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.
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 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.
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