Preparing Myself

Tomorrow, I have a job interview.  Today, I am preparing myself.  I am studying the Common Core State Standards, which is the coming thing in the world of education.  This may sound boring, but since I turned my life toward education, I've come to appreciate the effort put into this document, this set of standards.  There are many, many good things here.

I wish I had gotten a haircut last Saturday.

Of course, in my studying, I am distracted by thoughts on other topics.  I consider how I will say things, how I will refer to concepts and philosophies with which I agree.  I found myself brushing up on Kohlberg's stages of moral development, which in turn lead me to think about self-actualization, which brought me to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which prompted me to consider how to assist students in progressing toward self-actualization through my actions in the classroom, which lead me to re-read some articles on motivation, and I hope a good portion of this sticks with me in a way I can call to mind when I'm sitting in the hot-seat tomorrow.

I should have bought a new pair of black slacks.

I think about ways to express my strong feelings about education.  I don't want to come across as arrogant (something that DOES happen to me), but I don't want to appear reticent, either.  I think I am a very good person for the job.  I want them to believe I am the best person for the job.  I want them to know that given the chance, five years from now they will be very happy they hired me. 

My shoes are scuffed.

I will be myself.  But I want to make sure I am the best self I am capable of being tomorrow morning.  So shouldn't I be studying and preparing more instead of blogging?  No, I think blogging is exactly what I need to be doing.  I am putting my plans and ideas down in writing.  This will help me remember my strategy, and make ME realize that despite my hair not being perfect, and my slacks a bit worn, and my shoes four years old, I am a good candidate.  Without knowing the competition, I could even come to believe I may be the best candidate.  And if I believe that, maybe they will, too.

A Day Gone Wrong...

This morning when I woke, it seemed like it could be a good day.  Morning routines went smoothly.  I knew I was substituting in upper level English classes, and the sun was shining.  I had a positive attitude.

As I drove to school, I was reflecting on the idea that each day, in little and not-so-little ways, we create the world around us.  I was considering that the attitude with which we greet the day colors the way we perceive the world.  I was considering all the ways we can positively affect our own lives just with our attitudes.  And then I realized I had forgotten my lunch.  Mm.

I had in my bag a resume that I planned to give the principal at the school where I was substituting. The teacher for whom I was substituting had announced her retirement.  There would be an opening.  Despite my forgotten lunch, this would be a good day. 

When I arrived at the school, I found out that my assignment had been changed to another teacher, a teacher I had subbed for before who had freshmen, not upper classmen.  This was not such bad news.  She had requested that I sub for her again.  She appreciated the job I had done.  Oh, well.  Despite the forgotten lunch and the changed plan, this would be a good day.

When I saw the principal I told him I had my resume and I would like to give it to him when he had a moment.  It was then he told me that the position I thought was open had been filled.  I was too slow.  He told me that it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference; the teacher he had hired had more experience.  This was something I could understand.  He had to do what was best for his students.  Despite the forgotten lunch, the changed plan, and loss of an opportunity...well, maybe it wouldn't be a good day.  But I was going to make it the best day I possibly could.

I subbed, and I taught.  We read "I Have a Dream" and Nelson Mandela's "Hope and Glory."  Two wonderful speeches by two men who made huge sacrifices following what they believed in.  I did a good job.  I try hard to be a good sub.  Especially in English, and especially when the teacher I'm subbing for leaves a note allowing me leeway in how the lesson is delivered.

I skipped lunch.  As the day went on, and my blood sugar got lower, I started to feel worse about my day. I drove home in something of a funk.  But I picked up my son from after-school care, and I knew that as soon as I ate something, and I would be okay.  Better, at least.

When I got home, I dished myself up some of the chicken and dumplings I had made the day before.  Comfort food.  Exactly what I needed.  I put them in the microwave.  The microwave didn't sound quite right, and when the timer sounded, the chicken and dumplings were still cold.  The 10 year old microwave had quit.

I was almost glad.  At last, a problem I could do something about.  I was going to fix the microwave situation.  I called to check on repairs.  Just as cheap to replace as repair.  So I went to Lowe's to price a new microwave. I found one on sale, so I bought it.   The microwave that had gone out was one of the range hood microwaves, mounted, with brackets.  The microwave that had gone out was a Whirlpool; I didn't think it unreasonable to hope for an identical mounting bracket.

