Jaymieson Vculek

Mr. Wood in the Woods

Mr. Wood is a second-year teacher at Fall River Junior-Senior High. I don’t think many people know a lot about Mr. Wood. Going into the interview, I have some ideas about what to expect. I expect that he will have a dog. I expect that he will be an outdoor enthusiast, taking hikes, sitting in a hammock. I expect that Mr. Wood is a man who likes to read books while drinking a nice warm coffee on his sofa. I expect that Mr. Wood has a very calm and cozy atmosphere in his house. I expect Mr. Wood to be a very whimsical tree man. Let’s find out if I’m right:

I walked up to him in my second period in his English class. It was a very noisy room, as my classmates were working on a group project. The room smelled like mint because of his air humidifier. The first question I asked was, “What inspired you to start teaching?” I asked this because Mr. Wood seems like a kind soul. I also want to know why he wanted to be a teacher, of all professions: “I’m a fourth generation teacher, so I kinda know the struggle that you’re getting into. One of the things I particularly like about teaching, compared to some other jobs, is that I don’t have to follow the profit motive.” This information was interesting to me because I expected him to say that he was inspired by an adult in his childhood. Mr. Wood remained insistent that he doesn’t care about money, and he really wants to help kids: “My job is to just kind of help kids become better readers and writers, and be a somewhat positive human being for them. I feel like that is a rare type of opportunity to have in our environment when so many things are driven by profit. So working as a teacher means I don’t really have to hail to the profit motive.” It’s not surprising because teachers don’t go into the profession for the money, but Mr. Wood sounded like a preacher bringing the educational gospel. His answers made me like him even more. 

I wanted to know what environment he was around while he was studying to be a teacher. He went to Butte College and that they were paying him 13,000 dollars just to be at that college. This is attention catching to me because personally: I have never heard of someone being paid to go to a college. I guess it is possible, but it’s still new. Then Mr. Wood switched to Chico State, where he got his Teaching Credential. 

Hobbies? I was correct. Mr. Wood is an outdoor enthusiast hiking like the Tree Man I expected him to be. I expected this because he grew up in a rural part of California, GrassValley, with very beautiful landscapes, a place within an hour’s drive of Auburn, California. I had made an informed guess of his being an outdoorsy man because many people I know who grew up in GrassValley or the Auburn area are people who spend a lot of time outside looking for trees to hug.  Mr. Wood also plays the guitar. I found this out because one day, I jokingly said, “You should let me paint your nails, Mr. Wood.” To which he replied, “No. I have to keep them short because I play the guitar.” What a mystical, reading, hiking, playing guitar, tree man Fall River has found. We are lucky to have a young man interested in the future of the nation more than his wallet.