Master Teacher

I have never thought of myself as being a master teacher before. I just looked at myself as someone who had knowledge of a skill and wanted to share it with someone else. Maybe along the way, they could become a master craftsman. I learned long ago the best way to learn is to just do it yourself.

In the past few weeks, we had our region competition for Skills USA and I had a student enter and win first place in carpentry. When his name was called out as winner, he ran to me and hugged me. That was the moment of it all, not that he had won, but that he learned something along the way. Before the contest, I told him to just put winning aside and follow the directions, everything else would fall into place. He knew how to build, it was following directions he had problems with. Now he is advancing to State Competition. He told me he had learned a lot from me, not just how to be a carpenter, but how to be a man of integrity.