SHREVEPORT – Lora Desdunes loved math, following that passion to an accounting degree from Louisiana Tech in 2004.
What Desdunes didn’t know was that an accounting career wouldn’t satisfy her social butterfly needs, and working alone in a cubicle wasn’t the right fit.
She also didn’t know that she liked children (besides her own).
Desdunes took a long and winding road to a career in education. But that path has led her to an alternate teaching certificate and a master’s degree from LSUS, and the Teacher of the Year honor at Turner Elementary & Middle School as a third-grade math and science teacher.
GETTING STARTED
A request to teach Sunday School from a pastor at St. Luke Christian Methodist Church served as the spark.
The next year, Desdunes became a co-director of an academic program at church.
“I gathered math and reading materials for the kids, and teaching them was what pushed me into education for a living,” Desdunes said. “I didn’t know that I liked other people’s kids.
“I wanted to do something that would still allow me to work with numbers and math but provide social interaction as well.”
Desdunes entered the classroom as a substitute teacher in 2009, transitioning to a paraprofessional in 2012.
She served as a child-specific aide, a Pre-K paraprofessional and a middle school paraprofessional in inclusion support for the next seven years.
But Desdunes wanted to be able to establish the foundation of her own classroom, not just assist another teacher.
“If I’m going to be holding and teaching classes as a paraprofessional, it might as well be my own classroom,” Desdunes said. “I’ve been in classes with little structure, so I wanted to be able to set that foundation.”
Her less-than-stellar undergraduate GPA prevented her from getting into some teaching programs, but because she had a bachelor’s degree, she could apply to LSUS’s alternate teaching certificate program, which supplies core education classes while the teacher operates in her own classroom.
“(The initial rejection) stung a little bit, but LSUS recognized that I was more than just a GPA and wanted me in their program,” said Desdunes, who finished the teaching certification program and her master’s degree with a combined 3.88 GPA. “I’ll be forever indebted to LSUS for allowing me to pursue my dream.”
LAYING THE FOUNDATION
Most participants in alternate teaching programs are professionals from other fields who want a career change, and the transition into a classroom is often the biggest hurdle.
When Desdunes enrolled in the LSUS program in 2018, she had nearly a decade of classroom experience.
“The previous experience was a big help, and I was able to learn about teaching methodologies on top of the classroom management experience I already had,” Desdunes said. “Some things I had down pat, and some things I needed to improve on.
“But what I wanted most for my students is for them to take ownership of the class – it’s their class. The why is important for them. There’s a brick wall you’ve got to break down, but you give them the why. You model to them how to run the class, and by the end of the year, I’m not exhausted because they are running the class and holding each other accountable. I just facilitate.”
When kids play an active role in classroom management, more time can be spent on learning.
The ability to expend more energy on subject matter instead of discipline is one reason why the third-grade math and science teacher was named the Teacher of the Year at Turner this past school year.
The Shreveport native finished her fourth year in her own classroom after completing the alternate certification program in 2020 and walked across the stage for her master’s in educational leadership this past May.
After a total of 12 years in a Turner classroom, she’ll start anew at Midway Elementary this coming school year.
“I hope to bring this perspective to my new school – an open type of communication with students where you set expectations together,” Desdunes said. “When you involve them in the process, you get better results.
“It’s something they’ve agreed to and bought into. But the bottom line is that kids don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
THE FUTURE
Desdunes loves implementing these ideas in her math and science classroom, but eventually, she wants to pursue her own administrative career.
Whether it’s a math content coach or instructional coordinator, Desdunes wants to teach other teachers these ideas once she’s through implementing them in her own classroom.
And she wants to connect with others who may have started in different careers and not considered the education field.
She spoke at an informational meeting at LSUS’s alternate certificate program in late May, aiming to alleviate fears people may have about entering the classroom.
“It’s a very rewarding career because you are impacting people’s lives,” Desdunes said. “Yes we all want to make money, but the return on investment of the impact you can have is a lot more than just a salary.
“Money can’t buy that. Teaching is a way of life, it’s who I am. If you get into it for the right reasons, you’ll be successful.”
