Tonight I had a first conversation with the department head in the school where I’d like to teach next year. I got her name from a friend and called. We had a friendly, brief conversation. She indicated that the prospects were good for teachers in my field, that there are often openings in the district, but that there are currently no pool of teacher applicants in my area.
I’m confident that I can find a job teaching in town next fall, so my excitement doesn’t come from hearing about a promising job market necessarily. I guess I am more excited about the change that’s coming; about a new chapter of professional life. It’s excitement mixed with anxiety over how well equipped I will be when the time comes.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
The Shack
With no family waiting for me, a truly unlimited amount of work to do at the school, and only a dark, cold shack to sleep in, it makes sense that I spend most of my time at the school. I wake up around 6:30 to a cold room where the fire has gone out hours ago, and the warmth has seeped through the floor and is gone. I jump up, squiggle my feet into my shoes, grab my coat, and walk to school. It takes about forty seconds to walk that far.
After the kids are gone for the day, and the custodian has cleaned and vacuumed, I stay at the school, usually sitting at my desk reading books or writing papers for class. I email, talk to Wifey, surf the internet, make a dinner usually consisting of a frozen entree, some leftovers from home, or a can of something microwavable. With an unlimited amount of work to do, my quitting time is dictated by my level of exhaustion. I fight the sleepies for as long as I can, but when I recognize it is a losing battle, I call it a day.
I put on my bib overalls and heavy coat, put on my headlamp and gloves, and head home. I walk in and close the door behind me, and I am plunged into complete darkness. There are no windows other that some decorative ones in the door, and those I have covered, not wanting to advertise to every passerby whether I am home or not home. I reach for my headlamp to illuminate what is directly in front of me, and immediately set to work on a fire. Within about ten minutes I can get a fire fairly roaring inside the stove. It takes a little longer than that to heat the rest of the building.
The structure itself looks a little abominable from the outside. It is about three feet off of the ground, where most cabins are built right down on the ground. It has an interior loft, so it looks very tall from the outside with no windows to outline a first and second floor. I have heard it described by another as a big outhouse.
On the inside, it’s actually pretty cozy. Standing in the middle of the downstairs, the room is sixteen by sixteen. If your back is to the door, there is a woodstove across the room in the left hand corner. On the left wall is a make shift table of particle board perched on two black plastic saw horses. On the right wall is a queen sized bed that Wifey found for free on an internet based community sharing bulletin board. It’s pretty comfortable really. There are no sheets on it, only my mummy sleeping bag, my down pillow, and a rectangle Coleman sleeping bag that I use as a final cover.
In the far right corner there is an aluminum utility ladder propped against the wall that provides access to the loft. Up there is more empty space, which honestly, I like. It’s minimalism to the extreme. I have a cot up there with a thermarest. I have slept up there a couple of times because the heat lingers longer up there than down on the floor level. The only reason I don’t do it every night is because the cot is not as comfortable as the bed. I’ve thought about moving the bed up there, but it would be very difficult to get the queen bed up that aluminum ladder by myself.
So as the fire begins to warm the room from twenty below, to zero, to twenty above, I stand right up next to the stove where the warmth first starts to come through. I usually stand there with a book, reading from the light of my headlamp (ironically, I have been reading The Shack while standing in the shack). I have a Coleman fuel lantern, but it is difficult to start in extreme cold, so I do without it most of the time. As I can, I start peeling off layers: first my coat, then my overalls. I take my pillow and prop it up by the fire to warm. I hang my sleeping bag from a nail I’ve put in the ceiling so that it can warm. And this process takes about an hour to get to acceptable sleeping temperature.
After reassembling my bed, and giving the fire a final stoke, I pull off my shoes and slip into my sleeping bag fully dressed in jeans, socks, and fleece pullover. I set my Timex next to me to function as my only alarm clock. Hunkered down, I read for another couple of paragraphs until sleep takes me.
