{"id":112459,"date":"2018-01-17T15:00:45","date_gmt":"2018-01-17T20:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=112459"},"modified":"2018-01-19T15:55:52","modified_gmt":"2018-01-19T20:55:52","slug":"look-what-we-found-mara-tiekens-green-battered-and-beloved-armchair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2018\/01\/17\/look-what-we-found-mara-tiekens-green-battered-and-beloved-armchair\/","title":{"rendered":"Look What We Found: Mara Tieken’s green, battered, and beloved armchair"},"content":{"rendered":"

A humble pleather armchair sits across from Associate Professor of Education Mara Tieken\u2019s sleek desk in her third-floor office in Pettengill Hall.<\/p>\n

Foam stuffing spills from holes in the armrests, and the holes get bigger as students fidget with them during office visits. Call it ugly, and she\u2019ll agree, but she still loves the green chair for its personality and history, if not its Mad Men<\/em> style.<\/p>\n

She first sat in the chair in spring 2002 when she was a young college grad. One day, as she drove past an elementary school in Vanleer, Tenn., population 310, she thought, \u201cThis might be a school I would love to teach in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mara Tieken, her chair, and her dog, Lulu. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

So she dropped in, knocked on the principal\u2019s office door, and was invited to take a seat in the green chair, where she explained that she hoped to begin her teaching career in a rural setting. Two months later, she was hired.<\/p>\n

Tieken acquired the chair the next year when the school moved into a new building. The principal \u2013 who hated the chair — wanted it gone. \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t ready for the trash heap,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote my dissertation in that chair.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So she put it in her classroom. \u201cIt was the chair I sat in when I read to my third-graders. We read all sorts of books in this chair.\u201d One year, she read every Roald Dahl book, plus Where the Red Fern Grows<\/em>, \u201ca perennial favorite of mine and my students.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2005, Tieken and the chair left Vanleer for the Harvard Graduate School of Education. \u201cI sat in that chair in my apartment to study,\u201d she says. \u201cI wrote my dissertation in that chair.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Six years later, the chair came to Bates with her. At the time, Tieken was sure that teaching college students would be very different from teaching third-graders. But when students came to her office, sat in the chair, and talked with her, she saw \u201chow much it was the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tieken is a national expert on rural education and the many ways it differs from urban or suburban educational environments. \u201cI look at how context shapes education and shapes schools.\u201d At the same time, the chair is a reminder of \u201chow similar teaching can be and education can be and schooling can be across varied geographies and demographics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo much of teaching is about the human element,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s about having the courage to put yourself out there as a teacher or learner, because there\u2019s still a third-grader in all of us. I like that that chair reminds me of all that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Call it ugly, and she\u2019ll agree, but Mara Tieken still loves the green chair for its personality and history, if not its Mad Men<\/em> style.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":112557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[14,224,234],"tags":[138,11321,10616],"class_list":["post-112459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-staff","category-society-culture","category-teaching-education","tag-education","tag-look-what-we-found","tag-mara-tieken"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112459"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112639,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112459\/revisions\/112639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}