Collective Chaos
Sachi and I have just sat down at a long table in the Science and Innovation Center at Marin Academy. She shuffles back and forth in her chair before responding to my question about her role as a teacher: “And I think the teaching I was doing at the time had less structure than what I had desired in my position, and I think because I wanted certain things to be a certain way.” Sachi pauses for a moment to gather her thoughts before she continues. I can clearly see her mind is buzzing with activity, but she stalls to carefully construct a sentence that will convey the exact point she is trying to get across, and nothing more.
Sachi Decou is a teacher of design and computer science at Marin Academy. Throughout her life, she has always had a passion for design and engineering. I ask her about the story she is going to tell us today: “So, yeah the events I’m going to discuss revolve around me working at a bike collective in Oregon.” A bike collective, as Sachi describes it is, “A place where we work on bikes at a technical level, give classes on engineering, and just encourage people to get out and ride in general.”
As our conversation leads into her experience at the collective, Sachi begins to discuss more and more her personal philosophy around working in a collaborative environment: “I don’t consider myself a perfectionist, but I definitely had things I wanted to have either organized or structured or I stopped at certain places to change things.” Learning to balance a dynamic work environment with a host of other tasks on a day-to-day basis wasn’t something that came easily to Sachi at first.
At one point in her career at the bike collective, she found herself in diametric opposition to some of the instructions and rules her boss had set. “He felt that everything in the shop had to run a certain way, and I felt it was better to let individuals do what they felt best doing.” She begins to discuss the dynamic between herself and her coworkers at the collective and how they found more effective ways to communicate: “Finding this balance of how do I get my voice heard, and how do I not overpower other people’s voices was very difficult for me at the time.” When Sachi first started work as a bike mechanic in Oregon, she anticipated her work to be hands-on and to carry fundamental principles of engineering and design, while still trying to lead the other mechanics in a more productive direction.
Along with her work as a mechanic in the shop, part of her role was to also teach kids, typically from underprivileged backgrounds about bikes. Sachi describes some of the adversity she faced while trying to educate this group of students: “Teaching a group of kids who I don’t think were particularly motivated to learn new skills was an experience that taught me some humility and patience when it comes to an educational aspect of life.” The students whom Sachi was teaching at the time often would show up to class at the bike collective underfed and unprepared for the challenges that faced them in the day to come. Sachi discusses how the adversity these students faced played into her role as their educator and mentor: “Learning to be understanding, and also where to put your foot down and say this is what is and isn’t okay is something that didn’t come easy to me at first.”
Throughout this experience, Sachi not only evolved as an engineer and craftsperson but also as a leader. As Sachi speaks to me I take note of the way she carefully articulates her words, proving that she has grown immensely as a teacher and mentor.
Coming out of the experience, Sachi felt that she was able to become a person who is more accepting, and outgoing, and who values a much wider breadth of activities and professionalism that she can offer up. “All in all, the experience was excellent, and I wouldn’t have traded it for the world, but the end of the day emerging from that environment and being a better leader and a better individual is something that I have come to value beyond what I originally thought it would.” When we enter a new experience of any kind there are inevitable growing pains and problems that will arise. But as time progresses those pains go away, and typically we emerge better people.
As we begin to wrap up the interview she speaks on her takeaways from the experience and how she believes she has grown as a person: “And I think that going through so many phases of my professional career in such a short period definitely pushed me in a way that I was not used to at the time.” Growing not only as a mechanic but also as a leader is something that Sachi says she will carry with her throughout the rest of her life: “At the end of the day the work environment I entered was one that I didn’t necessarily feel fully equipped for, but one that I learned to manage as time went on.” And in my opinion, those final words speak more to Sachi’s experience than anything else could, because it shows that even if we don’t like the process that changes us, sometimes the end result is worth it.
