Miss Homer:
I’ve no doubt you remember me as your fifth grade student at Canyon View Elementary School during the 1989-1990 school year. In fact you were probably well aware of me long before the September day I walked into your classroom. After five years of attendance at this school I had made quite a name for myself.
Stories you may have heard before I became your student may have included the following:
Kindergarten – the kid who had a bottle of Ritalin with his name on it stashed in the school secretary’s desk. This was there in the case I forgot to take my “pill” at home on any given morning. I was also the same kid for whom was created a special partitioned 3x4x6 foot area of the classroom in which I could be physically and visually (though not audibly) isolated during individual work time.
2nd Grade – I was also the kid who flipped another child off while he was standing in close proximity to our teacher. The teacher, shocked at the gesture, isolated me behind the class coat rack for a few minutes while she prepared everyone else for her absence – she planned to take me to the principal’s office. In those few minutes I, in my ingenuity, managed to open all of the lunch boxes of my classmates and skillfully launch their contents (sandwiches, bananas, juice boxes, pudding) over the coat rack onto those I felt were the more annoying children of the class.
4th grade – I was the kid who pestered his teacher so effectively that it only took the simple act of making noises of a bodily function during one February day that earned me my own desk adjacent to the principal’s office and teacher’s lounge for the last four months of the school year.
As my mom tells the story, at the end of that fourth grade year she was called in to meet with the principal, Dr. Woods, to discuss my future at the school. She fully expected an invitation to place me in the district’s school specifically set apart for “emotionally gifted” children. She, therefore, was shocked when Dr. Woods informed her, “We have found the perfect fifth grade teacher for Todd.” After explaining to my Mom that he had gotten to know me better during the four months I sat outside his office he concluded that, “Todd just needs someone to love him.” Tears flowing down her cheeks, my Mom agreed with Dr. Woods, but then, pausing momentarily, rightfully questioned “Who would do such a thing?”
Miss Homer, there is no doubt that you had volunteered for “such a thing” before my mother’s meeting with Dr. Woods. As a teacher at Canyon View during my fourth grade year, you would have unmistakably seen me at the lone desk kiddie-corner to the teacher’s lounge. It makes me laugh to think how conversations in that lounge went during February of that year:
Teacher 1 – “Hey…what’s that kid doing sitting in a desk next to the principal’s office?”
Teacher 2 – “Oh…that’s Todd Baggaley” – as if the name explained everything.
T1 – “I’m fairly new here. I’m unfamiliar with Todd Baggaley.”
T2 – “Seriously…you’ve yet to hear about Todd Baggaley. Well, grab your coffee and take a seat – I have some GREAT stories to tell.”
Given my reputation, you had every opportunity to gather pertinent information on what you were getting yourself into. Knowing how intentional a person you are, you must have pondered the task you were undertaking. And given some of my most memorable moments from my time as your student, your thorough thought (and maybe even prayers) continued throughout the school year for how you might positively shape my experience.
Even 32 years later, I vividly remember several moments in which you subtly conveyed that there was more to me than just the class delinquent (you did allow me to keep a part of that reputation as it did hold some value in the Canyon View Elementary social hierarchy.) Here are three highlights of those intentional moments you enabled my self-belief:
- Several months into the school year, serving the additional role as my English and Reading teacher, you called me out of class during personal work time and informed me that you were demanding I be placed in the upper level English class. This was the class I had been assigned to every preceding year, but had been relegated from as a result of the personality conflict I had with the English teacher from my two years prior (same instructor in both 3rd and 4th grade.) You told me that it was evident that I belonged in that advanced class and that it was likely that I just needed a change of scenery. Although, I don’t think Mrs. Hobson, who’s class I was promoted into, would fully agree that a change of scenery was ALL that was needed.
- At another point, you pulled me out of English class (this must have been prior to event one) to inform me how you felt that I should be assigned the memorization and recitation of a most hallowed poem. You then educated me on the background of, and your reverence for, Walt Whitman’s metaphorical eulogy to Abraham Lincoln “O Captain, My Captain.” This poem had been illuminated in the day’s culture by the newly released motion picture Dead Poets Society (1989) as a type of honorable – whilst also irreverently defiant – salute to a beloved teacher/leader. I can’t watch that movie without wishing I would have climbed up on my desk the last day of 5th grade and yelled out, “O Captain, My Captain” in a salute to you…as well as to exercise a little irreverence and defiance.
- This final memory is more of a collective highlight. One in which I account for your character throughout the school year in general. Though your effort was intentional to uplift me, I never felt like I had a free ride. You demanded respect. I felt the pressure of expectations. I still have several images in my memory of you looking at me in disappointment either for mistreating another student or for making an inappropriate remark. Yet, for a kid who really deserved it, you never took advantage of my juvenile behavior in a belittling manner. When I accidentally called you “Mom” and the class roared out in laughter you took the whole thing in stride, making it look like you were honored to be called such. You let me stay after school many times (even sometimes after you left for the day) to continue my enthrallment in a program that you had provided on the class computer. Many previous teachers were likely afraid to leave me in a classroom filled with other students, let alone by myself. Admittedly, that was a BIG RISK on your part. Notwithstanding, the impression it made on me was proportionately positive. Lastly, with awkwardness, I acknowledge that it was beneficial for an 11 year old boy to get some positive attention from a pretty lady. I’m confident that such a trait influenced, in a marginal part, my desire to avoid disappointing you.
Miss Homer, one of the greatest legacies you left with Canyon View Elementary School was the Heroes Assembly. In this fifth grade program each student was given the opportunity to highlight a personal hero. The highlight of the entire project was the unabashed singing of the Bette Midler, Beaches (1988) motion picture theme song “Wind Beneath my Wings” by the entire fifth grade class.
Sidenote – Here’s to you Bette Midler, and your consistency. I’m just as “fond” of your music now as I was as an 11 year old boy. So much so that when asked by friends if I would like to attend a mediocre music concert, Bette Midler helps communicate a vague “No Thank You.”
Friend: Hey Todd, would you like to see Genesis in concert tonight?
Todd: Only if Bette Midler’s not in town. 😏
Back to things more meaningful than Ms. Midler.
As a good person and a great teacher you will have already received every accolade possible through the school. I’m sure many other accolades have come your way, both from groups you’ve served and individuals whose lives you have touched over the past 30 plus years.
Mine is just a simple, “Hey there, you’re swell” for an undesirable voluntary act that you undertook 32 years ago. It was truly an “Act Of Meaning” that altered the dismal trajectory of a young boy’s life into something that has become significantly purposeful to not a few people (but not too many either as I’m still a tad anti-social.)
You were revered by the holiest woman in my life, my recently deceased mother. We must have spent at least one hundred hours since that 5th grade year expressing our gratitude that you graced our lives with your good and brilliant character.
My four kids all know the story of the teacher who “loved me” and most, as a result, have selected “O Captain, My Captain” as one of the first poems to recite in their own school recitation festivals.
My wife was the one who encouraged me to address you as the first person in my current endeavor to communicate the roles of relationships in the life of one chronically emotionally compromised.
So here is a small feather for your cap, Miss Callie Homer. You enabled me to find purpose in the face of trial so that I might communicate hope to those similarly struggling. I will always truly consider you an “Uncommon Friend.”
Final Sidenote – As a favor for all you have enabled within me, I promise that you will be the only person for which, by request, I will ever willingly listen to Bette Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings” again.
…You’re Welcome.
tBaggaley
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