In the morning, I can sense to cold through all my layers. I know I have to make the journey from this sleeping bag to the school as short as possible. When I finally muster the resolve, I spring from my bag, squiggle back into my shoes without bothering to untie them, put on my watch, grab my coat and keys, and I’m out the door, not bothering to build a fire as it will be eighteen hours before I return.
Only a time or two have I gone over there at a reasonable hour, built a nice warming fire, and spent the evening reading in the quiet. But those two times have been nice. It is relaxing in a way that being at the school is not. Though the school is more comfortable by far, I cannot ever truly relax there. I am always conscious of my movements being observed by others. I am always on guard. Only in the cabin can a truly relax, and I don’t do that often enough.
After the kids are gone for the day, and the custodian has cleaned and vacuumed, I stay at the school, usually sitting at my desk reading books or writing papers for class. I email, talk to Wifey, surf the internet, make a dinner usually consisting of a frozen entree, some leftovers from home, or a can of something microwavable. With an unlimited amount of work to do, my quitting time is dictated by my level of exhaustion. I fight the sleepies for as long as I can, but when I recognize it is a losing battle, I call it a day.
I put on my bib overalls and heavy coat, put on my headlamp and gloves, and head home. I walk in and close the door behind me, and I am plunged into complete darkness. There are no windows other that some decorative ones in the door, and those I have covered, not wanting to advertise to every passerby whether I am home or not home. I reach for my headlamp to illuminate what is directly in front of me, and immediately set to work on a fire. Within about ten minutes I can get a fire fairly roaring inside the stove. It takes a little longer than that to heat the rest of the building.
The structure itself looks a little abominable from the outside. It is about three feet off of the ground, where most cabins are built right down on the ground. It has an interior loft, so it looks very tall from the outside with no windows to outline a first and second floor. I have heard it described by another as a big outhouse.
On the inside, it’s actually pretty cozy. Standing in the middle of the downstairs, the room is sixteen by sixteen. If your back is to the door, there is a woodstove across the room in the left hand corner. On the left wall is a make shift table of particle board perched on two black plastic saw horses. On the right wall is a queen sized bed that Wifey found for free on an internet based community sharing bulletin board. It’s pretty comfortable really. There are no sheets on it, only my mummy sleeping bag, my down pillow, and a rectangle Coleman sleeping bag that I use as a final cover.
In the far right corner there is an aluminum utility ladder propped against the wall that provides access to the loft. Up there is more empty space, which honestly, I like. It’s minimalism to the extreme. I have a cot up there with a thermarest. I have slept up there a couple of times because the heat lingers longer up there than down on the floor level. The only reason I don’t do it every night is because the cot is not as comfortable as the bed. I’ve thought about moving the bed up there, but it would be very difficult to get the queen bed up that aluminum ladder by myself.
So as the fire begins to warm the room from twenty below, to zero, to twenty above, I stand right up next to the stove where the warmth first starts to come through. I usually stand there with a book, reading from the light of my headlamp (ironically, I have been reading The Shack while standing in the shack). I have a Coleman fuel lantern, but it is difficult to start in extreme cold, so I do without it most of the time. As I can, I start peeling off layers: first my coat, then my overalls. I take my pillow and prop it up by the fire to warm. I hang my sleeping bag from a nail I’ve put in the ceiling so that it can warm. And this process takes about an hour to get to acceptable sleeping temperature.
After reassembling my bed, and giving the fire a final stoke, I pull off my shoes and slip into my sleeping bag fully dressed in jeans, socks, and fleece pullover. I set my Timex next to me to function as my only alarm clock. Hunkered down, I read for another couple of paragraphs until sleep takes me.
In the morning, I can sense to cold through all my layers. I know I have to make the journey from this sleeping bag to the school as short as possible. When I finally muster the resolve, I spring from my bag, squiggle back into my shoes without bothering to untie them, put on my watch, grab my coat and keys, and I’m out the door, not bothering to build a fire as it will be eighteen hours before I return.
