review # 2 was written on 2008-12-31 00:00:00 Terry Davis I decided to read this after my incredible colleague, third grade teacher read it aloud to her class, to see what all the buzz was about. British Miss Agnes lands in rural Alaska after WWII. An inspirational teacher who illuminates the lives of all she touches in her one-room schoolhouse. The author, clearly a seasoned schoolteacher, conveys the real excitement for school learning and how it applies to the "real world." A teacher's book!