The Rajun Cajuns Welcomed Me With Open Hearts and Minds

           

People that know me best say I have never met a stranger. Never was it more true than in the Cajun Prairie of Louisiana last week – Wednesday night to Saturday.

In an earlier post I was elated to get an invitation to come and be Super B to help motivate teachers. It was not until I was making the four-hour drive after school on Wednesday that I started being concerned. Would it really be possible for me a veteran of 25 years from eight different schools in two states to motivate the deeply rooted Cajuns?

I was even more unsettled when I met my host, Jackie, upon arrival. She immediately began to show me all the shelf space in her house dedicated to her mother and father and seven siblings. And each room had at least three to four paintings by her grandmother. Here I am a sojourner for a blink of time in every place I have been, and I have been asked to help them get over anxiety about the new evaluation instrument – Value Added Model (VAM).

When we left toward Morse Elementary where a three-hour professional development for three schools, Morse, Elliston and Mermentau Elementary would take place, I had all of my Super B clothes in disguise like Clark Kent. I had my accessories – orange boots and orange gloves and goggles packed in a bag that I stashed in the bathroom for a quick change. And as I looked to get my signature neon orange, strobe light wand, I suddenly realized we had left it back at the “bed and breakfast.”

I set my best MacGyver brain into gear. I asked the host assistant principal if there were any pvc pipe around and we looked and found two pieces that we connected. Then I asked for some orange duck tape. He found a very little and some black. I was set. After Jackie introduced me I was to exit to the bathroom and had five minutes to get ready to make my debut. She said she would summon a super hero to rescue the damsels in distress. Frantically I was taping my new magic wand. I put a little orange on top to look like fire and I taped all six feet on the pole in black. Just as I heard her summoning the super hero, I finished.

This is what I did.

It was hoot afterward as the teachers stood in line to get a picture with me to put in their classroom so they would always have a superhero at the ready.

I needed not to worry for I have never met a stranger nor a place where I could not shine a little light.

Afterwards, I got the native Jackie tour of the Cajun prairie to include:

·      the little houses around the graves

·      the diminished prairie from 2.4 million acres in the 1800s to only about 10,000 now

·      the wonderful eateries and other interesting places and relatives by blood and by roots

The little light I might have shown and the slight relief of the damsels in distress I might have offered were greatly outshone by the light and passion they rekindled in me.

There is nothing like being a teacher and lifelong sojourner and learner. I never know what I might learn next or whom I might meet or what place might yet inspire me.

            The red wolves or bisons or whooping cranes or prairie chickens may never return to the Cajun Prairie again but I hope I do.

Take Nothing for Granted

I am in a good place in my life now. As a colleague said, it is our time. That is those of us who get out of the box. One principal, like most others, did not know what to do with me. He gave me a great compliment in a faculty meeting when he said, "Mr. Banks does not just get out of the box, he blows the box up!"

Now I am like Farrugut, "Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead!" Let us turn those classroom boxes into bridges to the larger world!

Here are two of my latest attempts to get out of the box of the classroom and into others and the larger community.

(Thanks to my good friend and colleague, Jackie Hanisee, for the namage)

Grant One to the Madison County Junior Auxiallary: PORTAL (Pushing our Reach Through Alka-Rocket Launch)

Grant Two to MAST (Mississippi Academy for Mathematics and Science): Take Me To Your Liter

Comments are welcome though use words not a shotgun. Thank you.

Pushing the Limits of STEM via Rocketry

This is a rough draft of a grant proposal I am working on for Vernier. Send comments.
 
S.T.R.E.A.M.(Science Technology Rhetoric Engineering Arts and Math)

Plan: Take one simple technology of a film canister and cardstock and cardboard and go through the steps of STREAM

Warm-up: Drama Circles (attachment)

Experiment: Design and launch an alka rocket to reach its maximum height.

Inquiry questions:

Before launch:

1. What makes  rockets soar?

2. How were rockets used from ancient times to the present?

3. What are some stories or books or movies about rockets?

4. What are some songs or paintings about rockets?

5. What are other ways historically and in the present where people have pushed the limits?

6. When have you pushed the limits in your life professionally or personally? What were the results?

After launch:
 
1. What is the best alka seltzer to water ratio to give the most pop (gas)?

2. What it the best design to get the most altitude?

3. What is the gas produced in the reaction?

4. What chemical elements are in alka seltzer?

5. What are the products and reactants in the canister?

Response:

Write a story, a song, draw picture, a lab design, a chemical equation, a mathematical expression that depicts the alka rocket launch. Present to the class.

Extensions: 

Design a two liter bottle rocket that will be launched vertically that will stay in the air a maximum amount of time.

Design a two liter bottle rocket with a aerosol can top on the rocket top that will be launched at an angle. A tennis ball will be placed on the aerosol can and a garbage can down range will be the target for the golf ball.

Thank you is not nearly enough

What is it about my students that make them do such good things for me? All I can say is thank you and that is not nearly enough.

When I started this year and gave my tough love speech, I did not know what it would lead to. I told them that I loved teaching and learning but I did not love kids being rude and disrespectful. I told them folks had taken advantage of my kindness during my first two years at Madison Central; therefore, I went to the doctor and told her to take out the kind part of my brain.

However, the truth is the surgery was unsuccessful. Admittedly, I give the kids a hard time and sometimes call them losers and thugs. I often take letters away from RESPECT when they are talking when I am talking or when someone else is talking. Each letter removed in a five-day period knocks off ten points from a class participation grade.

I jump on them when they walk into my room from another class and tease them unmercifully sometimes.

However, I think they know, as do my blood children that I do not mess with and aggravate folks about whom I do not care.

Maybe that is why Amena showed up to class this week with a big surprise. It was a plasma lamp. 

What she did not know was that one given to me several years ago by a special physics class was stolen. What she did not know was I absolutely love gifts small or large. Hers was huge to me. It was affirmation that I am doing what I need to be doing in the classroom. And you already should know - maybe not by chance - it was on Red, Yellow, Black and White Wednesday when I and others celebrate diversity.

Thank you, Amena. Thank you, students, for helping make me the teacher and person I need to be. Know get let’s get back to work.