Only a time or two have I gone over there at a reasonable hour, built a nice warming fire, and spent the evening reading in the quiet. But those two times have been nice. It is relaxing in a way that being at the school is not. Though the school is more comfortable by far, I cannot ever truly relax there. I am always conscious of my movements being observed by others. I am always on guard. Only in the cabin can a truly relax, and I don’t do that often enough.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
First Night in the Cabin
Sunday night was my first night to sleep in the new cabin. A group of church men, knowledgeable in the ways of lumber, saws, hammers and nails, drove up from town, led by the Preacher, and spent the weekend here building. The cabin went up remarkably fast, for sure. It is much taller than I expected, built with plans to someday add an upstairs loft.
The structure itself is so exposed, sitting nearly in the middle of a major throughway. The land on which it was built is an old runway that hasn’t been used for that purpose in thirty years, and has reverted to an unofficial but frequently used road. And the new building has only increased the traffic as locals who tend to get used to the way things are want to drive by and ogle the new, ugly house the preacher is building.
And though the cabin is done enough to get me off the ground, keep off the rain, and lock up my belongings, it isn’t finished beyond that. It is not insulated under the floor or through the walls. Though the roof and the walls are done, there is no interior ceiling. The eaves under the roof are completely open. A nimble thrush could fly in and out again without breaking its stride. I can feel the breeze blow through, and I can see daylight everywhere. It feels like a big empty barn, and I feel completely naked in it.
And it’s my personality not to want to draw any attention, especially in a place where pretty much any attention is negative attention. And this house has a great big “Here lives a white guy who doesn’t belong here and is stupid enough to build a house in the middle of a road” sign on the front of it.
To add to the drama, there are two young local men who have recently arrived in town whom I don’t recognize and whose names I don’t know. They recruited others of our local young men and partied hard while looking for trouble this weekend. On Saturday night, these two (drunk) guys walked brusquely up to me and another man looking for a confrontation before they saw the rest of our group and decided the numbers were not in their favor and veered quickly off into the woods. I didn’t think a thing of it until Sunday night when the group was gone, I was alone, and I was spending the first night in the structure.
So Sunday night, two car loads of guys were drinking and driving around with nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. I don’t know if they realized I was in there or not, but they would drive by, stop, blare their car radio, rev their engines, shout inaudible slurred curses, and tear off. I lay there listening to the engines trail off into the distance, and in a few minutes return to repeat the drunken hurled curses.
Sure I was scared. I laid there, pistol beside me, trying to plan out each possible move like a chess game. If they bang on the door, I’ll ignore it. If they open the door, I’ll fire past them. If they cross the threshold, I’ll shoot them. And I prayed for my own safety, and for theirs. Here in a building whose ultimate purpose is to house the church and bring glory to God, I didn’t want the first act in this building to be a shooting. Even a justified one. It would never be a church, it’d always be known only as ‘that place where Johnny died.”
And so those were the thoughts I thought as I drifted fitfully off to sleep. No harm came to me that night, or to the building, or to my carousing neighbors.
In the past few days and nights I have warmed up to the building a little bit, though the building has not warmed up at all. I put a thermometer in there that has been reading low thirties each morning. I can’t call it a cabin, with the associations that word brings: small, snug, cozy, warm, a refuge from the winter world. This is a barn built three feet off the ground.
I know it will get better. The preacher is coming back up this weekend to do more work on it. It will get insulated. The eaves will be finished. And interior ceiling will be added. The wood stove will be installed. It will keep me warm this winter, and maybe then it will feel more like a cabin.
The structure itself is so exposed, sitting nearly in the middle of a major throughway. The land on which it was built is an old runway that hasn’t been used for that purpose in thirty years, and has reverted to an unofficial but frequently used road. And the new building has only increased the traffic as locals who tend to get used to the way things are want to drive by and ogle the new, ugly house the preacher is building.
