Unexpected Educators

Wikimedia Commons; Atomic Taco

"Do you go close to Olive Way?"  This, or a similar question, is a common beginning to my interaction with my bus driver, as after two years, I continue to live the lifelong learner philosophy when it comes to navigating Seattle.

Today another passenger on the 30, one of the few routes I actually know extremely well, had some difficulty figuring out where he was and where the bus was going.  As the bus driver started to paint a map of the U District, Ravenna, and Sand Point for him with her words, I thought about what amazing teachers bus drivers are.

I am one of many passengers who often asks our drivers for some help getting around the city.  As the drivers navigate turns and hills with gigantic vehicles, having to keep an eye out for the plethora of Seattle bikers, they never answer questions with a simple "yes" or "no."  They really describe where they go, how close to where you're headed, where you should walk to get to the bus you need, what route that bus will take to get you where you want to go.  One driver described to her passenger how to find the bus she needed, creatively telling her to follow the electric cables suspended over the road that run the electric buses, until she reached the stop just out of sight beyond the bridge.

This morning I rode the 31 with the driver who goes above and beyond his role as an educator.  "What does the German phrase Zebrasteifen, literally translated to 'zebra stripe', describe on the road?" he asked through his microphone.  Although this seemed like a relatively easy piece of trivia, I enjoyed even more what the driver said next, "The point is not to get the right answer, but to exercise our brains, to do a push-up with our minds, in search for the answer."  An educator attempting to make his students more self-aware of their own educations!  (The answer is a crosswalk.  He explained that in Germany, the stripes are diagonal, so that it looks like a giant white line on the road until you get close enough to see the zebra pattern.)

Once I got off of a bus, and before I could walk to the front, the driver let up on the brakes a bit.  "My bike!" I yelled.  He had already slammed on the brakes, the door was still open.  He nodded at me.  "Make sure to always tell the driver you need to get your bike."  It did feel condescending, but a lesson better learned in a patronizing way than from experience of losing my bike to the King County lost and found.

My observations about the surprising teaching qualities in Seattle bus drivers are making me curious about other unexpected educators people have noticed in the world.

Biking and Butterflies

Last year at IslandWood, I came into my own, again, as my friend pointed out to me. I shaved my head, which I've wanted to do since I was 11. I wrote poems and shared them publicly. Lacking my cello, I learned how to play guitar and grew a voice.

And, for the third (and final!) time in my life, I learned how to ride a bicycle.

It's been a whole year since I got on the two-wheeled monster named Norbert and learned how to pedal and balance. I feel a bit like a child typing that. Although it took my own bravery and gumption to hop back on the bicycle, after two failed attempts in my childhood, I could never have done it without the support of the IslandWood community. From Zach actually guiding me through the steps toward peddling, to Kate lending me her helemt for months, to Ray's tips on zig-zagging uphill, to folks just hollering and cheering for me as I rode by, I felt a lot of support everytime I got on the bike.

Now I've bought myself a bike that changes gears and has thin enough tires to make it up substantial hills. Misty (the Kona Dew Seattle bike that are to the horses of Chincoteague what Norbert was to dragons) is a beautiful hybrid with colorful streamers gifted by my roommate E.J. I ride her several days a week, to school, to work, to the grocery store, to the Bagley house for an afternoon visit. I still have a long way to go to be a comfortable city biker, I stick to the trails as much as possible. But I really love being at the stage where everyday that I hop on the bike, I can tell how I'm improving. I get a little bolder signaling, a little faster on the hills, a little more aware of what's going on with my bike.