Maria Valen remembers her former Crow and Cheyenne students fondly, especially this week -- Native American Heritage Week.

Valen, a new high school English teacher at Gehlen Catholic School, spent two years prior to coming to Le Mars educating American Indian students in Montana.

She lived on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation and taught religion to grades five through 12 at St. Labre Catholic Indian School. The school serves kindergarten through 12th grade.

Living on a reservation and teaching religion to American Indians, dealing with students' distrust, being ridiculed because of race and learning about new cultures made an impact, said Valen, an Estherville native.

"I can't say I just walked in there and it was great and the kids just loved me," Valen said. "But overall it was a very worthwhile experience."

It didn't bother her when students called her names or reminded her she was different, and she didn't blame them for feeling that way, Valen said.

"Some of it's learned behavior," she said. "The kids don't like Columbus Day. They don't like Thanksgiving, and they kind of hold you personally accountable."

Students were also wary of trusting her because of the constant flow of teachers in and out of the reservation, Valen said.

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But she slowly knocked down those barriers by challenging students, whether they tried or not, and being open and honest, Valen said.

"You need to hold them accountable. You need to hold them to certain standards," she said. "Eventually it does get better. They still contact me today."

Along with overcoming animosity from students, Valen also dealt with language barriers, not between races, but because students spoke a "language of poverty," she said.

"They know the basic survival skills and all, but they wouldn't have the vocabulary that anybody else would," Valen said. "One study showed us last year, the kids in kindergarten were already two years behind in language skills. It's really hard to get those two years back as time goes on."

Teaching students, most of whom weren't Catholic, was also a challenge, Valen said, one she overcame by learning as much about their culture and combining it with Catholicism.

"I would teach them in the classroom about the medicine man before I would say anything about the liturgical calendar," Valen said. "When we go to Mass, you would have more than holy water. You would always have cedar."

Many students would waft smoke from burning cedar over themselves as a way to calm and prepare for prayer, Valen said.

Medicine men would also attend other Catholic services where they would pray and bless students with sweet grass or cedar and sing songs in either the Crow or Cheyenne tongue, Valen said.

"I was always integrating that kind of stuff," she said. "Whenever possible I tried to incorporate their culture into my class, which the school does the most excellent job of because of all the offerings they have."

For Crow and Cheyenne students living on the reservations, school is a safety zone from the temptation of drugs, especially methamphetamines, and alcohol, Valen said.

"School is their social life. They don't go to school to try and get ahead in life or anything like that," she said. "They know they are going to have meals."

St. Labre also gives students the opportunity to play sports or be involved in other extra curricular activities, and provides transportation to and from events.

Sometimes students' home lives are uncertain, filled with high poverty levels, parents who may not have jobs or who don't come home or have substance abuse problems, Valen said.

"Sometimes you're the only constant that kid has in their life," she said.

Despite challenges she and her Crow and Cheyenne students faced, Valen said she's proud of their efforts and accomplishments, and glad for the experiences they brought to her life.

"I was on the reservation two years, but in that two years I think I gained more through the experiences and the joys and sadness there more than most teachers have probably gained in 20 years in a school system in most other places," Valen said.

St. Labre's is not part of a Catholic diocese or a church parish nor is it a public school.

"It's nonprofit. It's solely supported by the generosity of people in the U.S. and throughout the world," Valen said. "It's really heartwarming when you think about what it takes. It's just people."

When she graduated from St. Mary's College in Orchard Lake, Mich. in 2006 with a bachelor's degree in theology, Valen applied to and was accepted into the LUMEN Program through the University of Great Falls, in Montana.

The LUMEN Program is an associate program with the Alliance for Catholic Education, which started the University Consortium for Catholic Education based at the University of Notre Dame.

"They take kids fresh out of college, and they place you for two years in another Catholic school," Valen said. "You live in a community. You teach. You take classes at the same time to get a master's degree."

While teaching on the reservation Valen earned a master's of arts and teaching in secondary education and finished a second bachelor's degree in English by taking sometimes six online classes at a time. She completed those degrees in May.

After two years teaching on the reservation and earning her degrees, Valen said she felt God calling her to come closer to home so she began inquiring about jobs in Iowa.

"Gehlen seemed to be just right. It seemed everything fell into place," she said. "God wanted me to be here, and I'll be here as long as He wants me to be."