Brushy Fork Woods

Ever since I was a child, I have found that natural spaces are where I gravitate to when I need a recharge. Even when I cannot physically go to a place, sometimes I close my eyes and visualize some of the places that I have visited in the past. One of my favorite places to go is near Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. I call this place the Brushy Fork Woods, because it is a trail that is near the Brushy Fork Creek that runs just behind the college.

It is interesting that you had to cross a bridge in order to get there because in some ways it was crossing over into another world for me. The path ran parallel to a stream that fed a larger creek for a while and there were many branches to the path. Immediately as you cross over the bridge you needed to make a decision, whether to go left or right. If you took the right path you would travel south for a very short time along a short wire fence row that was covered in brambles. The path went east for a ways. Further down this path there was a break in the fence row on the left. This path took you to a small cemetery. In this cemetery there was so much wild garlic growing that you could normally smell it if it had rained within the a few days. Some of the gravestones were very old, and I believe that there were a few that were from the 1870-1900.

Back on the main path I would frequently find myself wandering around absent in thought. The whole forest had a pervading smell of mustiness and old leaves. It seemed that even in the calmest weather there was always a bit of a breeze that went through the forest. Many of the surrounding hills were very steep and in wet conditions, they were nearly impossible to climb.

At night, if there was a small amount of moonlight it was usually possible to navigate this path, and occasionally I would walk here at night to collect my thoughts. The noise of the wind brushing through the trees, the brook washing over the rocks, the singing of the tree frogs, the chirping of the crickets, the occasional call of a nightingale or the hoot of an owl all together formed a sort of nighttime symphony for me.

Something about the walks at night could restore a sense of tranquility to me, even after a stressful day of studying, or testing. It was so easy to step right back into a world, just across that bridge, and feel like I could leave worry, fears, and angers behind. It was like I left them at the bridge. Crossing over the bridge in a way I felt like I was able to temporarily step outside of myself, in a manner of speaking. Once I returned to the campus, I would usually return with a new perspective. Sometimes it was with a better focus. Sometimes it was with a decision to focus on other things.

It is funny that we really need to step outside our normal perspective in order to be able to focus better. Occasionally, when I need to find some tranquility, I close my eyes and return on one of these walks.

The Wizard didn't need to give the Lion courage

Grandpa: Superman isn't brave.

Angus: Did you take your pills this morning?
Grandpa: [chuckles] You don't understand. He's smart, handsome, even decent. But he's not brave. No, listen to me. Superman is indestructible, and you can't be brave if you're indestructible. It's people like you and your mother. People who are different, and can be crushed and know it. Yet they keep on going out there every time.

This quote was from a 1995 movie I watched the other night called “Angus”

After watching the film, I got to thinking  about courage. Frequently, when the idea of courage is mentioned, images of physically strong characters come to mind. This is not down-play that kind of courage at all. I am certain that firefighters, police officers, and soldiers frequently display courage. When we think about the idea of courage a little longer, we start broadening our definition.

Many people would start to include the leaders of the United States Civil Rights movement, the Suffragettes of an earlier civil rights movement, and perhaps many other groups come to mind.  The list might even start to include some pioneers, or people that did famous firsts. At some point though, we might leave something out. I know I did.

For both groups  there are common elements. Certainly they are all actors in unusual and interesting circumstances. They are those that, to borrow from a popular phrase, lived in interesting times. There are other things that are shared though.

So what ideals or qualities can be found in acts of courage?  Well, I believe at least part of courage comes through choices: choosing to face fears of physical, psychological, and social harm, to not back down to intimidation, to face the possibility of humiliation, the choice to stand alone.  To be clear, even doing any of these things alone is not all it takes. Wisdom, rationality, and humility should temper our acts as well: foolhardiness isn't really courage. But the choice comes when you decide that there is something more important on the line. 

Here are some other forms of courage that came to mind:

It takes courage to keep going when the odds don’t look promising.

It takes courage to admit that we are different.

It also takes courage to accept the humanity of those that are different than us.

It takes courage to honestly and sincerely admit when we are wrong.

It takes courage to accept a sincere apology from someone that has wronged us.

It takes courage (and a bit of faith) to forgive them.

I don’t think we have it all the time. There are plenty of times that I had the opportunity to choose, and chose wrong. Most of the time, this realization didn’t come to me until much later. Not that I am going to dwell on those times, because another choice comes:  for me it is to choose to go on despite the mistakes. The choice is to not let those mistakes define me.

I would hope that there is some courage to be found in this choice as well.

