ABSTRACT
The majority of children in the United States are educated in state-run and financed schools, where attendance is mandatory and the curriculum goes well beyond reading and writing. Teaching is a difficult profession, a particularly challenging way to make a living, undertaken by people who are for the most part deeply dedicated and truly wish to do well for the children in their charge. A teacher is both an authority figure and a role model and as such has tremendous influence in a child’s life. Language ideology in education is a multi-faceted and complex subject that cannot be addressed by means of a handful of academic studies. In the teaching of language, there is a very striking division between educational psychologists and theorists, on the one side, and boards of education and classroom teachers, on the other. In matters of indigenous language use and retention, there is some evidence that the native peoples are determining their own educational language policies.
