Green Eggs & Sand - Part III

I departed my central Pennsylvania homestead and steeled myself for a driving experience similar to the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain – truckers with bad brakes, old ladies in very slow cars, and dozens of “This is really a very important cell phone call I have to make while tailgating you at 85-miles-per-hour” drivers on the various toll roads of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  As many drivers are aware, each of these toll roads is designed to suck all the loose change out of the crevices and creases of your car as well as several extra dollars from your pockets.  I traversed the Pennsylvania Turnpike ($10.70) eastward, the New Jersey Turnpike ($2.35) southwest, the Atlantic City Expressway ($3.00) southeast, and the Garden State Parkway ($1.00) south toward the southern tip of New Jersey.  Four-and-a-half hours (and all my Eagles, Eric Clapton, and Van Morrison CDs) later I arrived at the Ponderosa Campground just outside the quaint little town of Cape May Courthouse and checked into my rustic, yet functional cabin – my home for the weekend.

I meet my roommate – Walter, who has been teaching for 43 years – the last dozen or so at an alternative school for juveniles with emotional, social, and behavioral challenges.  A jovial disposition and a hirsutely-challenged head (Male bonding at its finest) in concert with a hearty laugh, Walter has seen the ebbs and flows of education from a unique perspective.  He is deeply committed to his students and wants to provide them with unique experiences that are unavailable in science textbooks – experiences that will give them real-world opportunities to connect with the world of nature and solve problems that have immediate application in their everyday lives.  Walter is here to not only challenge his students, but to challenge himself as a teacher – to move out of a ‘comfort-zone” and into some new areas that will enhance his students’ learning opportunities as well as his teaching prowess.  He asks me, “If I can’t grow, then how can I help my students grow?”  Green Eggs & Sand seems to be the ideal answer to that question.

At 6:00 Walter and I travel over to The Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor, NJ for dinner with the 30 or so other GE&S participants and a series of introductory workshops.  After a dinner of pizza, sodas, and baskets of chocolate chips cookies (apparently budding marine biologists are not entirely calorie conscious), we are engaged in an icebreaker activity – a way of building group solidarity for the coming weekend.  Each of us is tasked with filling in a card with the names of participants with various and sundry talents, skills, and occupations.  We mingle together and record the names of people who fit each of the following descriptors:

·    Is wearing a shirt featuring a horseshoe crab image

·    Has observed horseshoe crabs spawning in the moonlight

·    Is writing a book about horseshoe crabs

·    Comes from a state that does not have horseshoe crabs

·    Has hatched horseshoe crab eggs and/or raised the young

·    Is sporting some conspicuous form of horseshoe crab “bling.”

·    Can speak passionately about the virtues & values of horseshoe crabs

Needless to say, we discover an eclectic array of kindred spirits and familiar philosophies that further solidifies our mission for the weekend.  We have congregated and coalesced!