Education, etc.

For many teachers, the summer is a time of rest, to vacation with or without family, and perhaps, a time to reflect. For me, summer is a time to work with my hands, to get splinters, to get dirty in a garden, and to see the fruits of my labor as I work with a medium other than the minds of the next generation. And yet, even when I am sanding boards or tilling soil, I am thinking about past students and planning for the school year to come. I suppose I just cannot escape it.

I have always loved refinishing furniture. It was my go-to summer activity for many years before I took time to raise small children until they became over-grown children. Then there was the slight detour of graduate school for 3 or 4 summers, but now that I am free of coursework, I am anxious to get back to saw dust and paint. There is just something about taking a piece of furniture that is a little banged up, a little unloved or unwanted, and turning it into something new, useful, and something that makes a statement.

Over the years I have worked with bedroom sets, a dining room set, accessories, chests, chairs, and other items, but the piece I was most fond of was a buffet chest that had chipped veneer, faded or broken places, and was in desperate need of love. I first approached this piece with a sander and realized I was going to need something with a bit more force behind it. It took me a hammer, chisel, and two days to get all the broken, chipped, and cracked veneer off the piece. What I found underneath was not the solid wood pieces I thought I would find, unlike when I pulled my carpets up in the first house I bought for my boys and found original hardwood floors. This piece was going to need more than a little bit of finish work.

 As I worked, I began to think of students I had in years past, some who were a little chipped and broken on the surface, who hid the need underneath a façade of behavior or disinterest. In my 17 years in the classroom, if you asked me which kind of student I would want to stack my classes with, it is these kids, the ones that need extra time, extra commitment, or plain extra. And this piece of furniture was going to need that kind of dedication. I am not sure I was fully prepared, but I dove in and got to work.

I chiseled off all the veneer from the top, the sides, and all three drawer facings. I even did my best to mirror the places where chipped wood had flattened a curve on one side. I removed the hardware and stripped the whole piece down to its wooden base. That is when the real work started. I sanded for days with a hand sander. I was so tired of stopping to empty the sawdust bag that when it fell off, I just left it off. Oops, sorry honey, I guess I did not realize every surface in the garage would be covered in saw dust. And I mean EVERY, including the ceiling.

When I was done sanding, I could see the beauty underneath. It was solid. It was fully functional. I did not need to replace any wood, I just needed to finish it. There was so much character in the different types of wood that was used, the dents, the scratches, and oh the colors! How could I cover that up? I decided to whitewash it with a turquoise paint and seal it with polyacrylic. That watered down turquoise and clear sealant resulted in browns, blues, purples, light places and dark one, smooth and rough places, and a piece that was so unique I was certain no one had anything remotely close to it. When people first saw it, they immediately touched it and talked about how different it was, how good it looked, and pointed out all that made it unique. I think if I had twin pieces to refinish, I believe they would have both ended up completely unique, individual pieces with their own personality and character.

The same is true for the kids we teach that are often seen as difficult to deal with or trouble kids. But why are they trouble? Why are they difficult to deal with, “behavior problems,” or just overall disinterested in succeeding in school? Most of them did not wake up one day and decide they would be hard to teach. They did not show up at school on a random Thursday and make their minds up to be a disruption in class, refuse to follow the rules, or go to sleep instead of participate in class.

Somewhere in their life something happened. They fell behind academically and did not get or ask for help. Life became hard. Outside influences had louder voices than those of the straight and narrow. And the most important, and the most disappointing, they lost the advocate, either at school, at home, or in the community, that was their cheerleader to push themselves to success. I am not interested in why they got chipped, cracked, and faded. I am interested in building the relationship with them that will lead to pealing back the broken façade, sanding off the misconceptions, filling in the gaps of knowledge, and finishing their learning so they can become their own unique statement piece in a world of copycats and look-a-likes.