And though the cabin is done enough to get me off the ground, keep off the rain, and lock up my belongings, it isn’t finished beyond that. It is not insulated under the floor or through the walls. Though the roof and the walls are done, there is no interior ceiling. The eaves under the roof are completely open. A nimble thrush could fly in and out again without breaking its stride. I can feel the breeze blow through, and I can see daylight everywhere. It feels like a big empty barn, and I feel completely naked in it.
And it’s my personality not to want to draw any attention, especially in a place where pretty much any attention is negative attention. And this house has a great big “Here lives a white guy who doesn’t belong here and is stupid enough to build a house in the middle of a road” sign on the front of it.
To add to the drama, there are two young local men who have recently arrived in town whom I don’t recognize and whose names I don’t know. They recruited others of our local young men and partied hard while looking for trouble this weekend. On Saturday night, these two (drunk) guys walked brusquely up to me and another man looking for a confrontation before they saw the rest of our group and decided the numbers were not in their favor and veered quickly off into the woods. I didn’t think a thing of it until Sunday night when the group was gone, I was alone, and I was spending the first night in the structure.
So Sunday night, two car loads of guys were drinking and driving around with nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. I don’t know if they realized I was in there or not, but they would drive by, stop, blare their car radio, rev their engines, shout inaudible slurred curses, and tear off. I lay there listening to the engines trail off into the distance, and in a few minutes return to repeat the drunken hurled curses.
Sure I was scared. I laid there, pistol beside me, trying to plan out each possible move like a chess game. If they bang on the door, I’ll ignore it. If they open the door, I’ll fire past them. If they cross the threshold, I’ll shoot them. And I prayed for my own safety, and for theirs. Here in a building whose ultimate purpose is to house the church and bring glory to God, I didn’t want the first act in this building to be a shooting. Even a justified one. It would never be a church, it’d always be known only as ‘that place where Johnny died.”
And so those were the thoughts I thought as I drifted fitfully off to sleep. No harm came to me that night, or to the building, or to my carousing neighbors.
In the past few days and nights I have warmed up to the building a little bit, though the building has not warmed up at all. I put a thermometer in there that has been reading low thirties each morning. I can’t call it a cabin, with the associations that word brings: small, snug, cozy, warm, a refuge from the winter world. This is a barn built three feet off the ground.
I know it will get better. The preacher is coming back up this weekend to do more work on it. It will get insulated. The eaves will be finished. And interior ceiling will be added. The wood stove will be installed. It will keep me warm this winter, and maybe then it will feel more like a cabin.
Calls from Jail
I wrote last summer about MJ, a local young man on whom Jme had been placing her affections. He graduated from high school this past May. Understand that high school diplomas are not the same thing everywhere.
This summer, we saw in the paper that MJ had been arrested in town and charged with first degree burglary. We’ve heard different versions of the story since then, but it really doesn’t matter what the details of the offense were. The fact is, he’s been in jail for about a month now, he’s had his day in court, and he’s still in jail.
This week, MJ called our house from the local correctional facility looking for Jme. Wifey hesitated for just a moment before letting her talk to him. Wifey said they only talked for about five minutes, but when I heard about it I made it clear that Jme was done receiving calls from jail. I immediately called the facility and blocked any further calls to our home.
We were never very comfortable with Jme and MJ being boyfriend/girlfriend, but we tolerated it. We closely supervised it, but we tolerated it. Now things are different. With his graduation from high school, and his move to town, he is now fully an adult, living independently, with no one to set any limits on his life. And now he has abused his freedom enough to lose it entirely. She is a sophomore in high school, living at home, and going to school. I think their relationship is done.
This summer, we saw in the paper that MJ had been arrested in town and charged with first degree burglary. We’ve heard different versions of the story since then, but it really doesn’t matter what the details of the offense were. The fact is, he’s been in jail for about a month now, he’s had his day in court, and he’s still in jail.
This week, MJ called our house from the local correctional facility looking for Jme. Wifey hesitated for just a moment before letting her talk to him. Wifey said they only talked for about five minutes, but when I heard about it I made it clear that Jme was done receiving calls from jail. I immediately called the facility and blocked any further calls to our home.
