Walk a Mile in My Shoes

Open windows to a fresh perspective.

                           A key concept in The KOL’s Mission Statement

Teachers are Influencers without social media.  Their impact. The message.

Miss Woreck was such an Influencer and had a seismic impact on me as my College Prep English teacher in Grade 12. My high school had little to no diversity of which I was aware. In a class of over 400 students, I knew one Asian student.

On the first day of her class, Miss Woreck told us, “Take the blinders off.  They narrow and limit your perspective.” She did just that through the literature we read:  Black Boy. The Invisible Man (not the scifi one). The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. You get the picture.

She sparked my curiosity about other cultures.

            That curiosity I carried into my classroom.

When I taught “The Medicine Bag,” my students talked about a vision quest, that universal search for life’s purpose.  Students made dreamcatchers. I invited the district’s Indian Ed. Coordinator, Priscilla Buffalohead, to speak about the use of Indian symbols for sports’ teams from an Indigenous perspective.

When I taught about story elements, I brought a Hmong trunk from the Science Museum of Minnesota into the classroom. Yes, we even made sticky rice, a diet staple for the Hmong. The Hmong story cloth showed a new way to tell the narrative of their journey from Laos to America.

When I learned about El Dia de los Muertos, a Mexican celebration of FAMILY, I wrote a unit and blended it with the “Who am I?” unit in the seventh grade literature book.

When Joe South wrote Walk a Mile in My Shoes in 1979, he captured the challenge of respecting The Other. Still today the lyrics speak to us powerfully.

If I could be you, if you could be me
For just one hour, if we could find a way
To get inside each others mind
If you could see you through my eyes
Instead your own ego I believe you'd be
I believe you'd be surprised to see
That you've been blind

Walk a mile in my shoes
Just walk a mile in my shoes
Before you abuse, criticize and accuse
Then walk a mile in my shoes

Now if we spend the day
Throwing stones at one another
Cause I don't think, 'cause I don't think
Or wear my hair the same way you do
Well, I may be common people
But I'm your brother
And when you strike out
You're trying to hurt me
It's hurting you, lord how mercy

Now there are people on reservations
And out in the ghetto
And brother there, but, for the grace of god
Go you and I,
If I only had wings of a little angel
Don't you know, I'd fly
To the top of a mountain
And then I'd cry, cry, cry

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Joe South/ released1969

Walk a Mile in My Shoes lyrics © Concord Music Publishing LLC

NOTE: The first written reference comes from a Mary T. Lathrop poem:

“Walk a mile in his moccasins.  (1895)