I wasn't having that kind of day.  Not only was it a different bracket, but the microwave I had bought was 1" taller.  I had to chip off a small row of tile from the back-splash, take down the old mounting bracket, redrill holes in the upper cabinet.  Of course, I had left my drill down at the farm.  Borrowed my brother's (living on the same street has been very good for me when I need tools).

I dealt with every obstacle involved with replacing the microwave.  Every additional problem was an additional challenge.  This I could deal with.  This I could fix.  It wouldn't be easy.  But I could do this.  The mounting instructions said it was a two-man job.  No way, baby.  This was my deal.  This was everything that had gone wrong all day, this job became all the things I couldn't fix and had no control over, the problems that arose became all the recent frustrations in my life and I was going to deal with them one at a time no matter what it took, and I was going to have at least one success today.

The microwave is up.  The day is almost over for me.  Soon I'll go to bed, and tomorrow another day will start.  I'll have problems, and I'll have obstacles, and I will deal with them.  So will many people.  And one day, for each of us, there will be a day when the positives outweigh the negatives, and we'll have to remember the bad days, and have the good sense to be grateful for them.  If it weren't for the bad days, how would we know we were having a good one?

I, Sir, Am Not an Ottoman, a Sideboard, or a Chifferobe

The last couple of days I have been subbing for a speech and drama teacher.  She has a class doing monologues.  Part of the assignment is to fill out a biography for the character portrayed in their monologues.

I understood the assignment immediately.  She wanted them to consider their characters as people, not just as roles.  She wanted to give the characters depth by making the students aware of details in the characters' lives.  And I thought to myself that this wasn't just for this class.  These principles apply in every day life.

We all go through life constantly interacting with other people.  It is a fact, however, that we do not have the emotional depth or energy to consider the feelings and humanity of every single person we encounter.  That would be exhausting.  So to a certain extent, those people with whom we are not personally acquainted, who only fill brief roles in our lives, become just furniture.


I am familiar, through one reading or another, with the concept of different types of respect.  There is thin respect.  This is the respect we are taught that we owe to people on a daily basis, or in certain roles.  This is the respect which we employ when we call teachers Mr. or Ms., or when we hold open the elevator door for a stranger.  While some people may be woefully short of this, it is still a large factor in everyday interactions.  If someone operates on a daily basis with a high level of thin respect for the people around him or her, we consider this person to be "nice."

But they are still only aware of the people around them as furniture.  There is no meaningful interaction.

To reach a deeper level, to get to the point of thick respect, then the individual must become aware of another individual as a person.  This is usually achieved through disclosure.

To apply this practically, I'll give you a glimpse into my day as a substitute teacher.

When students see me for the first time, they do not see me.  They may observe details of my dress and behavior and arrive at conclusions, but they still do not see me beyond my role as a substitute teacher.  For those capable of thin respect, who have been taught by their parents to apply thin respect, this may actually mean that they treat me better than they treat their regular teacher.  I am an adult in a position of authority.  Others, unfortunately, see only an opportunity to get away with things.  In both cases, I am only a piece of furniture in their world.


So I tried an experiment today.  While I was reading the instructions for an assignment, a student short on thin respect was talking.  I stopped.  I walked up to her.  I held out my hand.  I introduced myself:  "Hi.  I'm Mr. Houser.  And  you are?"  She said, "I know your name.  It's on the board."  "Yes,"  I said.  "But I wasn't sure if you realized I am a person, not a television or background music to be ignored or talked over."  I smiled as I said this.  Disarmingly, I hope.  She smiled back.  "Sorry,"  she said.  The "sorry" was a sign of thin respect.  Progress.

I then explained to the class what I had done, and why.  I didn't use the terms thin and thick respect.  I tied it to the lesson.  Then I told them that the principle could be applied to their monologue characters.  I told them the more details they could provide in the characters' lives, the more real the characters became. I told them I could tell them a detail about me, and I would become more real as a person.  Then I told them one.

