They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this series I’ve chosen one picture per post which brings out strong memories for me and has a story attached to it. This picture is a homework assignment given the Friday before Katrina hit New Orleans.
It makes me want to scream and cry at the same time.
I had wanted to go to New Orleans for a long time, but it always seemed so far away. I knew that New Orleans and I would be friends before I ever stepped foot in Jackson Square. Gaslights still illuminate the streets and doorways, music fills the sultry air and the smell of red beans cooking on the stove is still a Monday tradition. New Orleans assaults your senses at every turn as there’s always something new to taste, smell, see or listen to. I once heard it said that the mere mention of the words “New Orleans” can bring a smile to the lips of someone who’s never been there. I know it’s true because it was just that way for me. I made it there for the first time in the summer of 2000, my first year on the road guiding tours and went there dozens of times in the ensuing years. I loved it. New Orleans is the most unique city in the country and a big part of the amazing patchwork quilt that is America.
I moved to New Orleans in June of 2007, having accepted a job as an 8th Grade Math and Science Teacher at Francis Gregory Elementary School. I was there as part of the effort to reopen the school district in the wake of Hurricane Katrina which had devastated the city and shuttered most of its schools for 2 years. New Orleans had had one of the lowest performing public school systems in the country before the storm, and Katrina had made it exponentially worse. Most students had been behind already and then lost two years to the storm. I was teaching 8th Grade, but most of my students were 15 or 16 and most were functioning at a 3rd grade level in math. They could add and maybe subtract, but multiplication and division were a problem much less the algebra and geometry they were supposed to know. 8th Grade is a “high stakes” year, meaning if they didn’t pass their state testing, they wouldn’t go to High School. We expect the best teachers in this country to raise their students one grade level in a year. I was expected to raise them five grade levels, and that was only the beginning of the challenges I would face there.