Fire!

There were two fire incidents in my life this week. First, the other night my dad was driving a truck full of just-harvested soybeans from the field to park in the shed for the night when the wiring started on fire. I got a rather frantic text from my mom telling me the truck was on fire, and I ran over to see if I could help. Luckily my dad had the fire mostly out by the time I got there (next door), but smoke was still billowing from it when I got there, so it was pretty scary.

Then, yesterday, The Bearded One and I went to Menard’s to get a new pull chain switch for the ceiling fan in our kitchen since the old one had jammed. When we were leaving, I saw a huge cloud of black smoke rising from south of town. Being the curious kind of person that I am, who also knows quite a few people who live south of town, I decided on a route home that would take us in that general direction.

First I thought something was on fire at the local water park, but we got there and it was further south than that. Then I thought maybe a piece of machinery had caught on fire where they’re building a new amusement park, but it was still further south. Then we got closer and I realized it looked like it was coming from a farm owned by a family I’ve known my whole life. The road was blocked off by firetrucks, and I knew there was nothing I could do to help anyway, so we went home, but I couldn’t tell what exactly was on fire, and I was concerned that it might be their house. It turned out to be a pile of silage that was covered by a tarp held down with old tires–it was the tires that made such black smoke.

Luckily, no one was injured in either blaze, but those two incidents happening within days of each other got me to thinking about fire and how powerful it is–it can be a source of warmth and comfort, but it can also be a force of terror and destruction. And that got me to thinking about how people are the same way. When we step into our power as human beings, we can do incredible things, both bad and good.

Way back when I’d just started teaching, I was having some trouble managing a couple of boys in the study hall I supervised. It was the last period of the day, and their third study hall of the day–who allowed them to have three study halls a day, I don’t know, but whatever. I’ve never been the kind of teacher/person who can command attention by yelling or intimidating, and my getting mad seemed to make it worse, so I asked a veteran teacher for some advice.

First, she told me that these boys were, consciously or not, trying to get a reaction out of me, so my getting mad was definitely making it worse. Then she advised me to have a serious conversation with them. She said that this kind of conversation doesn’t always work how you want it to, but that it can be extremely effective. She said that, without their audience, they would be more apt to listen so the first thing I should do is ask them to speak with me in the hallway. Then, she said that I could tell them that, as upperclassmen, they had a lot of power in the school, and that they had a choice to make. They could continue with their shenanigans, and lead others into disrupting their classmates, or they could use their power for good, set a better example, and see how that felt. But ultimately it was up to them to decide how they wanted to use their power. I don’t remember exactly how my conversation with the boys went, but I know that it made a difference in how they behaved.

I even used the same strategy a few years later when I was substitute teaching in a fairly rowdy 8th grade classroom. I could tell that one boy in the class was the one others in the class looked to for cues on how they should behave, so I asked him to talk to me in the hallway. He sauntered out of the room after me and looked a little smug at first, but when I told him he had power, and that he had a choice to make about how to use that power, his face got serious. He stood up a little straighter, and looked me in the eye for the first time. I asked if he was ready to go back into class, and he nodded. And I didn’t have a single problem the rest of that class.

I guess the moral of this story is that, like fire, we all have power. But it’s up to us to decide how we want to wield it.

P.S. Also, please make sure you have a fire extinguisher and know how to use it!