I told them that my father had lost his right hand as a young man in an industrial accident.  This grabbed their interest, and at the same time gave us common ground.  Most of them had fathers.  The fact that I had a father, too, made me more human.  They had questions.  I answered them.  I had subbed in the same class the day before, and had found them to be an outspoken, unfocused bunch, reluctant to get down to work.  I had asked them, as a substitute teacher, to work.  I received a half-hearted response at best.  Some had ignored the assignment entirely.

When I asked them to work again, the response was different.  I may have still been a substitute teacher, but I was also a person. 

A Family Walden

My family is fortunate enough to own some land.  I guess I should qualify that.  I have ancestors who worked hard and bought some land and we have been fortunate enough to hold on to that land for over a hundred years.  The land itself is beautiful.  Not grand, not awe-inspiring, but beautiful.  A year-round creek, a cave or two, small bluffs, open pastures, wooded lots.  A great place to be a kid, and not a bad place to be an adult.

There is peace to be found in the land.  Some people can reach that peace by simply being there.  In the evenings, there is a hoot owl that calls from a holler through the ridge opposite the old farmhouse.  In the summer, the air down by the creek is usually about ten degrees cooler, and the sound of the water over the rocks is soothing.  The wind rustles the leaves in the summer and fall, and in the winter will make a lonesome sound as it moves through the naked branches.  On the hill overlooking the farm there is a small stand of Osage orange trees which offers a shady viewpoint.  All of this is there, and all of it will work to ease a troubled mind.  But the troubled mind has to be in the right state first.

Sometimes there are too many things rushing through a troubled mind.  All the problems, the difficulties, and the trials of modern life can stand between the troubled mind and the peace the land has to offer.  The good news is that we as a family know the secret to achieving a state of mind that allows us to really appreciate what exists in our section of the valley.

When we arrive, we usually have a plan of action.  My older brother and his son seem to be currently obsessed with fences and gates.  Robert Frost understood the deal about fences, even though in New England they had walls instead of fences.  "Something there is in Nature that hates a wall"...and a fence.  Usually it isn't natural.  Cows aren't particularly fond of fences, but nature take its toll as well.  They work hard to put in new fences, new gates.

My  younger brother is determined to rid the farm of any unnecessary brush.  He clears the brush from the banks of the creek to allow better recreational access.  He does this by hand.  There are sections accessible to the brush hog for the small tractor we have, but some areas are not.  He clears the brush, stacks it, burns it.  When he is finished, the area is clear.  The cattle have more area to graze, and we have a clearer view of the trout that live in the stream.


My father mows.  People see the farm, and they think that there are still people living there.  The lawn never gets out of hand.  There is quite a bit to mow:  the immediate lawn around the house, then down past the garage to the vineyard, and the vineyard itself.  There is also a small area on the other side of the creek we maintain as a park area.

My area is the garage.  We have taken to gathering in the small, separated building once used as a garage.  It was built in the 70's. It was not built well, and since then, issues have arisen.  I try to find creative, inexpensive ways to improve the garage.  I'm currently insulating it and paneling it with old barn wood.  The wood I am currently working with is rough cut, different sizes.  It comes from a shed, but the shed was built from the remains of a barn that was torn down long before I was born. I think it is beautiful, but I have a long way to go.  I also need more barn wood.  But there is time.

We also often work together on projects.  After one hundred plus years of farming, there is a lot of outdated equipment, old fence, rusting metal scattered here and there.  We work together, gather the metal.  Take it to be recycled.  A good load will give us over a hundred dollars, sometimes close to two.  We use this money for supplies and equipment.  We also cut firewood together.

We get things done, but we know it is not about the product of our labor.  We compliment each others' accomplishments.  But in the end, we know that it is the labor itself that is of value.  It is an investment, not in the land, but in ourselves.  When we have worked to a certain state, we can better enjoy what we have there.  In the land.

Of the several generations who have worked this land, I think most of them understood innately what we have rediscovered.  They had fewer distractions than we have, and they had to work harder in order to keep the land.  We play where they worked.  So maybe we only get a taste of the feast they enjoyed.  But a taste can be enough.  It is for us.