This summer I decided I needed two tables in my living room. One would sit between a sofa and the wall, function as a small shelf, provide some lighting under some paintings my husband did for our home, and have a hidden power strip so no one had to search behind the couch for the outlet. I sketched the plan, roughed out the measurements, and knew it would take about an hour’s worth of work once we got the wood. The other table would be more substantial. I wanted a pretty piece that would sit behind the other couch that separated our living and dining rooms. It would need to function as a sofa table from the living room side, behind the couch, but function as a potential buffet table for the dining room. My dining room set is cherry (and it may be refinished one day) but my living room is blues, greens, turquoise, white, and grey. What would I paint it that would work with everything?

My husband and I decided to build these two pieces as an anniversary present to each other. We went to the local hardware store and stood in front of the lumber choices. I did not want to pay extra for the “pretty” boards that were all straight with no knots, scrapes, burn marks, or discoloration. I wanted grade 2 wood with gnarly places, bark still on some spots, sticky with sap, and full of character. I was in love. My husband, not so much. But I saw potential. So off to home we headed with a truck full of runner-up 2x4s and a set of spindles. Those would be my fancy legs since they would be visible from the dining room.

We took the wood home and let them sit for a day or so, drying out some. Then my sweet husband set the sawhorses up in the side yard, moved the boards over there, ran an extension cord for me, and left me to it. I turned my music up (sorry neighbors), sanded until they were smooth, used a rasp when necessary to chip away bark, and helped him place everything back in the garage for a few more days of drying out. We then picked the pieces we, well, I, wanted, made the measurements, and I held the boards while he cut them. Full disclosure, I am terrified of the saw. I would sand the new edges, add the wood glue, and hold the boards in place while he put the screws in. I like using the drill, but it is his, mine died, but that is a different story, and this was a joint project. Over the course of a few days, working together for an hour or so in the evenings after dinner, my tables came together.

While he was on shift, I painted the shelf table, sealed it with left over polyacrylic from another project, added the lights, power strip, and rubber stoppers on the bottom and wall side, and had it in place before he came home the next morning.

The other table was another story. It had so much character with discoloration, knots, curves from where bark was gone, saw marks, and other things that just left it too unique to cover up. No other piece would look like this one, it was an individual, but I did not want to leave it unfinished and simply sealing it felt like I was taking something beautiful and leaving it naked, too naked. I took a day to think about it and decided to go with the same grey that would blend with my house, but as a wash, so the character remained. I finished it off with a few coats of polyacrylic to protect it from the feral children that grace my home territory, added rubber stoppers to the legs, and set it in its new place. I have to say, I am rather proud of the work we did together.

The whole time I was working on this piece, especially while I was sanding and chipping off bark, I was thinking about those students I have taught who came to me rough around the edges, those that required a little extra work on the front end, to build a relationship, before they were willing to learn from me. I was thinking about how proud I was when I was successful in breaking through their bark and winning their trust in a partnership of learning. Those I sometimes messed up with, had to apologize, fix my mistake, and work to rebuild the damage. I was thinking about how proud I am of them, even years later, when I see them successful in their careers, raising families of their own, and staying out of real trouble.

Not every student who walks in my room needs additional attention and my additional attention does not always mean success. But in 17 years, I have never regretted taking the extra time to chip away at the veneer, to sand away the rough spots, to fill in the gaps, to build the relationship, to see the character, and to commit to finishing the process.

Not every piece ends up being a statement piece. Some are functional pieces behind a couch. Some serve a purpose as a guest bedroom set. But some stand out, showing their individuality, flaws and all, full of character and a beauty all their own. Some are more complicated than others and some require more time than others, but all are worth it.

When the end of summer is knocking at the door of your vacation time and you must set an alarm again, think about the pieces that will be on your roster that may have cracked veneer, saw marks, and knots. Instead of seeing them as less than, make the commitment to see the character underneath the bark. You may not end up with a statement piece, but you will not regret the time it takes to build the relationship required to bring a beautiful piece into its purpose.