We were never very comfortable with Jme and MJ being boyfriend/girlfriend, but we tolerated it. We closely supervised it, but we tolerated it. Now things are different. With his graduation from high school, and his move to town, he is now fully an adult, living independently, with no one to set any limits on his life. And now he has abused his freedom enough to lose it entirely. She is a sophomore in high school, living at home, and going to school. I think their relationship is done.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Rule of Thumb
When considering all of the choices in the state, and looking for a new community in which we could live, I have developed the following rule of thumb: If the community is too small to be included on the state map, it is probably smaller than what we are looking for. Can anyone find Frizee or Northtown on a map? I can't either.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Describe the skills or attributes you believe are necessary to be an outstanding teacher.
On the first day of the fall semester of my senior year in college, I attended two classes with two very different teachers. The first class was a music history class taught by a music history professor, the other was an American Novel class taught by a professor of literature.
Since it was the first day of class, the music teacher made a very brief introduction, took attendance, then sheepishly explained that since the textbooks for the course had not yet arrived at the bookstore, he was dismissing us. I left there surprised that a person with a terminal degree in his field, someone who presumably loved his area of expertise, could not extemporaneously share his passion for his subject with a captive audience. I dreaded the rest of the semester.
Later that same day, I went to the first meeting of my American Novel class. As the students were seated, the teacher entered the room, bringing with her a cool breeze of animation and excitement. Since it was the first day of the class, she passed out the course syllabus in order to give an outline of the expectations and the material we were to cover that semester. As she spoke, she was absolutely captivating and compelling. She managed complete engagement of her audience, and she was simply going over the syllabus. She took advantage of every moment of our time together. She engaged her students at a high level through her personal charisma and by making some attempt to connect with each student in the class. I looked forward to the rest of the semester, and I was not disappointed.
That day, I was able to verbalize what I had long believed about teaching: the teacher makes or breaks any class, regardless of the subject. Since then, that maxim has been proven true again and again as I have observed teachers in a variety of fields and settings. I have also striven to be one of those teachers who really makes a class meaningful for my students.
With the idea that the teacher is the single most important ingredient in any classroom, I believe that the qualities common to outstanding teachers include sufficient content knowledge, superior instructional strategies, a personal connection to their students, and charisma.
Outstanding teachers must have sufficient content knowledge to feel confident and comfortable with the material being taught. This allows the teacher to focus on the instructional strategies being employed and the specific needs of the students.
In order to ensure the strongest base of content knowledge, teachers should continue their own education by taking continuing education courses, seeking advanced degrees, and keeping up with current trends in their field. This constantly deepens their well of knowledge, allowing new ideas to continuously be imported into the classroom. It also models lifelong learning and the importance of education to students.
Outstanding teachers also employ superior instructional strategies to deliver that content to their students. They know how best to communicate material in a way that engages all students.
Successful teachers know what research says about the best practices and also have an intuitive sense of what works in the areas of student engagement, instruction, the effective use of time, the arrangement of the classroom, how to use a variety of assessments to monitor progress, and differentiation based on age, ability or learning style. Great teachers know what works.
Superior instructional strategies are a set of tools an educator can use to deliver content to students, and an educator must constantly acquire new tools and refine his or her practice over the course of a career.
Outstanding teachers make a personal connection with their students. Their students believe that their teacher cares about them personally. Their students believe that they can trust their teacher. The best teachers communicate high expectations to their students, and their students are inspired to do their very best in order to make their teacher proud.
Most people can remember a certain teacher from their grade school or high school years who played a pivotal role in their lives. Their favorite teacher was one who cared about them as individuals, took an interest in them, demanded the most from them, and are teachers from whom they learned the most about school and about life.
Finally, outstanding teachers have an undeniable personal charisma that is appealing to others. They have a certain dynamism, animation, or stage presence that is exciting to be around. They create environments that are interesting, engaging, and dynamic. It is impossible to get students excited about learning a concept when the teacher is not excited about teaching it.
