Sunday, October 20, 2013

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.


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.

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