#trades school

[celebratinancreatinbeauty]

I was asked to substitute teach recently while the carpentry instructor (my former teacher) was away for a builder’s show.  I was thrilled by the opportunity and took a lot of pleasure slipping into the role.   The technical schools here in Oklahoma are mixed with high school and adult students so my classes were composed of folks ranging in ages 16-23, when I was enrolled as a student there many moons ago we had adults upwards of 35 in my class, just so happened to be a younger group this year and I can’t say I minded it on this side of the fence.

The regular instructor has a policy of letting students get comfortable on hand tools before turning them loose on all the powered and pneumatic tooling.  One of the first things he sets up in the shop in the fall is a section of 10″ x 10″ lumber to practice driving nails into.  There were three framing projects going, and while the students were allowed to use various saws nail guns were still off the table.  Boy, did I hear groaning as fingers were smashed and nail heads curled over.  Getting to preside over the groups, my AM class had twelve students, and the PM only five, subbing for an entire week offered enough chance to see their patience increase.   I’ve known teaching in an experience-based setting like this would appeal to me and I was relieved to experience a sort of self-selecting flow from the students.  Reading the room came naturally to me, lining the confident ag boys up with a job as they spit their dip juice into Dr. Pepper bottles and shifting my attention to the big ol’ boy pulling his pants up and sighing at the window sill that wouldn’t cooperate.  “Okay, T, have you tried positioning yourself like this? What about if you angle the nail this way?”   I let them play Kendrick on the job site radio.

They get a lot accomplished in the days their teacher is away, I have opportunities to build him up fondly reminiscing and encourage the students to participate in the upcoming skills contests.  I ask if they’re comfortable making compound cuts or what they think about the wall they just laid out.  I don’t hesitate to clasp my hands and declare I don’t want to be the only one tidying the shop when there are ten minutes left of class.   On my lunch breaks I examine my reading from Mr. M, he has me indicate particular characters and statements, then lay out the pages to observe trends.  I take advantage of the classroom space and flick through some of the stockpiled issues of Fine Woodworking.

[celebratinancreatinbeauty]

Here’s a glimpse for you.   Dang ol’ eighteen-year-old Scout and her beloved carpentry instructor.  We are in front of the first house I worked on, part of my vocational training program.  I’ve carried this man’s influence with me on a medley of job sites, over the equator, through various personal paradigm shifts…

  I had a fuckin’ nose hoop in those days.

I’ll think about how if I would have gone through that program when I was a high school student when I was a little more abrasive around authority and all it’s grotesquely narrow and conservative presentations in my bible belt strapped ecosystem… I will consider how there would have been a time I wouldn’t have been open to truly learning from that man.  There was plenty we didn’t have in common. But I was eighteen, and freshly back from WWOOFing in Maui and decisively not pledging to a university after years of grooming and previous expectations.  Trades school became more appealing than anything else, and I qualified for grant funding. I was late enrolling, the film and video production spots were all booked up so I decided the construction course wouldn’t be a bad default.  That’s all there was to it.  I was gonna give it a try.

“you know, you ask more questions than any of my other students” he’d say in a theatrically exasperated fashion, can of dip in his denim, cap on his head.  I would bounce around and grin and say how “Geez that’s gotta be the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me!” I’d bring bottles of kombucha to class and he’d ask if that was my hippie tea again, and I would only accidentally bump them off of scaffolding to shatter on the job site slab once or so -instances when his eye rolls could rival my younger sisters. He modeled support, getting me an extension cleared with the school so that over spring break I could spend more time at Cal Earth … while also referring to me as either a “tree hugger” or “princess”. He was integral in linking me up with my current employer -whom I couldn’t be more satisfied working for.  The former instructor has been integral in more than that of course, all enabled by our mutual gameness to be open.  To show up and learn from each other.  The stark contrast of our general makeup makes it entertaining to have the bond that we do.  He’s a figure I value immensely.  Our rapport is one of the greatest reminders I have to be willing to go for knowledge over ego and presumptions about compatibility. In conclusion.  He looks sorta like Kenny Powers and so does the guy that leads the no gi jiu jitsu class I’ve been going to recently, first time pursuing martial arts in the midwest, and I’m like “Okay, Oklahoma.  I get it, gurus really come in all types.”