As history teacher Olsen Houghton rounds out his 34th year of teaching, what keeps him inspired is considering how best to open doors for students and spark new interests, all while helping them to develop skills they can use for the rest of their lives.
He recently sat down with The High School View to reflect on his own journey into teaching — how doors opened for him, and how remaining flexible is at the heart of responding to challenges.
After studying history in college, Mr. Houghton worked as an interpreter for the National Park Service, where he would conduct research for the parks, and write the placards. Eventually he started giving tours. He also worked as a bartender around this time.
“Bartending is fun at 24, 25 [years old], but [I imagined it might be] a train wreck when you’re 50,” he said with a laugh. So he began to consider what it might be like to teach in a school.
“I had gone to a couple of interviews [for teaching positions] around the D.C. area, and it always boiled down to, ‘But you’ve got no experience’,” he said.
It took a connection with a family friend to open the door that gave him a chance to try. Mr. Houghton explained how he was able to secure an internship at a school that was in deep financial trouble. The headmaster was hiring 15 interns a year, and hiring four back after the year was finished. After a year of working for not much money, Mr. Houghton was hired back by the school, and finally able to give teaching a shot.
Prior to coming to the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, Mr. Houghton worked at a variety of schools around the country, all of which were for students with learning differences or for students who were struggling in one way or another. He said that in each of these schools, “You had to try to present material in multiple ways to have the kids somehow get involved with it, which was pretty fun.”
Learning to present material in creative ways helped Mr. Houghton learn to be flexible, which he needed especially because he would often find himself tasked suddenly with teaching a new subject.
“In a lot of those places, it was late August, and the algebra teacher had gone off on a hike and never came back,” he said with a smile.
His teaching experiences have taught him that this ability to remain flexible is one of the most important skills in life. Additionally, he said, “The answer is not as important as figuring out how to get to the answer.”
Mr. Houghton also believes that it’s important to find a way to make content interesting. “Where I stand philosophically on education is that we are here to open all these windows and doors [for kids]. And you know, we are here to help develop skills along the way, but you are not going to learn how to develop skills if you’re not interested in what you’re doing,” he said.
Mr. Houghton hopes his work as a teacher will reach beyond the few years he is teaching a student. He said, “Hopefully, some curiosity out there will continue to inspire a lifelong quest for answers.”