Cate Waidyatilleka

English teacher Cate Waidyatilleka has lived around the world. She was born in New York City, graduated from Colby College in Maine, earned her master’s at Stanford, served in the Peace Corps in Sir Lanka, and now lives in Kaneohe with her family.
   
In spite of all these life transitions, she cherishes and still keeps The Little House on the Prairie books that she read when she was nine.
   
“I really liked these stories because the family was so adventuresome,” she says of the volumes written about life in the Midwest in the late 19th century. “They go out like pioneers into the prairie with really nothing other than what’s in their wagon, their horse, and their dog.”
   
Waidyatilleka recalls reading the books in the Laura Ingalls Wilder series with her four sisters in their home near Berkeley, California.
   
She was amazed and intrigued by how Pa, in the stories, could turn wood from the forest into a house his family relied upon for shelter and for protection from intruders. She was inspired by how the family overcame challenges, like prairie fires, land disputes with Native American Indians, and the lack of simple amenities like running water or electricity.
  
 “No matter what, they uphold their good values and they try to build a happy, peaceful life,” Waidyatilleka says. 
   
She identified with the younger daughter in the story, Laura, who was a tomboy and who wanted to help Pa, while the other daughter, Mary, was more like Ma and took to cooking and sewing.  Laura also wanted to be a teacher.
   
Laura and Mary received new dresses homemade by Ma, maybe, just once a year, and a Christmas cookie with store bought white sugar was a treat savored for an entire day. The books portrayed heroes and heroines who dared to encounter new and different ways of living.
   
“It taught me that it’s cool to leave what you have and venture out to the ‘prairie,’ right?” she reminisces, likening the adventure to her experience of living and teaching in Sri Lanka where she learned the native language and met her husband.
   
Through class discussions, writing projects, and other hands-on-learning methods, Ms. Till (as her students call her) instills in them that books can inspire and be springboards for ideas that will later, sometimes much later, affect their lives in both subtle and obvious ways.
   
“I always tell my students that you’re not just citizens of this town or this state or even this country,” she professes. “You’re citizens of the world. And to move your way out and participate broadly.”

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