I Have an Idiom

July 13, 2015

I sat at the back of the tin-roofed community room, a stiflingly hot building in which we were conducting our youth-oriented training.  I sat there to watch the interactions of the young trainees so I could assess how to best approach engaging, challenging and working with them.  One of the leaders posed a question to the trainees.  When she answered, the leader said, ‘That’s the idea.’  It caught my ear, for some reason that I couldn’t make sense of at the moment.

A bit later the trainees worked on small projects to then present their collaborative findings to the rest of the participants.  One group posted a large sheet of paper with a list of common problems facing youth in these islands.  What caught my eye, however, was writ large at the bottom of the sheet. ‘That’s The Idea!’  This phrase rung around inside my head, searching for the reason it so resonated with me.

As the trainees practiced a few songs that we planned to incorporate into our coming performance, one of them leaped up as they finished a rousing song, shouting, ‘That’s the idea!’

What’s up with this phrase, I wondered.

Soon after, when I took to the front to engage the trainees in a drama activity meant to shake them from the malaise that often settles when the afternoon heat becomes a bit oppressive, I heard myself utter that same phrase as the trainees responded well to the activity.  And it finally dawned on me that the phrase is one I’ve used in the past in these island trainings.  For some odd reason, I don’t use it outside of the islands, but it flows out of me very easily here.  And the staff I am working with have apparently adopted it on occasion.  I believe the phrase came about as I unconsciously searched for a punctuating statement that would quickly and precisely convey a sense of accomplishment.

Over the past week, however, the phrase has taken on more than that.  It gets bandied around by the trainees and staff as a kind of workshop watchcry.  Moments of pride, success, accomplishment, joy, excitement, and surprise all have been punctuated with the phrase.  And if I utter it after a group has shared a scene, they feel an immediate sense of achievement.

Unconsciously, and rather mysteriously as well, I have an idiom. An island idiom.