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High School Teacher: Brad Houk
Brad Houk with his wife, Daryl, in Bennington, Vermont (October, 2009).
Brad Houk has two degrees in design (i.e.: creative problem-solving) and one in teaching. He earned his bachelor's degree from the College of Arts and Architecture, The Pennsylvania State University, and his master's degree from the Graduate College of Design, North Carolina State University. After directing a summer sports camp, publishing a small artsy wrestling magazine, and teaching in a Chinese military college, a Friends private school, a state college, and a mime theater company, Brad decided, while living in Diné Bikéyah, to return to school to become a teacher. He completed a Master of Arts in Teaching program at Western New Mexico University-Gallup before moving to Vermont.
Brad is a licensed and Highly Qualified Teacher in Vermont. He has regular education endorsements to teach secondary art, physical education, social studies, and agriculture & natural resources. Brad has also met the HQT requirements for his alternative assignment in science and English. In addition to teaching high school students at Opportunities, Brad volunteers with the Bellows Falls Union High School wrestling team and teaches two courses at the Community College of Vermont: The Paper Arts (Springfield campus) and Multiculturalism in Education (Upper Valley campus). Meanwhile, Brad is studying to attain a Vermont secondary regular education endorsement to teach Mandarin Chinese.
This is Brad's fifth year at Opportunities In Learning. He values his students and colleagues and plans to remain contributing to the program which he finds ever so useful to the community ... and challenging and meaningful and fulfilling to himself.
Brad is married to Daryl (a licensed teacher/preschool collaborative director) and they have two children, Courtenay and Sander. Brad loves to hang out with his family, read, write, study Chinese, bicycle, run, lift weights, coach wrestling, watch movies, and travel. He considers travel essential not only to his own intellectual growth but to that of his children. Over the next few years he plans on traveling with them around the world.
Courtenay and Sander Houk. Courtenay is a freshman
at Bennington College where she is thriving and studying
many things, including art, anthropology, and pungmul
drumming; Sander, a junior at Green Mountain Union
High School, is planning a journey to China and Mongolia
(October, 2009).
Brad standing with Opportunities student Katlynn Wolfe and
a mysterious student, sporting a mischievous stare and elfin
grin, who had snuck into the photograph before he vanished
in a spray of sparks while clutching a magical black rock.
The three captured together in the photo above were taking
part in a guest-artist program for a shoot outside the new site
At Heron Lodge
Mountains cover the white sun,
And oceans drain the golden river,
But you widen your view three hundred miles
By going up one flight of stairs.
written by Wang Chih-huan
translated by Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-hu
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