In NO and working

(once revised)

Hi all:

I second what Ms. K said. Tasks that have been assigned at the Harriet Tubman Charter School (hereinafter "HTCS") have included painting, assigning levels to books that will be in the library, sorting said books, and labeling and organizing file folders. Due to a bout of gout, I've pretty much sat on my toochus each day, leveling books. Today, Wed., 8/3/2011, I did something different -- labeled and sorted student files. Ooooo. Ahhhhh.

It is really amazing how much work needs to be done to prepare HTCS for the coming academic year. Rooms were in disarray, boxes of books filled up many rooms. In the time we have here, we will probably be able to only organize one room of books. Nevertheless, by the time we get done, all of the books should be appropriately assigned to a reading level, and organized for ease of access by the students and teachers. Nothing in my NLU education even remotely hinted that this was something that had to be done. Certainly, as a former attorney, this never even came up on my radar.

During our time at HTCS, we met another group of volunteers who did a lot of cleaning and painting. Our group also contributed to the cleaning and painting. However, this is another job that one would not normally attribute to teachers. The NLU group worked very hard during the day, but also hada lot of fun. Many trips down memory lane are taken when somebody would wave a book, squeal and say, "Awwww, I remember this ...."

After work, many of us took in the culture and got to know each other better. Unfortunately, I've had to do homework that is due the day I get back so. I hope I'll be able to get the homework done before I leave, so that I can also take advantage of the world-famous New Orleans hospitality.

This trip has been an eye-opening experience into the kind of work teachers will need to do before rolling in a new academic year, the resilience of the New Orleans people, and the amount of work that a group of dedicated volunteers can do in a week.

Frank