I came to teaching slowly. At Fosen Folkehøgskole in Norway I encountered the Scandinavian folk school tradition; the belief that meaningful learning happens through shared experience, and that education and personal growth are joined. It simply took time to understand that I wanted to carry it forward as a teacher.
My teaching practice began at The Carpenter’s Boat Shop in Pemaquid, Maine; a place that was as much a community as a school. Apprentices came from all walks of life, lived together on campus, and worked together in a timber-framed workshop surrounded by forest. We built Monhegan Island skiffs from beginning to end; selecting boards, shaping hulls, painting and finishing each completed boat. In autumn, the forest around the Boat Shop turned to deep reds, yellows, and bronze, and the afternoon light came through the workshop windows and fell warm on the wood floors, the tools, the boats taking shape on their jigs. Outside, the air was crisp; inside, the workshop held the smell of cedar and steamed oak, the warmth of people working close together.
I teach quietly. I try to be present, to offer guidance when it’s needed and space for self-discovery when it isn’t. Every learner is different; some want to be pushed, some need more time and encouragement.
What I carry from those years is the understanding that how we teach is inseparable from what we teach. When we slow down and take care in our work, it becomes natural to extend that same care outward — to the people around us, and to the world we share.