Why do I keep doing what I do?

I have been reading through a lot of blogs lately and one that I ran across was one called:

Why I love teaching and tutoring…. This article got me to thinking about the job that I do, what got me started, and what keeps me going. Here are a few thoughts about my motivation as a tutor that I would like to share with you.

The blog post mentioned developing relationships. I have an opportunity to develop a relationship with someone that results in building their confidence. I build up their trust, help them find something inside to overcome a challenge that they are facing. Frequently, I work with students that have a long history of people tearing them down and breaking them. I have an opportunity to build them up. I have the chance to help them: to stay by their side and to see them through to success. I was once told that the greatest revenge you can have on your enemies (those that would want to hurt you) is your success. For me, success comes in part from seeing others succeed. In fact, some have come back to me and told me how they are now able to help others because they got past their struggle. They are now “paying it forward.” What a blessing it is to me to know that is happening.

When it comes down to it, I want to give people a chance--one that they may not otherwise get. There were quite a few educators that I encountered as I was going through school that didn’t do a very good job of encouraging. There a few that I can name that were verbally abusive, and quite frankly that makes them bullies. (On that note I would like to do a blog post about bullying soon in response to Memoirs of a Bullied Kid) Most of those teachers would not give many of the students that I see a chance. They would have written them off. How do I know this? I and many of my classmates were written off by them, in favor of the students that fit the mold, or were little challenge to teach. I admit I have my moments of weakness when I want to give up, and want to take the easy route out. But my experiences drive me harder and tell me “You can’t give up on them.”

So this drive pushes me: I love problem solving. I guess that’s why I ended up tutoring math. But tutoring is also a type of problem solving. How can I take what I know, mix it with what the student knows, in a limited time, through the least confusing, most fitting way for that student’s experience, and bring them to that “Ah! Now I get it!” Most days I go home exhausted, but it is usually that good kind of tired. I love the challenge.

There are countless other motives I am sure, and quite frankly do we really know all our motives for doing most of what we do? Those three intertwined reasons seem to stand out the most to me. When I first work with a new tutor, I tell them that at minimum 60% of our job is being like a counselor. Near the end of a semester, when things get rough, it comes closer to 90%. So mixing the challenge of reaching to others struggling through a tough subject, math, and finding insights about life is what makes me:



The Existential Mathmagician

Welcome back Mr. Writer: characters are all around you!

I have recently taken back to writing and I thought that blogging might help me keep the mind going in that direction. This return comes after nearly an 8 year dry spell. I was able to figure out the last time that I wrote anything non-academic related because I found a disk full of past writings. The last thing I composed was a poem for a good friend of mine, Charlie Issacs. The piece I wrote was a poem that was read for his retirement party. At the time he was terminal with pancreatic cancer. Here is the piece that I wrote:

When One Sees a Tree

When one sees a tree

it is easy to forget

the seed that it came from

and the seeds that it has spread.

The former can be found if one

looks within the heart of the tree.

But for all the seeds that the tree planted,

one is left to only guess.

From that one tree,

many a life may grow:

each reflecting the tree that gave it life.

Some may even become trees of great stature

to spread more seeds of their own.

10-18-2003

 He passed away April of the following year. A colleague of mine remarked after Charlie’s memorial service that the last two years of his life I likely spent the most time with him of anyone else at that time.Charlie and I worked five days a week together in the math lab.

I consider Charlie one of the first educators that truly treated me as a peer. I learned a great deal working with him. I rarely heard him say an unkind word of anyone. I think the harshest thing that I recall him saying when he otherwise would have grounds to say more was, “I don’t care too much for that person.” His attitude to life, and his manner toward others is still an inspiration to me in the work that I do at the college.

I should take this time to mention what I do. I work for a local community college as a math instructional specialist. Sounds like a fancy title doesn’t it? What does that mean I do? Well, there is the official job description that says I provide workshops, tutor students, keep records, other job duties as needed. Don’t you just love those open ended descriptions that translate to: "whatever the heck needs to be done." Practically speaking there is a great deal more that happens in my job. This position gives me an opportunity to work with a lot of different people and get to know a lot about how they think, speak-what makes them tick in general.

So, that means I should have plenty of material for studying people as I write. What a rich ground of personalities, situations, and mannerisms to draw from and experiment. Of course, I do have to be mindful of confidentiality in my job, so names are changed to protect the innocent (or guilty). Now that the cat is out of the bag, I wonder how many will start to look for a hint of characters around them in my writing.