I am reminded of a Japanese researcher who visited our school recently to make a presentation on permafrost, his area of expertise. I was not expecting much excitement from a presentation on permafrost, but the presenter’s passion for the subject was clearly communicated to his audience. He was enthusiastic about permafrost, and it was clear he knew quite a lot about it. He found ways to make permafrost relevant, interesting, and exciting. His presentation proved to me once again that the teacher makes or breaks any class, regardless of the subject.
Since it was the first day of class, the music teacher made a very brief introduction, took attendance, then sheepishly explained that since the textbooks for the course had not yet arrived at the bookstore, he was dismissing us. I left there surprised that a person with a terminal degree in his field, someone who presumably loved his area of expertise, could not extemporaneously share his passion for his subject with a captive audience. I dreaded the rest of the semester.
Later that same day, I went to the first meeting of my American Novel class. As the students were seated, the teacher entered the room, bringing with her a cool breeze of animation and excitement. Since it was the first day of the class, she passed out the course syllabus in order to give an outline of the expectations and the material we were to cover that semester. As she spoke, she was absolutely captivating and compelling. She managed complete engagement of her audience, and she was simply going over the syllabus. She took advantage of every moment of our time together. She engaged her students at a high level through her personal charisma and by making some attempt to connect with each student in the class. I looked forward to the rest of the semester, and I was not disappointed.
That day, I was able to verbalize what I had long believed about teaching: the teacher makes or breaks any class, regardless of the subject. Since then, that maxim has been proven true again and again as I have observed teachers in a variety of fields and settings. I have also striven to be one of those teachers who really makes a class meaningful for my students.
With the idea that the teacher is the single most important ingredient in any classroom, I believe that the qualities common to outstanding teachers include sufficient content knowledge, superior instructional strategies, a personal connection to their students, and charisma.
Outstanding teachers must have sufficient content knowledge to feel confident and comfortable with the material being taught. This allows the teacher to focus on the instructional strategies being employed and the specific needs of the students.
In order to ensure the strongest base of content knowledge, teachers should continue their own education by taking continuing education courses, seeking advanced degrees, and keeping up with current trends in their field. This constantly deepens their well of knowledge, allowing new ideas to continuously be imported into the classroom. It also models lifelong learning and the importance of education to students.
Outstanding teachers also employ superior instructional strategies to deliver that content to their students. They know how best to communicate material in a way that engages all students.
Successful teachers know what research says about the best practices and also have an intuitive sense of what works in the areas of student engagement, instruction, the effective use of time, the arrangement of the classroom, how to use a variety of assessments to monitor progress, and differentiation based on age, ability or learning style. Great teachers know what works.
Superior instructional strategies are a set of tools an educator can use to deliver content to students, and an educator must constantly acquire new tools and refine his or her practice over the course of a career.
Outstanding teachers make a personal connection with their students. Their students believe that their teacher cares about them personally. Their students believe that they can trust their teacher. The best teachers communicate high expectations to their students, and their students are inspired to do their very best in order to make their teacher proud.
Most people can remember a certain teacher from their grade school or high school years who played a pivotal role in their lives. Their favorite teacher was one who cared about them as individuals, took an interest in them, demanded the most from them, and are teachers from whom they learned the most about school and about life.
Finally, outstanding teachers have an undeniable personal charisma that is appealing to others. They have a certain dynamism, animation, or stage presence that is exciting to be around. They create environments that are interesting, engaging, and dynamic. It is impossible to get students excited about learning a concept when the teacher is not excited about teaching it.
I am reminded of a Japanese researcher who visited our school recently to make a presentation on permafrost, his area of expertise. I was not expecting much excitement from a presentation on permafrost, but the presenter’s passion for the subject was clearly communicated to his audience. He was enthusiastic about permafrost, and it was clear he knew quite a lot about it. He found ways to make permafrost relevant, interesting, and exciting. His presentation proved to me once again that the teacher makes or breaks any class, regardless of the subject.
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