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Most teachers know the story of the man who was walking along a beach at low tide, picking up a random starfish and flinging it back to sea, then bending over and repeating the process as he made his way down his little part of the coast.

He was approached by another man who had been watching the seemingly hopeless task of returning thousands of starfish to the safety of the ocean. The second man asked the first, “Why are you trying to save the starfish? Don’t you see it’s a hopeless task? You’ll never be able to save them all! What difference will it make?”

The first man bent over once again and picked up another starfish. “It makes a difference to this one. ” And threw it back to the ocean.

An unfortunate affliction of my profession is that often we are like the second man, cynical and hopeless when faced with unending red tape, documentation, and more often than not, difficult students–many of whom are victims of a system comfortable with ignoring them, or a culture that doesn’t value education, or even, in some cases, limitations and drama which will never abate long enough for them to hoist themselves up out of the poverty, whether economic or academic.

Today I found such a starfish — one that I had thrown back out to sea without realizing that I had made an impact. We were talking about travel, and a student sked me if I had ever left the country, to which I replied, “many times” and since I was sitting at my computer, googled a place where I had lived and studied when I was about her age. To my absolute surprise, the picture that came up for Aix-en-Provence, France is this one:

This is a pretty famous place, a cafe called Les Deux Garcons, where the painter Cezanne used to hang out quite a bit. In fact, inside the cafe is an amazing collection of  history dating back a couple of hundred years. I lived upstairs, over the cafe. After dinner I’d sit outside at one of those tables and drink coffee or Pernod (no more green fairy in the 80’s for those of you who are fans of Moulin Rouge) until it was very late. You can see my bedroom on the top floor, and the cafe with the red awning is actually a bakery. I’d pick up some cafe au lait and a croissant or baguette and walk to the university.

My student was astounded. She said that she envied  my adventures, but that she wasn’t going to squander the educational opportunities she was given and have some adventures of her own.

Makes the whole crappy week worth it.