Country Ho-Down at the Maison with Hurray for the Riff Raff

Leadership through Educational Empowerment

Recently making New Orleans my home, I quickly adopted this city as my own. New Orleans continues to face challenges, new and old. The foundation of meaningful and lasting progress is education. The key to the future of New Orleans is in empowering our youth with the necessary resources and critical thinking skills to be leaders in the years to come. 

High-need schools are often in high-need communities; the same communities that need leadership from within. I view education as a means of expanding the mind to not only critically think through situations, but also as a conduit for sharing a sense of ownership to the options and decisions before our youth. Youth leadership is an extremely powerful force. I believe empowering students to want to make good choices and to feel good about their self will have a ripple effect not only through the school but also through the community.

The inherent challenge with getting the youth to want to make good choices and to feel good about themselves is that there are so many things in the world telling young people the opposite, or worse that they shouldn’t care at all. With gun violence being such a disturbingly vivid part of life for so many children in this city, children are coming into the classroom with heavy hearts. Children have less impulse control to begin with and add to that, scenes that children cannot really process because of the enormity of the reality, they become even less manageable.

My education experience with children in South Dakota and in New Orleans has taught me that coming into the classroom with compassion and a willingness to acknowledge the root of a child’s frustration rather than reacting to their frustration itself enables me to communicate clearly with the students. My experiences have strengthened me to be able to see a positive leader in every child.

Decatur Parade!

Kicking off parade season in New Orleans, 2011 style! How peculiar, a one band, one float parade with a pinhole portal in the center! Imagine my surprise to come home to a parade!

The dog gang

I turned onto Banks and saw a lump in the dimly lit road, while biking tonight. Getting closer, I recognized the lump as two dogs in the middle of the road. I was thinking about a story I heard earlier, that teenagers were going around on their bikes terrorizing people, with guns, in another part of town. Then I realized that one of the dogs probably got hit and his buddy was standing next to him in solidarity to mourn the loss of the fallen partner. As I passed the scene, the dead dog got to its feet and both dogs animatedly made moves to the neutral ground.  I passed the dogs and realized... I just saw two dogs hanging out in the middle of Banks Street.

Approaching the next block, two more dogs emerged. Instantly I thought, 'Banks Street Dog Gang!' But then the only pit of the lot, turned, and made eye contact with me. The pit bull started bolting in my direction.  In the less than one year of working at the City Council, I heard of more than 6 pit bull attacks with several being fatal.  I pumped my crazy legs like it was my job.

This city is electric hot right now, the kids and the dogs feel it most keenly!